ORNL researchers developed models for better grid protection, analyzed options for new generation sources, and deployed sensors to monitor and evaluate Puerto Rico's grid and inform decisions by the island’s utility.
While ionizing radiation can cause cancer or even death, it can also save lives. Among other uses, ionizing radiation can destroy cancer cells, giving many sufferers the hope of relief from the painful effects of cancer.
NASA uses the isotope plutonium-238 to power its space explorations. The car-sized Mars 2020 rover will contain plutonium produced at ORNL.
ORNL is a major source of isotopes, providing more than 300 for use in medicine, research, industry and space exploration.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory today is an open science laboratory that attracts thousands of scientists and engineers from around the globe each year. It began in the World War II Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bombs. In summer 1939, tensions were rising among European powers...
In the early 1970s, scientists at laboratories worldwide raced to unravel the mystery of how billions of miles of DNA are packaged inside the cells of the human body. ORNL’s Don and Ada Olins were the first to discover the critical structure—the nucleosome—that winds DNA around proteins like thre...