Archived Features

For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to the resources listed below or to one of our Media Contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to news@ornl.gov.

 
BioEnergy Science Center reaches 500th publication
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 17, 2013 — Researchers with the BioEnergy Science Center led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory have charted 500 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals in the center's five and half years of operation.

Project with ORNL helps Hardin Valley senior earn Boy Scouts award
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 10, 2013 — Through a project with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Hardin Valley Academy's Noah Kaye has earned the Boy Scouts of America's Hornaday Award and redbreast sunfish have some new hangouts.

Science Saturdays attract hundreds of students for lectures, tours
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 6, 2013 — Hundreds of science-minded students bypassed Saturday morning cartoons this semester, opting instead to participate in the first year of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Science Saturdays program.

Virtual Office Community and Computing Lab
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 30, 2013 — The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, the Department of Energy's first Innovation Hub, has enlisted top scientists and engineers from around the U.S. to improve the nuclear reactors that provide about 20 percent of the nation's electricity.

ORNL analysis predicts losses from extreme weather damage could double by 2050
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 26, 2013 — U.S. economic losses from extreme weather could at least double by 2050, according to an Oak Ridge National Laboratory analysis published this month in the online edition of the journal Global Environmental Change.

Oak Ridge National Lab-led BioEnergy Science Center Celebrates First Five Years, Renewal of Research Funding
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 4, 2013 — The Department of Energy has announced renewed funding for bioenergy research toward liquid biofuels that add an affordable, sustainable, domestically produced option to the nation's energy supply.

Local FIRST robotics teams dominate regionals, advance to world championship
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 1, 2013 — Frisbee-flinging robots took over the Knoxville Convention Center March 28-30, as thousands of high school students, mentors and volunteers gathered for the third annual FIRST robotics Smoky Mountains regional competition in Knoxville, TN.

Energy Department Launches New Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 26, 2013 — As part of the Obama Administration's commitment to revitalizing America's manufacturing sector, today the Energy Department launched the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative (CEMI), a new Department initiative focused on growing American manufacturing of clean energy products and boosting U.S. competitiveness through major improvements in manufacturing energy productivity. The initiative includes private sector partnerships, new funding from the Department, and enhanced analysis of the clean energy manufacturing supply chain that will guide the Department's future funding decisions.

Hands-on CNMS school delivers '10 years of literature in four days'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 12, 2013 — Twenty-four participants in an Oak Ridge National Laboratory workshop held March 4-7 received a crash course in the latest scanning probe microscopy techniques -- skills that researchers will use to study materials for batteries, fuel cells, sensors, photovoltaics and more.

Shull Fellowships a step toward interesting and fulfilling careers
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 11, 2013 — The Clifford C. Shull Fellowship, a two-year research appointment, attracts new scientific talent to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and makes it possible for outstanding early career scientists to launch their careers. Research areas that use neutron scattering include condensed matter physics, chemistry, materials science and engineering, and biology.

Protecting the homeland
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 28, 2013 — Michael Gresalfi's long list of awards and recognitions is noteworthy, but what he cares about the most is protecting against nuclear, chemical or biological weapons attacks on U.S. soil.

Doubts melt
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 28, 2013 — Glaciers thrice as tall as the Empire State building calve, crumble, and careen into the sea during Chasing Ice, a film in which National Geographic photographer James Balog chronicles the rapid disappearance of Arctic ice as Earth's average temperature rises.

ORNL's RABiTS technology enables record-setting performance with iron-based superconducting wires
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 16, 2013 — A technology invented at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory for manufacturing copper-oxide based high-temperature superconducting materials has been used to make an iron-based superconducting wire capable of carrying very high electrical currents under exceptionally high magnetic fields.

ORNL helps kick off 2013 FIRST robotics season in East Tennessee
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 7, 2013 — Students from dozens of area high schools piled into Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility Jan. 5 to get a sense of the obstacles they will be battling over the next six weeks. Hundreds of students, parents and mentors attended the kickoff event for the 2013 FIRST robotics competition, a nationwide event in which students design and build complex robots that can tackle the challenges of a specially designed game.

Mobility and risk
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 11, 2012 — Public forums on social media may enable Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers to study environmental cancer risks virtually, bringing the scientific community closer to understanding the impacts of modern population migration patterns on cancer risk.

Happier holiday
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 7, 2012 — Volunteers for Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Team UT-Battelle Angel Tree effort delivered clothing and gifts to area community agencies and schools this week. The items will brighten the holiday season for 240 needy children.

A specialized tool
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 26, 2012 — Neutron scattering is a specialized tool that allows scientists to do breakthrough research into the nature of advanced materials.

ORNL, Fraunhofer IBP receive 2013 BuildingGreen product award
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 21, 2012 — Few people recognize the importance of moisture in buildings until mold starts creeping up the walls of their living room. But as construction professionals know, understanding how moisture moves through buildings is critical to their long-term durability and performance.

Refining climate models
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 31, 2012 — Using dogwood trees, scientists are gaining a better understanding of the role photosynthesis and respiration play in the atmospheric carbon dioxide cycle. Their findings will aid computer modelers in improving the accuracy of climate simulations.

RSICC marks its 50th year
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 9, 2012 — One of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's longest-running institutions, the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC), has its golden anniversary in November. To celebrate the Laboratory hosted a recognition ceremony on October 9 with Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Peter Lyons keynoting the event.

SNS researchers overcome the freezing sample problem in biostudies
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 13, 2012 — Researchers at the Spallation Neutron Source BASIS beam line at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have successfully developed a method to study biomolecules (proteins) at temperatures far below freezing using a lithium chloride preparation in the aqueous solvent that prevents freezing.

Ramgen Simulates Shock Waves, Makes Shock Waves Across Energy Spectrum
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 17, 2012 — One of the most pressing scientific challenges facing the United States and the world is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Compounding that challenge is the fact that power plants burning fossil fuels account for more than 40 percent of the world's energy-related CO2 emissions and will continue to dominate the supply of electricity until the middle of the century. There is an urgent need for cost-effective methods to capture and store their carbon emissions.

Mars 'Curiosity' has ORNL tech
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 6, 2012 — Editor's note: With the successful landing of the Mars Curiosity probe, we are reprising and updating from last November this feature on ORNL's role in the U.S. space exploration mission.

Bioenergy boost
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 1, 2012 — With the recent completion of upgrades to its steam plant, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory may be setting the pace for large physical plants that can use a renewable source of feedstock for energy.

Fishing for answers
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 26, 2012 — Harnessing the power of water currents has never been easy, but predicting how hydrokinetic energy conversion will affect fish is an even tougher task. Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are trying to do just that.

Kudzu crusade
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 9, 2012 — A controlled burn licked its way across 42 acres on the Oak Ridge Reservation as Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Natural Resources Management Team completed another step towards eliminating kudzu, an invasive exotic species that had overtaken the area.

Peering into protein dynamics
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 27, 2012 — Two post docs and a doctoral student donned safety glasses and put their arms into a high purity, inert atmosphere glove box recently, to prepare protein samples for neutron scattering on the Cold Neutron Chopper Spectrometer (CNCS) at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the Deparatment of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

100 rounds
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 15, 2012 — One of ORNL's most celebrated "trash to treasure" projects is observing a centennial. The Laboratory's Nuclear Medicine Program is in its 100th campaign of thorium-229 and actinium-225 processing, which provides radioisotopes for medical uses that include cancer treatment.

Far beyond cookware
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 6, 2012 — Corning is not just your mother's white and blue cooking and baking dishes anymore, a research project recently at the VULCAN instrument at the Spallation Neutron Source illustrates.

Establishing standards
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 23, 2012 — In the world of international manufacturing standards, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Wayne Manges knows that his efforts are making a difference that saves money, jobs and lives.

'Where atoms are, and what they do'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 23, 2012 — A 100-million-year old fossil from Antarctica's tropical age, revealed by neutron imaging, fascinated participants at the "Neutron Scattering for Novices" workshop at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), held May 16.

Transformers
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 8, 2012 — Shape-memory alloys (SMAs) are an engineer's dream, able to shape-shift spontaneously to accommodate changing operating conditions. A research team from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the University of Central Florida is studying the internal mechanisms of these real-life "Transformers" at the Spallation Neutron Source at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with an eye toward increasing their use in everyday scenarios.

ORNL biologist 'looks for life in all the wrong places'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 26, 2012 — A scientist finds himself two miles below ground in a gold mine in Africa

Half-century of science
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 18, 2012 — Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility (HRIBF) operations have ended in style, with researchers scurrying to complete three exciting experiments before the program's last day on April 15. The final day was initially scheduled for April 1, but the user program received a two-week "reprieve" to finish the three experiments.

Energy development at U.S. dams could power more than 4 million homes
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 18, 2012 — In a study of the energy-producing potential of untapped U.S. dams, Oak

Carbon dioxide caused global warming at Ice Age's end, pioneering simulation shows
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 4, 2012 — Climate science has an equivalent to the "what came first—the chicken or the egg?" question: What came first, greenhouse gases or global warming? A multi-institutional team led by researchers at Harvard, Oregon State University, and the University of Wisconsin used a global dataset of paleoclimate records and the Jaguar supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to find the answer (spoiler alert: carbon dioxide drives warming). The results, published in the April 5 issue of Nature, analyze 15,000 years of climate history. Scientists hope amassing knowledge of the causes of natural global climate change will aid understanding of human-caused climate change.

'Cow-laboration'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 2, 2012 — Martha, a cow placidly grazing in a field in The Netherlands, became an important collaborator with researchers who successfully analyzed and characterized the internal protein structure and the composite particles of her milk using small-angle neutron scattering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR).

'Bridging the Gap'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 28, 2012 — With a dozen licenses and cooperative research and development agreements since Oct. 1, business is flourishing in Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Science and Technology Partnerships Directorate. One of the forces behind the bustle is Bridging the Gap, which kicked off just one year ago with a two-day conference that attracted 65 attendees.

Five ORNL teams target new technologies for societal impact
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 23, 2012 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory has selected five projects for its inaugural

Performing under pressure
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 14, 2012 — Imagine a robot sent out on the prowl on this energy hungry planet looking for methane, the principal component of what we call "natural gas" and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth.

POWGEN workshop nets Ph.D. student a paper in scientific journal
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 7, 2012 — A young Oregon State University graduate student has successfully turned her participation in a two-day POWGEN Neutron Diffraction workshop at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) into a published paper in the Journal of Solid State Chemistry.

Climate Scientists Compute in Concert
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 27, 2012 — Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are sharing computational resources

Computer Scientists Collect Computing Tools for Next-Generation Machines
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 14, 2012 — Researchers using the OLCF's resources can foresee substantial changes in their scientific

ORNL offers mentors, working space for students to build robots
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 9, 2012 — Students from eight local high schools will work hand in hand with ORNL

When worlds collide
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 6, 2012 — If the sun is anything, it is reassuring. It rises, sets, and rises again, allowing us to grow crops, get tan, and power homes, just to name a few of humanity's most important life-sustaining functions. No wonder it was considered a deity by countless ancient civilizations.

Between a rock and a hard place: Searching for a solid that flows like a liquid
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 2, 2012 — A series of neutron scattering experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other research centers is exploring the key question about a long-sought quantum state of matter called supersolidity: Does it exist?

Journal special issue features 6 ORNL collaborations
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 30, 2012 — Six neutron sciences research collaborations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are featured in "Dynamics of Water and Glass-Forming Liquids," a special issue of Journal of Physics Condensed Matter.

Fuel for fusion
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 5, 2012 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Fusion Pellet Fueling Lab has been at the center of design and testing of plasma fueling systems for tokamak research applications for decades. Since the mid-1970s, lab researchers have been designing, testing and contributing hardware for fusion magnetic confinement experiments here in the United States and around the world. As the US ITER project moves from design and testing of components to manufacturing, the lab is making prototypes for the ITER tokamak. ITER's "first plasma" is planned for around the close of this decade.

ORNL technology could mean improved prosthesis fitting, design
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 28, 2011 — Soldiers returning from war who have lost a leg could lead a more active

Battery-powered Christmas carol: A trip down memory (effect) lane
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 21, 2011 — As consumers anticipate unwrapping the latest electronic gadget during the holidays, they may not give much thought to how long their shiny devices will last. But it's a topic under significant consideration at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where researchers such as Claus Daniel are working to understand a critical lifetime component in these devices -- the battery.

SANS tracks cell death protein invading biomimetic mitochondrial membrane
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 14, 2011 — An international team of biochemists, biophysicists, and neutron scientists are using a combination of fluorescence and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) techniques to assist biochemists in better understanding how a protein associated with cell death incorporates into membranes.

ORNL summer interns take top prize at Siemens Competition
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 7, 2011 — Oak Ridge High School students Cassee Cain and Ziyuan Liu are the team winners of the 2011 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, announced Monday, Dec. 5, in Washington, D.C.

Mars 'Curiosity' has ORNL tech
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 28, 2011 — The Curiosity rover that was launched toward Mars over the Thanksgiving holiday includes a significant contribution from ORNL and DOE. The mobile instrument platform, which is too large to rely on solar-powered batteries, contains a plutonium oxide-powered generator, as do all of NASA's deep-space probes such as Voyager and Cassini.

In Alaska's backyard
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 23, 2011 — Making well-informed computational models of an ever changing, vast Alaskan landscape presents challenges that Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are working to overcome.

Q&A with Cassee Cain and Ziyuan Liu
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 17, 2011 — Oak Ridge High School students Cassee Cain and Ziyuan Liu won the regional championship and a $6,000 team scholarship at the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology Nov. 5 at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Under the guidance of Boyd Evans and John Mueller, ORNL biomedical engineers, Cain and Liu developed a project that uses Kinect for Xbox 360 and Computer Vision to analyze human gait. The results may aid in the development of an accurate, affordable device to detect abnormal gait patterns.

Three ORNL Supercomputers in Top 20 at SC11
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 16, 2011 — Supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory claimed three spots in the top 20 of the TOP500 list, high-performance computing's biannual rankings of the world's most powerful computers. The latest TOP500 tally was released Nov. 14 at SC11, high-performance computing's premier conference, in Seattle, Wash.

Igniting Innovation and Inspiration
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 15, 2011 — Legend has it that Prometheus brought us the gift of fire—a gift of comfort, innovation and even inspiration.

Interview: Collin Broholm
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 15, 2011 — Collin Broholm, a leader in the international neutron scattering community, recently joined ORNL's Neutron Sciences Directorate as a joint faculty appointment with Johns Hopkins University. He will spend approximately 25 percent of his time working at ORNL.

'A little chaos near the edge'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 2, 2011 — Heated to extreme temperatures of up to 150 million degrees Celsius, the plasma in ITER's giant experimental fusion reactor will be fed a fuel of frozen pellets of deuterium-tritium, fired into the tokamak vacuum vessel by pellet injectors. Testing of the most recent pellet injection design technology developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and US ITER is under way this fall at the DIII-D research tokamak in San Diego, operated by General Atomics for the Department of Energy through the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences.

Unexpected Magnetic Excitations in Doped Insulator Surprise Researchers
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 21, 2011 — When doping a disordered magnetic insulator material with atoms of a nonmagnetic material, the conventional wisdom is that the magnetic interactions between the magnetic ions in the material will be weakened.

Ancient artifacts yield their secrets under neutron imaging
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 12, 2011 — For the first time, neutron images in 3 dimensions have been taken of rare archaeological artifacts here at ORNL. Bronze and brass artifacts excavated at the ancient city of Petra, in Jordan were recently imaged in 3 dimensions using neutrons at HFIR's CG-1D Neutron Imaging instrument. The data that is now being analyzed will for the first time give eager archeologists and ancient historians significant, otherwise wholly inaccessible insight into the manufacturing and lives of cultures that once occupied settlements within the Roman Empire, Middle East, and Colonial-period New England.

Q&A with Brian Wirth
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 29, 2011 — Brian Wirth is an Oak Ridge National Laboratory-University of Tennessee Governor's Chair for computational nuclear engineering. He is the co-editor, along with Kurt Edsinger of the Electric Power Research Institute and Chris Stanek of Los Alamos National Laboratory, of a special issue of the Journal of Metals on computational modeling of nuclear fuel performance. Wirth, Edsinger and Stanek also author two articles in the edition.

'Low tech' light in neutron beam illuminates photosynthesis in bacteria
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 27, 2011 — Researchers at the Bio-SANS instrument at the High Flux Isotope Reactor are getting a leg up in their research from an ingenious "low tech" lighting tool that can be fixed to their samples and then pushed directly into the neutron beam, to illuminate the response of layers of cyanobacteria to changes in light.

Simulating Turbulent Combustion Speeds Design
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 21, 2011 — Air and fuel mix violently during turbulent combustion. The ferocious mixing needed to ignite fuel and sustain its burning is governed by the same fluid dynamics equations that depict smoke swirling lazily from a chimney. Large swirls spin off smaller swirls and so on. The multiple scales of swirls pose a challenge to the supercomputers that solve those equations to simulate turbulent combustion. Researchers rely on these simulations to develop clean-energy technologies for power and propulsion.

Industry and neutron science
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 21, 2011 — Industrial users are starting to eye the potential of neutron science for solving problems that can't be solved in any other way. At the same time, the Spallation Neutron Source and High Flux Isotope Reactor neutron science facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are exploring ways to woo such users and to make a match of it, to the benefit of both.

Special report highlights 'greatest hits' of scientific supercomputing
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 2, 2011 — In 2007, a report that concluded that the Earth was warming, probably as a result of human activities, resulted in a share of the Nobel Peace Prize. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's next assessment, expected in 2014, once again includes simulation data generated from DOE leadership supercomputers, this time at Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories. Next a team of researchers, led by Warren Washington of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, will use a 2011 allocation of 110 million processor hours at Argonne and Oak Ridge to begin the generation of the largest treasure trove of climate data to date.

SNS, HFIR experiments help refine thin-film solar cells
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 1, 2011 — Solar cells that convert sunlight into electricity could be a widely used renewable energy source. Getting to that point, though, requires breakthroughs in their cost and their efficiency at turning sunbeams into electric current. Neutron scattering experiments conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are helping solar cell makers obtain the hard data they need to refine their materials and manufacturing processes.

Need for new magnet materials drives ORNL research
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 1, 2011 — Increasing demand and a shrinking supply of rare earth elements for magnets creates a perfect opportunity for a research team from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Minnesota. The goal is to create a recipe for a replacement that doesn't use scarce ingredients.

Clamping down on copper theft
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 30, 2011 — Upswings in the price of copper have inspired thieves across the country to steal any amount of the valuable metal, widely found in applications from catalytic converters to HVAC units. In addition to the high costs of replacing the stolen material, hastily attempted copper thefts can result in utility blackouts and deaths by electrocution.

Energy and environmental solutions under our feet
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 22, 2011 — When you heat water in a kettle, you can make tea or coffee. But what happens if the vessel is sealed? Ultimately, at a temperature called the liquid-gas critical point, the density of the liquid and the vapor become identical: There is no more water, there is no more gas. What you have is a supercritical fluid.

Single microbial gene linked to increased ethanol tolerance
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 12, 2011 — A team of researchers from the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center has pinpointed a single, key gene in a microbe that could help streamline the production of biofuels from non-food sources.

New spin on friction-stir
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 25, 2011 — Researchers Zhili Feng, Alan Frederic and Stan David in Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Materials S&T Division have made significant progress toward a new metal processing technique, called friction-stir extrusion, that could represent a major advance in converting recyclable materials -- such as alloys of aluminum, magnesium and titanium alloys, and even high-temperature superconductors -- to useful products.

Catching Alzheimer's in the act
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 21, 2011 — Like a thief hidden in the brain, the neurodegenerative disease called Alzheimer's steals away memory as it gradually destroys brain cells, changing personalities and disrupting lives in the process.

It Takes Three to Tango
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 12, 2011 — The nucleus of an atom, like most everything else, is more complicated than we first thought. Just how much more complicated is the subject of a Petascale Early Science project led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's David Dean.

Recovering the research
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 29, 2011 — In addition to donating $20,000 to aid in the Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief efforts, Oak Ridge National Laboratory is helping displaced Japanese colleagues in neutron science continue their research.

Beam line 13 fuels discovery fever for fundamental physicists
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 23, 2011 — The simplest, most sensible "Big Bang" universe, theoretical physicists believe, would be one in which equal numbers of particles and antiparticles are formed in pairs. As the universe cools, most of these particles would encounter their antiparticles, and they would annihilate.

Startling thermal energy behavior revealed by neutron scattering
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 21, 2011 — A discovery by researchers working at the Spallation Neutron Source upends long held assumptions about the microscopic behavior of materials in an equilibrium condition. The findings could influence further research in advanced materials, communication and optical systems, and thermoelectric materials that use differences in temperature to produce electricity.

Packing the ions
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 16, 2011 — Flat is in the eye of the beholder.

Researchers Pinpoint How Copper Folds Protein into Precursors of Parkinson's Plaques
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 14, 2011 — Aided by the Jaguar supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), researchers at North Carolina State University have figured out how copper induces misfolding in the protein associated with Parkinson's disease, leading to creation of the fibrillar plaques which characterize the disease. This finding has implications for both the study of Parkinson's progression, as well as for future treatments.

The curious case of germanium-72
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 1, 2011 — There's a lot we don't know about the atomic nucleus, even though it was discovered a century ago this year.

DOE program reaches thousands of students with 'farming for fuels' program
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 1, 2011 — More than 34,000 youngsters, teachers and parents around the country have had a chance to learn about bioenergy through hands-on experiments that are part of an outreach effort by the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center.

First-ever sub-nanoscale snapshots of renegade protein in Huntington's Disease
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 18, 2011 — An ORNL-University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine collaboration has for the first time successfully characterized the earliest structural formation of the disease type of the protein "huntingtin" that creates such havoc in Huntington's Disease The incurable, hereditary neurological disorder is always fatal and affects 1 in 10,000 Americans.

Silver ionic liquids are powerful solvents for oil industry
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 16, 2011 — The separation of olefins and paraffin, two hydrocarbon compounds in petroleum waste streams, is a heavy expense for the petrochemical industry. The existing technology consumes a lot of energy because the olefin-paraffin pairs have similar boiling and evaporation properties, making it difficult and costly to separate them. Companies are looking for techniques that reduce energy consumption and that economically recycle such waste streams.

Nature still sets standard for nanoscience revolution
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 18, 2011 — By striving for control and perfection in everything from computer chips to commercial jets, scientists and engineers actually exclude a fundamental force that allows nature to outperform even their best efforts.

ORNL rifle sighting system uses sensors to score bull's-eye
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 15, 2011 — Military and police marksmen could see their rifle sights catch up with the 21st century with a fiber-optic laser-based sensor system that automatically corrects for even tiny barrel disruptions.

Venerable early Jaguar system retires
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 15, 2011 — ORNL lost a computing powerhouse with the March retirement of the Jaguar XT4 supercomputer.

Jaguar supercomputer harnesses heat for fusion energy
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 15, 2011 — University of California-Irvine researcher Zhihong Lin is using the Jaguar supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to study fusion reactions, which produce helium from hydrogen and release energy in the process, in hopes of igniting ITER, an experimental fusion reactor being built in southern France.

Thermoelectric materials: recycling energy
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 30, 2011 — For some years now, NASA has been using what are called thermoelectric materials to power its space probes. The probes travel such great distances from our sun that solar panels are no longer an efficient source of power. So NASA imbeds a nuclear material in a radioisotope thermal generator, where it decays, producing heat energy. That energy is then converted by thermoelectric materials into the electricity that powers the space probe. The same technology is now being explored for more earthly applications, for example, to capture heat lost in the exhaust of automobiles to produce electricity for the vehicle.

Startup America
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 29, 2011 — As part of the Obama Administration's Startup America Initiative, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the "America's Next Top Energy Innovator" challenge, which will give start-up companies the opportunity to obtain option agreements to license groundbreaking technologies developed by the National Laboratories for $1,000 and build successful businesses.

Japan earthquake, tsunami spell need for preparedness
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 28, 2011 — Perhaps lost in the recent debates related to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan is that natural disasters and not nuclear energy should be the focus, says Oak Ridge National Laboratory's John Sorensen, an emergency preparedness expert.

SNS user finds 'perfect instrument' for materials research
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 24, 2011 — Stress, fatigue and heavy loads aren't always negative elements of work - in fact, they are what attracted Jennifer Forrester to the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Exploring the magnetic personalities of stars
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 3, 2011 — Massive stars are inherently violent creatures-they burn, they churn, they turn, all the while creating and held hostage by constantly changing magnetic fields of almost unfathomable strength.

Computational scientists use supercomputers at Oak Ridge to explore ice sheet dynamics
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 25, 2011 — Recently, Rhode Island-sized chunks of ice have separated from Greenland and Antarctica, garnering worldwide attention. But is this calving due to typical seasonal variations or a long-term warmer world? Climate scientists already use ice sheet models to better understand how ice loss affects sea levels; however, those models are not easily adapted for use in global climate models. In August the Scalable, Efficient, and Accurate Community Ice Sheet Model project began on Jaguar, one of the world's fastest supercomputers, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. SEACISM's aim is to use state-of-the-art simulation to predict the behavior of ice sheets under a changing climate by developing scalable algorithms.

Whole-genome sequencing simulated on supercomputers
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 24, 2011 — The Human Genome Project paved the way for genomics, the study of an organism's genome. Personalized genomics can establish the relationship between DNA sequence variations among individuals and their health conditions and responses to drugs and treatments. To make genome sequencing a routine procedure, however, the time must be reduced to less than a day and the cost to less than $1,000—a feat not possible with current knowledge and technologies.

Another high-definition plasma
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 23, 2011 — The sight of an aurora evokes feelings of mystery and awe in the weekend star gazer and scientist alike. The stargazer may ponder the vastness of our universe or how such vivid color can be created in space, but for the scientist, the questions lie in the composition of the aurora—and how little we actually know about it.

Innovations in manufacturing
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 16, 2011 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory's science and technology resources are transforming the next generation of scientific discovery and helping to rebuild and revitalize U.S. manufacturing. From concept to commercialization, ORNL's facilities and expertise enable the deployment of innovative manufacturing and materials technologies, and the laboratory's aggressive commercialization program provides technology-based solutions to industries engaged in virtually every sector of the nation's economy.

ORNL helping surgeons, patients
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 2, 2011 — Math and medicine are coming together to help people who have suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which with 15,000 is the 13th-leading cause of death in the United States.

Cited in the SOTU
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 26, 2011 — President Obama, in his State of the Union address Tuesday, cited work being performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory as an example of cutting edge research aimed at solving the energy challenge. His text: "... if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we'll fund the Apollo Projects of our time. At the California Institute of Technology, they're developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they're using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015." Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=9ZdEmjtF6HE#t=14m37s Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors: http://www.casl.gov/

Neutrons 'go viral' at ORNL
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 21, 2011 — Without a host, a virus is a dormant package of proteins, genetic material and occasional lipids. Once inside a living cell, however, a virus can latch onto cell parts and spring into action - mutating, replicating and spreading into new cells.

Neighbor lends a hand
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 14, 2011 — Scientists and engineers at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are working with the U.S. ITER Project Office at ORNL, the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency and the ITER Organization to resolve issues with a critical component of the experimental fusion energy facility ITER. The VULCAN Engineering Diffractometer at SNS is being used to examine superconducting cables for ITER's central solenoid magnet, which induces the electrical current needed to confine and shape the plasma inside the reactor.

Making radioactive 63Ni to target explosives
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 3, 2011 — When Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inspectors

Building gasifiers via simulation
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 29, 2010 — A team of scientists from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is using Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL's) Jaguar supercomputer, located at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), to conduct high-reliability simulations of a coal gasifier in an attempt to make the potential energy alternative more efficient and reliable. The project also aims to demonstrate the impact of simulation on reducing the cost and time required to develop the zero-emissions power plants of the future.

The spin doctor
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 29, 2010 — An electron spin can be compared to the needle of a compass that points either north or south. Some electrons in a full shell point up, canceling out the electromagnetic fields of an equal number of electrons that point down.

SNS user from Johns Hopkins excited by first-day data
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 28, 2010 — Collin Broholm, a professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was clearly excited about the results he was reviewing in the control room of the wide-angular-range chopper spectrometer (ARCS) at SNS.

HTML, HFIR team with industry to find hidden stresses in materials
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 28, 2010 — Whether it's that klunky new Hummer you bought for a song, that honey of a BMW sports coupe, farm equipment from John Deere, or a pressurized water nuclear reactor, the materials from which they are made contain hidden stresses that affect safety, longevity, even energy efficiency and the environment.

Scientists, industry use neutron imaging to improve energy efficiency
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 28, 2010 — Neutron scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are partnering with industry to enhance engine and commercial cooling technologies in hopes of making improvements that will optimize fuel and energy efficiency.

ORNL Systems Lead in Petascale Science
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 21, 2010 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) supercomputers continue to demonstrate their importance to the science community, offering unmatched resources to researchers exploring climate change, alternative energy sources, and the full range of critical science challenges.

Driving Blood-Flow Research at The Petascale
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 17, 2010 — Choosing directions during a road trip used to consist of passengers holding a map with arms fully extended and noses to the page trying to decipher exactly where to turn or what exit to take. Today global positioning systems lay out the route for travelers, anticipating the curves of the road, when they have to turn, and where traffic jams and inclement weather await.

DARPA Challenge
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 10, 2010 — The crushing of 180 digitally manufactured (DM) titanium mesh spheres has

OLCF Announces Approximately a Billion Hours for 2011 INCITE Projects
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 3, 2010 — The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) will provide more than 950 million processor hours via the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, the U.S. government's premier supercomputing allocation, jointly managed by the Department of Energy's leadership computing facilities at Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

Jaguar pounces on child predators
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 30, 2010 — Consumers of child pornography break the law when they download photos and videos from file-sharing networks. But police are more concerned with the porn producers uploading the files. Every new posting means a child is in harm's way. To accelerate the acquisition of information needed to arrest child predators, law enforcement officers have teamed with data analytics experts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for a project that will use Jaguar, one of the world's fastest supercomputers, to speedily analyze the activities on file-sharing networks that pinpoint porn producers.

Blood simulation on Jaguar takes Gordon Bell Prize
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 23, 2010 — A team from Georgia Tech, New York University, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) took this year's Gordon Bell Prize by pushing ORNL's Jaguar supercomputer to 700 trillion calculations per second (700 teraflops) with a groundbreaking simulation of blood flow.