The Science Proton transfer is central to numerous important systems, from biology to energy storage. Probing the details of proton transfer reactions can provide insight into how to control these processes. Combining experimental and theoretical …
Jingshan Du and Shuai Zhang, materials scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), were part of a team that co-edited a special issue of MRS Advances. The issue was inspired by a symposium co-organized by four of the co-editors at the …
Finding a needle in a haystack is the quintessentially impossible task. But what if new tools could make it straightforwardly achievable? Imagine if, instead of searching through everything by hand, you could portion out small piles of hay and use magnets. …
RICHLAND, Wash. —An electric vehicle manufacturer, two schools and two Alaskan villages: these are just some of the organizations using wind turbines to help meet their energy needs. For the last eight months, researchers from the Department of Energy’s …
The Science Skillful predictions of tropical cyclone (TC) activity on subseasonal time scales (7–60 days) may help mitigate their destructive impacts. As the dominant component of intraseasonal (30–90 days) variability in the tropical atmosphere, the …
An office worker sitting in a cubicle under an LED light mounted in the ceiling shouts to no one in particular, “That flicker is giving me a headache!” The office worker one cube over says, “You don’t know what you’re talking about! The light is fine!” …
The Science Earth system models (ESMs), used in climate simulations and projections, typically use grids of 50–200 km resolution. These are considered relatively coarse with limited ability to resolve land surface variability. To enhance the capability of …
The term “barren plateaus” suggests an empty, deserted, and flat landscape. This term is used in quantum computing to describe a phenomenon where a class of tunable quantum models exhibit a vast and barren landscape of appropriate models for a given …
The Science During Cold War-era plutonium production at what is now the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington State, aluminum was used extensively as fuel cladding material. The waste products generated by fuel processing are currently stored …
Kevin Rosso, a chemist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), has been elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Rosso joins 53 scientists named in the 2024 class, who will be honored in December at AGU24 in Washington, DC. “I’ve …
RICHLAND, Wash.—After thousands of years as a highly valuable commodity, silk continues to surprise. Now it may help usher in a whole new direction for microelectronics and computing. While silk protein has been deployed in designer electronics, its use is …
In the drive toward clean and reliable energy goals, the ocean offers potential for power generation from waves, tides, ocean currents, and temperature and salinity gradients. Yet there are lingering questions and data gaps around the potential …
The Science Hurricanes rapidly cool the sea surface by mixing cooler, deep waters with warmer surface waters. The upper-ocean temperature and distribution of nutrients are significantly altered in the aftermath of these large weather events—this is known …
The Science The Delaware River Basin, a coastal watershed in the Mid-Atlantic region, has a long history of severe flooding with significant socioeconomic impacts. This research uses a process-based modeling approach to analyze hydrometeorological (like …
Researchers have used computational techniques to advance scientific discovery since the earliest days of computing. Now, scientific research is experiencing another leap forward with the intersection of high-performance computing, artificial intelligence …
RICHLAND, Wash.—If all the high-voltage transmission currently under construction and in advanced stages of permitting is built by 2030 in the Western United States—enabling the construction of new renewable energy projects—carbon dioxide emissions in the …
The Science Potential fusion power plants require materials capable of withstanding extreme conditions. Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steel represents a top candidate material, but current production is labor and cost intensive. Researchers combined …
The Science Researchers studied the behavior of lithium silicates under ion irradiation at high temperatures to emulate the conditions after one year inside the SlimCS DEMO fusion reactor. They first fabricated pellets of lithium orthosilicate (Li4SiO4) …
Staff at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Jonathan Forman, Raul Aranzazu, and George Bonheyo recently traveled to Cyprus to facilitate a multilateral workshop on chemical forensics investigations. The workshop, titled Saharan Fox, was hosted by …
In the wake of technological advances like higher-resolution imagery and artificial intelligence, what does the future of aviation security look like? How can science and technology improve the traveler experience while reducing risk? This was the focus of …
