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Debjani Pal’s photo “Three-Dimensional Breast Cancer Spheroids” won the Director’s Choice Award in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Art of Science photo competition. It will be displayed at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Credit: Debjani Pal/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
“Three-Dimensional Breast Cancer Spheroids” submitted by radiotherapeutics researcher Debjani Pal is stunning. Brilliant blue dots pop from an electric sphere threaded with bright colors: greens, aqua, hot pink and red.
Steve Nolan, left, who manages many ORNL facilities for United Cleanup Oak Ridge, and Carl Dukes worked closely together to accommodate bringing members of the public into the Oak Ridge Reservation to collect distant images from overhead for the BRIAR biometric recognition project. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Carl Dukes’ career as an adept communicator got off to a slow start: He was about 5 years old when he spoke for the first time. “I’ve been making up for lost time ever since,” joked Dukes, a technical professional at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

AIRES 4 attendees hailing from seven national laboratories and from academia met to discuss robust engineering for digital twins. Credit: Pradeep Ramuhalli/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

ORNL hosted its fourth Artificial Intelligence for Robust Engineering and Science, or AIRES, workshop from April 18-20. Over 100 attendees from government, academia and industry convened to identify research challenges and investment areas, carving the future of the discipline.

Steven Hamilton. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL.

As renewable sources of energy such as wind and sun power are being increasingly added to the country’s electrical grid, old-fashioned nuclear energy is also being primed for a resurgence.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory probed the chemistry of radium to gain key insights on advancing cancer treatments using radiation therapy. Credit: Adam Malin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Researchers at ORNL explored radium’s chemistry to advance cancer treatments using ionizing radiation.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers used an invertible neural network, a type of artificial intelligence that mimics the human brain, to select the most suitable materials for desired properties, such as flexibility or heat resistance, with high chemical accuracy. The study could lead to more customizable materials design for industry.

A study led by researchers at ORNL could help make materials design as customizable as point-and-click.

Using quantum Monte Carlo methods, the researchers simulated bulk VO2. Yellow and turquoise represent changes in electron density between the excited and ground states of a compound composed of oxygen, in red, and vanadium, in blue, which allowed them to evaluate how an oxygen vacancy, in white, can alter the compound’s properties. Credit: Panchapakesan Ganesh/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Neuromorphic devices — which emulate the decision-making processes of the human brain — show great promise for solving pressing scientific problems, but building physical systems to realize this potential presents researchers with a significant

As part of the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments Arctic project, scientists are gathering and incorporating new data about the Alaskan tundra into global models that predict the future of our planet. Credit: ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

Improved data, models and analyses from ORNL scientists and many other researchers in the latest global climate assessment report provide new levels of certainty about what the future holds for the planet 

ORNL’s Sergei Kalinin and Rama Vasudevan (foreground) use scanning probe microscopy to study bulk ferroelectricity and surface electrochemistry -- and generate a lot of data. Credit: Jason Richards/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

At the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, scientists use artificial intelligence, or AI, to accelerate the discovery and development of materials for energy and information technologies.

Verónica Melesse Vergara speaks with third and fourth graders at East Side Intermediate School in Brownsville. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Twenty-seven ORNL researchers Zoomed into 11 middle schools across Tennessee during the annual Engineers Week in February. East Tennessee schools throughout Oak Ridge and Roane, Sevier, Blount and Loudon counties participated, with three West Tennessee schools joining in.