Number 186

Scientists team up for multiyear studies of microbial mysteries

More than two dozen researchers from 16 institutions will participate in two $10 million, three-to-five-year “grand challenges”— innovative, multidisciplinary projects at the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, located at DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The teams will explore scientific enigmas in microbiology and biogeochemistry that include the biology of membrane proteins in cyanobacteria (important microorganisms involved photosynthesis in the world's oceans) and the fundamental question of how subsurface metal-reducing bacteria interact with and transfer electrons to the mineral surfaces on which they live. Investigators anticipate that the grand challenges will yield new information on how energy and nutrient transport occurs between microbes and their environment and how microorganisms influence soil and water chemistry, with potential applications that include groundwater remediation, carbon sequestration and energy generation.

[Bill Cannon, 509/375-3732,
cannon@pnl.gov]

New supercomputer to crunch numbers
at Brookhaven

RIKEN at Brookhaven

The RIKEN BNL Research Center at Brookhaven is home to a new super-fast (10 trillion calculations per second), "low"-power (100 kilowatt) supercomputer. Known as QCDOC , for quantum chromodynamics on a chip, the computer will be used to help predict and understand the properties of a new state of matter under study at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider , and also for calculations in quantum chromodynamics — the physics theory that describes the interactions of subatomic quarks and gluons. Ten percent of its operating time will also be devoted to projects in biology, materials science, and other fields.

[Karen McNulty Walsh, 631/344-8350,
kmcnulty@bnl.gov]

New hydrogen sensor fast, more effective

The same kind of chemical coating used to shed rainwater from aircraft and automobile windows also dramatically enhances the sensitivity and reaction time of hydrogen sensors, researchers at DOE's Argonne National Laboratory have discovered. Hydrogen sensor technology is a critical component for safety and other practical concerns in the proposed hydrogen economy. The scientists demonstrated that the enhanced sensor design shows a rapid and reversible response to hydrogen gas that is repeatable over hundreds of cycles. The scientists reported that the enhanced sensors are sensitive enough to detect hydrogen levels as low as 25 parts per million (ppm), far below hydrogen's lower explosive limit around 40,000 ppm. A patent is pending.

[Catherine Foster, 630/252-5580,
cfoster@anl.gov]

Methods honed in search for salamanders

The flatwoods salamander

Rare salamanders at a Georgia military base are the guinea pigs for researchers at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory whose goal is to develop methods to better determine whether a species has vanished. Following a drought, no flatwoods salamanders had been found at Fort Stewart, Ga., for four years, until this spring. The ORNL researchers are developing a method to make field sampling techniques more accurate and efficient at predicting the type and location of suitable habitats. This research is important to the military because better information about the presence or absence of salamanders can help installation natural resource managers apply effective conservation strategies for this species.

[Ron Walli, 865/576-0226,
wallira@ornl.gov]

Fermilab building a better MICE project for neutrino research

Scientists at DOE's Fermilab will soon be testing specially designed radiofrequency cavities and liquid hydrogen absorbers that are critical for the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE), a step toward a full-scale neutrino factory where the decay of muons in a storage ring produces an intense neutrino beam. As an advanced tool for precision studies of neutrino oscillations and CP violation, a neutrino factory could prove decisive in understanding the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe. MICE has received funding from the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, with ongoing R&D by the Neutrino Factory and Muon Collider Collaboration involving the Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Illinois, Northern Illinois University, and Argonne National Laboratory.

[Mike Perricone, 630/840-5678,
mikep@fnal.gov]

Art Created from Plasma
Experiments at PPPL

Andrew Post-Zwicker (left) and Elle Starkman with their collaborative art, “Plasma Table."

Science is boring. Art is stupid. Prove us wrong. Elle Starkman and Andrew Post-Zwicker, of the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), did just that and came up with art that shows the beauty of science.

The first-place photo features a dust cloud of silica microspheres suspended in a plasma and illuminated by laser light.

Starkman, PPPL's staff photographer, and Post-Zwicker, Head of PPPL's Science Education Program, collaborated to create “Plasma Table,” a photograph of a dust cloud of silica microspheres illuminated by laser light and suspended in a plasma. The dust cloud is approximately 0.5 inches high and floats in a conical shape between the dust tray and an electrode as long as the plasma is maintained. Fundamental dust cloud properties and dynamics have applications ranging from plasma processing to space plasmas. Plasmas are hot, ionized gases.

Undergraduate and high school students at PPPL's Science Education Laboratory were studying dusty plasmas in a DC glow discharge when Post-Zwicker asked Starkman to take pictures of the experiment. “We weren't shooting for the beauty of it. We were documenting the science,” Starkman said.

Along with the science, however, they saw a breathtaking image. “We spend our time studying the cloud in the dusty plasma experiment for its physical properties and take for granted its intrinsic beauty,” Post-Zwicker said.

Starkman used an Olympus digital camera for the complicated task of capturing the shot. The experimental device is tiny and the photo had to be taken inside and in the dark. “All we had was a laser to light it,” she recalled. “The challenge was focusing on it in the dark, which I did manually, and doing a still of the particles suspended in the plasma. We were trying to get the depth of field and bring everything into the image — the electrode and the particles.”

Post-Zwicker and Starkman submitted Plasma Table for the Art of Science Competition at Princeton University this spring and took home the first-place prize. More than 200 entries were received. Princeton students and faculty from many departments launched the competition, seeking entries of images that came directly from research in science and engineering or works by artists incorporating tools and concepts from science. “I have always been personally fascinated by the blurring of the boundaries of art and science,” said Post-Zwicker.

Submitted by DOE's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

DOE Pulse highlights work being done at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. DOE's laboratories house world-class facilities where more than 30,000 scientists and engineers perform cutting-edge research spanning DOE's science, energy, national security and environmental quality missions. DOE Pulse is distributed every two weeks. For more information, please contact Jeff Sherwood (jeff.sherwood
@hq.doe.gov, 202-586-5806)