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Physical and Life Sciences
Lab team develops new capability for atomistic simulations
Conventional scientific wisdom says that the interatomic forces between ions that control high-temperature processes such as melting are insensitive to the heating of the electron "glue" that binds the ions together. In effect, traditional atomistic simulations ignore electron temperature completely. However, in a recent Physical Review Letter , Lab physicists John…
In search of... the dark sky
Most astrophysicists stare at the night sky and look at stars. But Lance Simms looks at the blackness of night and knows there is something else there. Simms, a postdoc in the Lab's Physics Division, has been working for a year on a NASA project called the Cosmic X-Ray Background Nanosatellite (CXBN). Set for an August launch, the breadbox-sized satellite -- built in…
Grad student Swanberg recognized by APS
Erik Swanberg, a graduate student working in the Lab's Experimental Nuclear Physics Group, received the Margaret Burbidge Award from the American Physical Society (APS) California Section at the organization's fall 2011 meeting. Swanberg, who will earn a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from UC Berkeley in May, has been conducting research at LLNL for three years. He was…
Power generation is blowing in the wind
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- By looking at the stability of the atmosphere, wind farm operators could gain greater insight into the amount of power generated at any given time. Power generated by a wind turbine largely depends on the wind speed. In a wind farm in which the turbines experience the same wind speeds but different shapes, such as turbulence, to the wind profile, a…
Seeing is believing: LLNL Postdoc reveals wonders of the protist world
No matter how sophisticated instruments have become, or how data intensive results may be, there is still something satisfying and frequently informative about seeing what a researcher is studying. Sometimes samples are so small, or so large, or so far away that it's almost impossible to get a visual perspective that makes any sense or reveals any insight. That's where the…
Planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception
LIVERMORE, Calif. --There are more exoplanets further away from their parent stars than originally thought, according to new astrophysics research. In a new paper appearing in the Jan. 12 edition of the journal, Nature , astrophysicist Kem Cook as part of an international collaboration, analyzed microlensing data that bridges the gap between a recent finding of planets…
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory team achieves breakthrough detecting nuclear materials
When a young man was advised to pursue a career in plastics in the 1967 movie, "The Graduate," people could not have envisioned one of the material's uses developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists. In a key discovery, a team of LLNL researchers has developed the first plastic material capable of efficiently distinguishing neutrons from gamma…
Lawrence Livermore receives $1.75 million to integrate more renewable sources into California's energy grid
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is working with the California Energy Commission to develop ways to increase the amounts of wind and solar generation integrated into California's energy grid.The project will use LLNL's high-resolution weather models and high performance computing to characterize intermittent renewable resources, including wind and solar power…
Lab researcher clarifies water's ionic conductivity
Lab researcher Sebastien Hamel of the Condensed Matter and Materials Division's Quantum Simulation Group has resolved a long-standing issue concerning the evaluation of ionic conductivity in fluids using quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations. Quantum simulations have offered new insight into the microscopic dynamical processes of proton transport and into the…
Proton beam experiments open new areas of research
By focusing proton beams using high-intensity lasers, a team of scientists have discovered a new way to heat material and create new states of matter in the laboratory. Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Hemoltz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf of…
Jan. 9 deadline for submitting clean energy proposals
Energy businesses that would like to collaborate with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory teams of experts to advance clean energy technology through high performance computing (HPC) must submit a one page letter of intent by the close of business Monday, Jan. 9. The initial call for proposals was made Oct. 25. This one-year pilot program, called the hpc4energy…
Livermore and Russian scientists propose new names for elements 114 and 116
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) today recommended new proposed names for elements 114 and 116, the latest heavy elements to be added to the periodic table. Scientists of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)-Dubna collaboration proposed the names as Flerovium for element 114 and Livermorium for element 116. In June 2011, the IUPAC…
Lawrence Livermore scientists provide support for launch of the Mars Science Laboratory
When an Atlas V rocket lifts the Mars Science Laboratory into space, one of the most comprehensive radiological emergency preparedness systems will be on the ground to monitor the launch. In preparation for the launch, now expected to occur this Saturday (Nov. 26), NASA has installed 30 radiological monitors -- called Environmental Continuous Air Monitors, or ECAMs -- on…
LLNL researchers receive Secretary of Energy Achievement Awards
Lab researchers Roger Aines, Tom Buscheck, Mark Havstad, Wayne Miller, Christopher Spadaccini, and Todd Weisgraber have been presented with the Department of Energy Secretary's Achievement Award for their contributions to flow rate calculations for the Macondo Well in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster. The Livermore group was part of the Flow Rate…
Separating signal and noise in climate warming
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- In order to separate human-caused global warming from the "noise" of purely natural climate fluctuations, temperature records must be at least 17 years long, according to climate scientists. To address criticism of the reliability of thermometer records of surface warming, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists analyzed satellite…
Americans using more fossil fuels
American energy use went back up in 2010 compared to 2009, when consumption was at a 12-year low. The United States used more fossil fuels in 2010 than in 2009, while renewable electricity remained approximately constant, with an increase in wind power offset by a modest decline in hydroelectricity. There also was a significant increase in biomass consumption, according to…
Lab-based PCR research most accessed article in August
A scientific paper written by a team of LLNL researchers and engineers was the most-accessed article for the month of August for the international journal Analyst . The paper, describing a device for the sub-three-minute amplification of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), was written by a team that includes lead author and chemical engineer…
Reinventing the soft X-ray spectroscopy of actinides
A Laboratory team has re-invented the soft X-ray spectroscopy of the highly radioactive actinides with a new, unique spectrometer. Using LLNL's new Fano/Resonant Inverse Photoelectron Spectroscopy (RIPES) spectrometer, Lab researchers Jim Tobin and Sung Woo Yu conducted a series of experiments on cerium oxide and uranium dioxide. The duo also looked at the X-ray absorption…
Lab team helps measure femtosecond pulses of X-ray free electron
An international team including three LLNL researchers have measured for the first time the spatial and temporal coherence of a single femtosecond X-ray pulse generated by the first hard X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL), the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The LLNL team, which includes Regina Soufli, Stefan Hau-Riege and…
Lab biophysicist invents improvement to Monte Carlo technique
Jerome P. Nilmeier, a biophysicist working in computational biology, is willing to bet his new research will provide a breakthrough in the use of the Monte Carlo probability code in biological simulations. Working with Gavin E. Crooks at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, David D. L. Minh at Argonne, and John D. Chodera, from the University of California, Berkeley, Nilmeier…
