News

Paul Langan will join ORNL in the spring as associate laboratory director for the Biological and Environmental Systems Science Directorate.

More than 50 current employees and recent retirees from ORNL received Department of Energy Secretary’s Honor Awards from Secretary Jennifer Granholm in January as part of project teams spanning the national laboratory system. The annual awards recognized 21 teams and three individuals for service and contributions to DOE’s mission and to the benefit of the nation.

Illustration of the optimized zeolite catalyst, or NbAlS-1, which enables a highly efficient chemical reaction to create butene, a renewable source of energy, without expending high amounts of energy for the conversion. Credit: Jill Hemman, Oak Ridge National Laboratory/U.S. Dept. of Energy

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have new experimental evidence and a predictive theory that solves a long-standing materials science mystery: why certain crystalline materials shrink when heated.

While studying the genes in poplar trees that control callus formation, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have uncovered genetic networks at the root of tumor formation in several human cancers.

For more than 50 years, scientists have debated what turns particular oxide insulators, in which electrons barely move, into metals, in which electrons flow freely.