ORNL will lead three new DOE-funded projects designed to bring fusion energy to the grid on a rapid timescale.
Neutron experiments can take days to complete, requiring researchers to work long shifts to monitor progress and make necessary adjustments. But thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, experiments can now be done remotely and in half the time.
Creating energy the way the sun and stars do — through nuclear fusion — is one of the grand challenges facing science and technology. What’s easy for the sun and its billions of relatives turns out to be particularly difficult on Earth.
Like most scientists, Chengping Chai is not content with the surface of things: He wants to probe beyond to learn what’s really going on. But in his case, he is literally building a map of the world beneath, using seismic and acoustic data that reveal when and where the earth moves.
ORNL will team up with six of eight companies that are advancing designs and research and development for fusion power plants with the mission to achieve a pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade.
Nonfood, plant-based biofuels have potential as a green alternative to fossil fuels, but the enzymes required for production are too inefficient and costly to produce. However, new research is shining a light on enzymes from fungi that could make biofuels economically viable.
A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed a molecule that disrupts the infection mechanism of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and could be used to develop new treatments for COVID-19 and other viral diseases.
Six ORNL scientists have been elected as fellows to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS.
Experiments led by researchers at ORNL have determined that several hepatitis C drugs can inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, a crucial protein enzyme that enables the novel coronavirus to reproduce.
To better understand how the novel coronavirus behaves and how it can be stopped, scientists have completed a three-dimensional map that reveals the location of every atom in an enzyme molecule critical to SARS-CoV-2 reproduction.