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Media Contacts
![stacked poplar logs](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/poplar_sized.jpg?h=e91a75a9&itok=Oq847ULr)
Popular wisdom holds tall, fast-growing trees are best for biomass, but new research by two U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories reveals that is only part of the equation.
![Sarah Cousineau](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/2019-P00901%20%281%29.jpg?h=c6980913&itok=TetsY0iB)
Two scientists with the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been elected fellows of the American Physical Society.
![Oak Ridge National Laboratory entrance sign](/themes/custom/ornl/images/default-thumbnail.jpg)
Geoffrey L. Greene, a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who holds a joint appointment with ORNL, will be awarded the 2021 Tom Bonner Prize for Nuclear Physics from the American Physical Society.
![An ORNL researcher holds a capsule of molten salt. Preliminary experiments seem to indicate that irradiation can slow corrosion of metal in liquid salt. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/salt_irr_01_0.jpg?h=b69e0e0e&itok=cwf13UxX)
Irradiation may slow corrosion of alloys in molten salt, a team of Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists has found in preliminary tests.
![Substituting deuterium for hydrogen makes methylammonium heavier and slows its swaying so it can interact with vibrations that remove heat, keeping charge carriers hot longer. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/20-G00933_PR_Manley_0.jpg?h=eca34813&itok=3DjqguYT)
Led by ORNL and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a study of a solar-energy material with a bright future revealed a way to slow phonons, the waves that transport heat.
![Schematic showing cholesterol stiffening DOPC membranes, making them flatter and thicker. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/20-G00960_Katsaras_0.png?h=3e3883a3&itok=FNySLVMw)
Neutron scattering at ORNL has shown that cholesterol stiffens simple lipid membranes, a finding that may help us better understand the functioning of human cells.
![The n-helium-3 precision experiment, conducted at ORNL, measured the weak force between protons and neutrons by detecting the tiny electrical signal produced when a neutron and a helium-3 nucleus combine and then decay as they move through the helium gas target cell. Credit: Andy Sproles/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/3b864f25-612d-4d38-bb34-62f65072f45f_0.jpg?h=40d6a7d7&itok=08P4u7m8)
Through a one-of-a-kind experiment at ORNL, nuclear physicists have precisely measured the weak interaction between protons and neutrons. The result quantifies the weak force theory as predicted by the Standard Model of Particle Physics.
![An interactive visualization shows potential progression of BECCS to address carbon dioxide reduction goals. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/BECCSMap_0.png?h=9697e475&itok=garhzl6i)
The combination of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage could cost-effectively sequester hundreds of millions of metric tons per year of carbon dioxide in the United States, making it a competitive solution for carbon management, according to a new analysis by ORNL scientists.
![Zhenglong Li, an ORNL scientist in the Energy and Transportation Science Division, holds a sample of a catalyst material used to covert ethanol into butene-rich mixed olefins, important intermediates that can then be readily processed into aviation fuels. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/2020-P12928_0.jpg?h=a6967b5f&itok=qFl1qJuz)
Prometheus Fuels has licensed an ethanol-to-jet-fuel conversion process developed by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The ORNL technology will enable cost-competitive production of jet fuel and co-production of butadiene for use in renewable polymer synthesis.
![Xunxiang Hu, a Eugene P. Wigner Fellow in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division, designed this machine to produce large, crack-free pieces of yttrium hydride to be used as a moderator in the core of ORNL’s Transformational Challenge Reactor and other microreactors. Credit: Xunxiang Hu/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/HuYHxphoto.jpg?h=eef83f16&itok=7KfkqQLh)
About 60 years ago, scientists discovered that a certain rare earth metal-hydrogen mixture, yttrium, could be the ideal moderator to go inside small, gas-cooled nuclear reactors.