- Number 314 |
- June 21, 2010
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Graphene and DNA team up to sense trouble
Just as in formulaic geek-tough guy buddy movies, nobody was convinced that delicate single-stranded DNA could work with graphene, a tough nanomaterial made of sheets of carbon atoms. However, scientists at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Princeton University believed the two would make a great team for detecting diseases using blood, saliva, and other biological fluids.
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Scientists decipher structure of nature’s ‘light switch’
When the first warm rays of springtime sunshine trigger a burst of new plant growth, it’s almost as if someone flicked a switch to turn on the greenery and unleash a floral profusion of color. Opening a window into this process, scientists at DOE's Brookhaven Lab and collaborators at the University of Wisconsin have deciphered the structure of a molecular “switch” known as a phytochrome that is much like the one plants use to sense light.
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INL invention could aid Mars probes' search for life
The next generation of Mars rovers could have smaller, cheaper, more robust and more sensitive life-detecting instruments, thanks to a new invention by scientists at DOE's Idaho National Laboratory.
The INL team has come up with an efficient new way to generate complex electric fields, which will make it easier to direct ions, or charged particles, along specified paths. -
Improving data download from outer space
Satellite systems in space keyed to detect nuclear events and environmental gasses currently face a kind of data logjam because their increasingly powerful sensors produce more information than their available bandwidth can easily transmit. Experiments conducted by DOE's Sandia National Laboratories at the International Space Station preliminarily indicate that the problem could be remedied by orbiting more complex computer chips to pre-reduce the large data stream.
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Advanced Photon Source upgrade approved
Advances in energy conservation, better materials for frontier technologies and new economic engines and breakthroughs in understanding diseases could all come about thanks to an upgrade to the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at DOE's Argonne National Laboratory.
