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Physical and Life Sciences
Biological sample prep time cut dramatically -- from days to minutes
When Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers invented the field of biological accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) in the late 1980s, the process of preparing the samples was time-consuming and cumbersome. Physicists and biomedical researchers used torches, vacuum lines, special chemistries and high degrees of skill to convert biological samples into graphite…
Randles receives National Institutes of Health award to pursue cancer research
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory computational scientist Amanda Randles has received a Director's Early Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).The NIH Common Fund award provides funding to encourage exceptional young scientists to pursue "high risk, high reward" independent research in biomedical and behavioral science. Randles will receive…
Dead star shines on
A supernova is the cataclysmic death of a star, but it seems its remnants shine on.Astronomers have found a pulsating, dead star beaming with the energy of about 10 million suns.This is the brightest pulsar -- a dense stellar remnant leftover from a supernova -- ever recorded, and was seen using NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR.LawrenceLivermore LLNL…
Livermore scientists suggest ocean warming in Southern Hemisphere underestimated
LIVERMORE, California -- Using satellite observations and a large suite of climate models, Lawrence Livermore scientists have found that long-term ocean warming in the upper 700 meters of Southern Hemisphere oceans has likely been underestimated."This underestimation is a result of poor sampling prior to the last decade and limitations of the analysis methods that…
Identifying the many layers of a bug's design
Lawrence Livermore researchers have discovered additional "coats," or layers, of a bacterium spore found in the human gut that may give clues to how this organism develops, spreads and survives in extreme conditions.The team dove into the spore coats of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, which also is known as hay bacillus or grass bacillus. Scientists found that in addition…
NIH taps Lab to develop sophisticated electrode array system to monitor brain activity
LIVERMORE, Calif. - The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) a grant today to develop an electrode array system that will enable researchers to better understand how the brain works through unprecedented resolution and scale.LLNL's grant-funded project is part of NIH's efforts to support President Obama's BRAIN (Brain…
Data from Napa earthquake advances the state-of-the-art in seismic science
Data received from seismic monitoring stations coupled with information rapidly shared via smartphones and the Internet by those who experienced the south Napa temblor is serving to advance scientists' understanding of earthquakes as well as improving rapid response, according to Artie Rodgers of the Lab's Seismology Group and Geophysical Monitoring Program. Rodgers…
Lawrence Livermore renews pact with Georgetown University to expand research and education in science and policy
Director Bill Goldstein and GeorgetownPresident John DeGioia on Friday renewed their institutional commitment by signing a memorandum of understanding for an additional five years to expand the collaborative work in the areas of cyber security, biosecurity, nonproliferation and global climate, energy and environmental sciences.This renewal represents a significant…
New energy record set for multilayer-coated mirrors
Multilayer-coated mirrors, if used as focusing optics in the soft gamma-ray photon energy range, can enable and advance a range of scientific and technological applications that would benefit from the large improvements in sensitivity and resolution that true imaging provides. In a paper published in a recent online edition of Optics Express, LLNL postdoc Nicolai Brejnholt…
Simulating the south Napa earthquake
Lawrence Livermore seismologist Artie Rodgers is tapping into LLNL's supercomputers to simulate the detailed ground motion of last month's magnitude 6.0 south Napa earthquake. The Napa tremor is the largest to hit the Bay Area since the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta event in 1989. Using descriptions of the earthquake source from Professor Douglas Dreger of the University of…
Giant Steps for Adaptive Optics
Livermore teams are now working on an adaptive optics system to transport x-ray beams in a new generation of high-energy research facilities.
Livermore team awarded for hydrogen production research
Three Lawrence Livermore researchers have received the Department of Energy's 2014 Hydrogen Production R&D Award for developing a system that uses sunlight to split water molecules, producing hydrogen. Shared with collaborators from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the award recognizes the team for its work…
Tracing tainted food back to its source
Imagine identifying the source of an outbreak from contaminated foods within hours instead of weeks. That's what several University of Oklahoma (OU) summer interns believe an innovative Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) technology is capable of doing.OU students Alyssa Boutelle, Michael Petri and Lauren Gilbert evaluated a new market opportunity for an…
Calculating conditions at the birth of the universe
Using a calculation originally proposed seven years ago to be performed on a petaflop computer, Lawrence Livermore researchers computed conditions that simulate the birth of the universe.When the universe was less than one microsecond old and more than one trillion degrees, it transformed from a plasma of quarks and gluons into bound states of quarks - also known as…
Construction of Large Synoptic Survey Telescope to begin
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has agreed to support the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) to manage the construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). This marks the official federal start of the LSST project, the top-ranked major ground-based facility recommended by the National Research Council's Astronomy and Astrophysics…
New project is the ACME of addressing climate change
High performance computing (HPC) will be used to develop and apply the most complete climate and Earth system model to address the most challenging and demanding climate change issues. Eight national laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore, are combining forces with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, four academic institutions and one private-sector company…
It's nanotubular: New material could be used for energy storage and conversion
Lawrence Livermore researchers have made a material that is 10 times stronger and stiffer than traditional aerogels of the same density.This ultralow-density, ultrahigh surface area bulk material with an interconnected nanotubular makeup could be used in catalysis, energy storage and conversion, thermal insulation, shock energy absorption and high energy density physics…
Scientists burst onto influential list for combustion research
Lawrence Livermore scientists Charles Westbrook and William Pitzhave been named to Thomson Reuters list of "The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds."Westbrook and Pitz are part of the 3,000 researchers who were identified by analyzing citation data over the last 11 years to recognize those who published the highest-impact work (2002-2012 and 2012-2013). The two were…
Getting more life out of lithium-ion batteries
Your cell phone may stay charged longer due to advances in modeling lithium-ion battery storage capacity.New research indicates that lithium-ion batteries could benefit from a theoretical model created at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Rice University that predicts how carbon components will perform as electrodes.The growing demand for energy storage emphasizes…
Peering into giant planets from in and out of this world
Lawrence Livermore scientists for the first time have experimentally re-created the conditions that exist deep inside giant planets, such as Jupiter, Uranus and many of the planets recently discovered outside our solar system.Researchers can now re-create and accurately measure material properties that control how these planets evolve over time, information essential for…
