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Physical and Life Sciences
Lawrence Livermore researchers use seismic signals to track above-ground explosions
Lawrence Livermore researchers have determined that a tunnel bomb explosion by Syrian rebels was less than 60 tons as claimed by sources.Using seismic stations in Turkey, Livermore scientists Michael Pasyanos and Sean Ford created a method to determine source characteristics of near-earth surface explosions. They found the above-ground tunnel bomb blast under the Wadi al…
Lawrence Livermore climate scientist earns Early Career Research award
Lawrence Livermore’s Yunyan Zhang, a climate scientist in the cloud process group within the Atmospheric, Earth and Energy Division, has earned $2.5 million for research to improve the understanding of how soil moisture and surface diversity affect cloud formation and precipitation. As the recipient of the Department of Energy Early Career Research Program (ECRP), Zhang…
NuSTAR provides explosive evidence for supernova asymmetry
New results from the NASA NuSTAR telescope show that a supernova close to our galaxy experienced a single-sided explosion.A team of scientists including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers found that X-ray emissions taken with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) show that the Supernova 1987A explosion was highly asymmetric. The results appear…
Energy secretary honors LLNL climate scientist
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has awarded LLNL climate scientist David Bader with a DOE Secretarial Honor Award for his leadership of the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project.The Secretarial Honor Awards are the department's highest form of non-monetary employee recognition. Individual and team awardees are selected by the Secretary of Energy.William…
Implantable electrode coating good as gold
A team of researchers from Lawrence Livermore and UC Davis have found that covering an implantable neural electrode with nanoporous gold could eliminate the risk of scar tissue forming over the electrode’s surface.The team demonstrated that the nanostructure of nanoporous gold achieves close physical coupling of neurons by maintaining a high neuron-to-astrocyte surface…
Unlocking the secrets of star creation
On April 1, 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, captured the famous images of the "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula. Twenty years later to the day, the NIF Team conducted the first experiment in a new Discovery Science campaign aimed at finding clues to the mystery of how stars are born in these spectacular cosmic formations…
Lawrence Livermore instrument prompts researchers to rethink how Mercury formed
A versatile instrument developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and riding on the first spacecraft to ever orbit Mercury is causing researchers to rethink their theories on the planet’s formation.Known as the Gamma-Ray Spectrometer, or GRS, the instrument is part of a suite of seven instruments onboard NASA’s Mercury MESSENGER (short for…
Lawrence Livermore scientist installed president of Minerals, Metals and Materials Society
Patrice Turchi of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was recently installed as the 2015 president of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) during the organization’s annual meeting in March.Turchi, who is group leader of the LLNL Material Science Division’s Advanced Metallurgical Science and Engineering group, has been an active member of TMS for more than…
Diving into the Dynamics of Evolving Hydrogen
Livermore scientists are studying a process that uses sunlight as the driver for producing hydrogen fuel.
Soil organic matter vulnerable to climate change
Soil organic matter, long thought to be a semi-permanent storehouse for ancient carbon, may be much more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought.Plants direct between 40 percent and 60 percent of photosynthetically fixed carbon to their roots and much of this carbon is secreted and then taken up by root-associated soil microorganisms. Elevated carbon dioxide …
Lab's Ken Sperber cited by American Geophysical Union for excellence in refereeing
Ken Sperber, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been awarded the 2014 Editor’s Citation for Refereeing for the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres.One of the most important services performed for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) is the conscientious review of submitted papers. Because of the nature of the reviewing process, this…
Study sheds light on elusive warm dense matter
In the last few decades, scientists have been harvesting enormous amounts of data using synchrotron light sources to probe matter at the atomic scale. Now, even brighter light sources have come online — X-ray free-electron lasers. The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is one such laser, providing physicists, chemists and biologists…
Lab's Félicie Albert selected as an American Physical Society Outstanding Referee
Félicie Albert, an experimental physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has been selected by the American Physical Society (APS) as an Outstanding Referee for 2015. Outstanding Referees are honored for their exceptional helpfulness in assessing manuscripts for publication in the Physical Review journals.Albert is one of 142 referees selected for recognition in…
Studying effects of target 'tents' on NIF
A systematic study of the effects on National Ignition Facility (NIF) implosions of the ultra-thin mounting membranes that support target capsules inside NIF hohlraums was reported by LLNL researchers in a Physics of Plasmas paper, published online Feb. 4.The performance of NIF’s inertial confinement fusion targets depends on the symmetric implosion of highly compressed…
New research could lead to more efficient electrical energy storage
Lawrence Livermore researchers have identified electrical charge-induced changes in the structure and bonding of graphitic carbon electrodes that may one day affect the way energy is stored.The research could lead to an improvement in the capacity and efficiency of electrical energy storage systems, such as batteries and supercapacitors, needed to meet the burgeoning…
Providing data for nuclear detectives
Fans of the popular TV series "CSI" know that the forensics experts who investigate crime scenes are looking for answers to three key questions: "Who did it; how did they do it; and can we stop them from doing it again?"The field of nuclear forensics, an important element of LLNL’s national security mission, has similar goals and uses similar techniques — but with even…
Research gets to the core of Earth's formation
Violent collisions between the growing Earth and other objects in the solar system generated significant amounts of iron vapor, according to a new study by LLNL scientist Richard Kraus and colleagues.The results show that iron vaporizes easily during impact events, which forces planetary scientists to change how they think about the growth of planets and evolution of our…
Giving shape to black holes' intense winds
By looking at the speed of ambient gas spewing out from a well-known quasar, astronomers are gaining insight into how black holes and their host galaxies might have evolved at the same time.Using the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), researchers were able to use the X-ray spectra of an extremely luminous black hole (quasar PDS 456) to detect a nearly…
Ask this geochemist anything about carbon capture and everything in between
Ever wonder how to use something found in the average kitchen to advance carbon capture and storage technologies, and ultimately save the planet by preventing greenhouse gasses from saturating the atmosphere?Roger Aines, a geochemist who runs the Carbon Fuel Cycle Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will be answering questions about capturing greenhouse…
Microcapsules capture carbon safely
Using the same baking soda found in most grocery stores, Lawrence Livermore scientists, along with colleagues from Harvard University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have created a significant advance in carbon dioxide capture.The team developed a new type of carbon capture media composed of core-shell microcapsules, which consist of a highly permeable…
