- Number 304 |
- February 1, 2010
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Finding the perfect spot to rest
Prima donnas. Floppy hydrocarbon chains are quite particular about where they’ll rest on a catalyst, according to a recent study by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin. On the surface of the common catalyst titanium dioxide, these hydrocarbon chains settle into valleys of titanium atoms, avoiding nearby ridges of oxygen atoms. -
Virtualized operating system increases supercomputer flexibility
New work on the Red Storm supercomputer at DOE's Sandia National Laboratories is helping to make supercomputers more flexible and accessible, in effect removing them from the constraints of their specialized operating systems. Sandia researchers, working with researchers from Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico, socialized 4,096 of Red Storm’s total 12,960 computer nodes into accepting a virtual external operating system — a leap of at least two orders of magnitude over previous efforts.
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Unique glass microspheres show promise for medicine, energy
Networks of interconnected pores in the shells of the Savannah River National Laboratory’s Porous Walled Hollow Glass Microspheres give the tiny “microballoons” unique capabilities for potential use in targeted drug delivery, hydrogen storage and other uses. -
Harnessing the power of plasma
Plasma is mysterious and powerful, the stuff of stars, of lightning. Peter Kong, a scientist at DOE's Idaho National Laboratory, has built a career putting the gas-like material to work. He’s using it to mass-produce nanoparticles efficiently and with no byproducts, a project that recently received $1 million in federal stimulus funding. -
Strange matters
The result from a years-long effort at DOE's Jefferson Lab (known as the G-Zero experiment) to measure strange matter in the proton has revealed that strange matter doesn't magnetize the proton or distort its charge distribution all that much. The effect is surprising small, since many of the early theoretical calculations suggested the possibility of larger values.
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Fermi Telescope Closes in on Mystery of Cosmic Ray Acceleration
Cosmic “rays”—which mostly consist of protons—are some of the most energetic particles in the universe. For nearly 100 years, they have also been some of the most enigmatic. Now, researchers from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, jointly located at DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, have announced a significant advance in the understanding of where cosmic rays come from.
