Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists identified a gene “hotspot” in the poplar tree that triggers dramatically increased root growth. The discovery supports development of better bioenergy crops and other plants that can thrive in difficult conditions while storing more carbon belowground.
ORNL’s Fulvia Pilat and Karren More recently participated in the inaugural 2023 Nanotechnology Infrastructure Leaders Summit and Workshop at the White House.
In June, ORNL hit a milestone not seen in more than three decades: producing a production-quality amount of plutonium-238
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.
How did we get from stardust to where we are today? That’s the question NASA scientist Andrew Needham has pondered his entire career.
Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory successfully created amorphous ice, similar to ice in interstellar space and on icy worlds in our solar system. They documented that its disordered atomic behavior is unlike any ice on Earth.
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.
On Feb. 18, the world will be watching as NASA’s Perseverance rover makes its final descent into Jezero Crater on the surface of Mars. Mars 2020 is the first NASA mission that uses plutonium-238 produced at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
A better way of welding targets for Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s plutonium-238 production has sped up the process and improved consistency and efficiency. This advancement will ultimately benefit the lab’s goal to make enough Pu-238 – the isotope that powers NASA’s deep space missions – to yield 1.5 kilograms of plutonium oxide annually by 2026.
In the race to identify solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are joining the fight by applying expertise in computational science, advanced manufacturing, data science and neutron science.