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New research predicts peak groundwater extraction for key basins around the globe by the year 2050. The map indicates groundwater storage trends for Earth’s 37 largest aquifers using data from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory GRACE satellite. Credit: NASA.

Groundwater withdrawals are expected to peak in about one-third of the world’s basins by 2050, potentially triggering significant trade and agriculture shifts, a new analysis finds. 

As a chemical engineer focusing on low-carbon energy sources like hydrogen, Cheekatamarla’s research at ORNL supports the deployment of clean energy technologies in buildings and industries. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Cheekatamarla is a researcher in the Multifunctional Equipment Integration group with previous experience in product deployment. He is researching alternative energy sources such as hydrogen for cookstoves and his research supports the decarbonization of building technologies. 

An international team using neutrons set the first benchmark (one nanosecond) for a polymer-electrolyte and lithium-salt mixture. Findings could produce safer, more powerful lithium batteries. Credit: Phoenix Pleasant/ORNL

An international team using neutrons set the first benchmark (one nanosecond) for a polymer-electrolyte and lithium-salt mixture. Findings could produce safer, more powerful lithium batteries.

ORNL postdoctoral research associate Alex Miloshevsky presents his novel research in quantum networks at the 2024 OFC conference.

ORNL was front and center recently at one of the world’s largest optical networking conferences, the 2024 Optic Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition, or OFC. ORNL researchers had major roles at the OFC 2024, a three-day event held in San Diego, California from March 26-28 which featured thousands of the world’s leading optical communications and networking professionals. 

ORNL’s Alexey Serov will serve as a deputy director of the R2R Consortium. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, US Department of Energy

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is providing national leadership in a new collaboration among five national laboratories to accelerate U.S. production of clean hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers.  

ORNL engineer Canan Karakaya uses computational modeling to design and improve chemical reactors and how they are operated to convert methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia or ethanol into higher-value chemicals or energy-dense fuels. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Canan Karakaya, a R&D Staff member in the Chemical Process Scale-Up group at ORNL, was inspired to become a chemical engineer after she experienced a magical transformation that turned ammonia gas into ammonium nitrate, turning a liquid into white flakes gently floating through the air. 

ORNL researchers developed a long-sequenced AI transformer capable of processing millions of pathology reports to provide experts researching cancer diagnoses and management with more accurate information on cancer reporting.

In partnership with the National Cancer Institute, researchers from ORNL and Louisiana State University developed a long-sequenced AI transformer capable of processing millions of pathology reports to provide experts researching cancer diagnoses and management with exponentially more accurate information on cancer reporting.

Fengqi “Frank” Li brings computational and architectural expertise to building energy modeling in ORNL’s Grid Interactive Controls group. Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Although he built his career around buildings, Fengqi “Frank” Li likes to break down walls. Li was trained as an architect, but he doesn’t box himself in. Currently he is working as a computational developer at ORNL. But Li considers himself a designer. To him, that’s less a box than a plane – a landscape scattered with ideas, like destinations on a map that can be connected in different ways. 

Anuj Kapadia

Anuj J. Kapadia, who heads the Advanced Computing Methods for Health Sciences Section at ORNL, has been elected as president of the Southeastern Chapter of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. 

New system combines human, artificial intelligence to improve experimentation

To capitalize on AI and researcher strengths, scientists developed a human-AI collaboration recommender system for improved experimentation performance.