Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE)
Eight national labs streamline partnership agreements
February 27, 2012 5:43 pm | News | CommentsIntended to help cut red tape for business and startups wanting to do business with the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s research laboratories, the new Agreements for Commercializing Technology (ACT) program was recently launched as a third alternative to the two preceding options: signing a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) or a Work For Others (WFO) Agreement.
Lab partners with Native American carbon researchers
February 22, 2012 7:04 am | News | CommentsResearchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a team of American Indian scientists and engineers have partnered to study the possible use of Black Earth technology, or Cpryo, to help mitigate the uptake of radiocesium in locally grown foods in the Marshall Islands.
Extreme summer temperatures occur more frequently
February 16, 2012 5:03 am | News | CommentsExtreme summer temperatures are already occurring more frequently in the United States, and will become normal by mid-century if the world continues on a business-as-usual schedule of emitting greenhouse gases, according to a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory study.
Putting the squeeze on planets outside our solar system
February 12, 2012 4:59 pm | by Anne M. Stark | News | CommentsIn recent research using high-powered lasers, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-led team has discovered that just as graphite can transform into diamond under high pressure, liquid magmas may similarly undergo major transformations at the pressures and temperatures that exist deep inside Earth-like planets. The findings provide a potential blueprint for planet formation.
Scientists help define structure of exoplanets
February 1, 2012 4:26 am | News | CommentsUsing models similar to those used in weapons research, scientists may soon know more about exoplanets, those objects beyond the realm of our solar system. In a new study, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and collaborators came up with new methods for deriving and testing the equation of state of matter in exoplanets and figured out the mass-radius and mass-pressure relations for materials relevant to planetary interiors.
Lab team develops new capability for atomistic simulations
January 27, 2012 3:31 am | News | CommentsConventional scientific wisdom says that the interatomic forces between ions that control high-temperature processes are insensitive to the heating of the electron "glue" that binds the ions together. In effect, traditional atomistic simulations ignore electron temperature completely. However, physicists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have shown how electron temperature has a surprisingly large impact on phase stability and melting in refractory transition metals.
In search of the dark sky
January 23, 2012 5:21 am | News | CommentsMost astrophysicists stare at the night sky and look at stars. But Lance Simms from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory looks at the blackness of night and knows there something else there. Simms has been working for a year on a NASA project called the Cosmic X-Ray Background Nanosatellite. The breadbox-sized satellite, set for an August launch, will gather X-ray data from the cosmos and beam it back to Earth.
Power generation is blowing in the wind
January 17, 2012 4:59 am | News | CommentsBy looking at the stability of the atmosphere, wind farm operators could gain greater insight into the amount of power generated at any given time. Power generated by a wind turbine largely depends on the wind speed. In a wind farm in which the turbines experience the same wind speeds but different shapes, such as turbulence, to the wind profile, a turbine will produce different amounts of power.
Team achieves breakthrough detecting nuclear materials
January 11, 2012 7:51 am | News | CommentsWhen a young man was advised to pursue a career in plastics in the 1967 movie, "The Graduate," people could not have envisioned one of the material's uses developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists. In a key discovery, a team of LLNL researchers has developed the first plastic material capable of efficiently distinguishing neutrons from gamma rays, something not thought possible for the past five decades or so.
Researchers gain microscopic understanding of nuclear fusion
January 5, 2012 3:49 am | News | CommentsLaboratory scientists have taken a crucial step toward describing thermonuclear reactions from first principles. Starting from a quantum mechanical system of five point-like nucleons and their mutual interactions, the team, for the first time, calculated within an ab initio framework, the cross sections for the deuterium-tritium and deuterium-3He fusion reactions.
Economy, Energy, and Entrepreneurship
December 15, 2011 4:13 am | by R&D Editors | Articles | CommentsFederally funded research can be a solution to some of the nation's top challenges, say government laboratory executives.
Economy, Energy, and Entrepreneurship: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
December 15, 2011 3:49 am | by R&D Editors | Articles | CommentsLawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Erik Stenehjem speaks on topics including funding, peer review, entrepreneurship, nanotechnology research, and communicating research missions in a social networking environment.
Livermore Lab ramps up wind energy research
December 14, 2011 5:01 am | News | CommentsAs the percentage of wind energy contributing to the power grid continues to increase, the variable nature of wind can make it difficult to keep the generation and the load balanced. But recent work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in conjunction with AWS Truepower, may help this balance through a project that alerts control room operators of wind conditions and energy forecasts so they can make well-informed scheduling decisions.
NIF achieves record ramp-compression pressures
December 12, 2011 9:55 am | News | CommentsIn the first university-based planetary science experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), researchers have gradually compressed a diamond sample to a record pressure of 50 Mbar (50 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure).
Proton beam experiments open new areas of research
December 5, 2011 3:34 am | News | CommentsBy focusing proton beams using high-intensity lasers, a team of scientists have discovered a new way to heat material and create new states of matter in the laboratory.
New names proposed for elements 114 and 116
December 1, 2011 3:17 am | News | CommentsThe International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recommended new proposed names for elements 114 and 116, the latest heavy elements to be added to the periodic table. Scientists of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-Dubna collaboration proposed the names are Flerovium for element 114 and Livermorium for element 116.
Separating signal and noise in climate warming
November 17, 2011 9:21 am | News | CommentsIn order to separate human-caused global warming from the "noise" of purely natural climate fluctuations, temperature records must be at least 17 years long, according to climate scientists. To address criticism of the reliability of thermometer records of surface warming, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists analyzed satellite measurements of the temperature of the lower troposphere and saw a clear signal of human-induced warming of the planet.
Americans using more fossil fuels
November 9, 2011 8:49 am | News | CommentsAmerican energy use went back up in 2010 compared to 2009, when consumption was at a 12-year low. The United States used more fossil fuels in 2010 than in 2009, while renewable electricity remained approximately constant, with an increase in wind power offset by a modest decline in hydroelectricity. There also was a significant increase in biomass consumption, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Tool clears the air on cloud simulations
October 26, 2011 6:12 am | News | CommentsClimate models have a hard time representing clouds accurately because they lack the spatial resolution necessary to accurately simulate the billowy air masses. But Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and international collaborators have developed a new tool that will help scientists better represent the clouds observed in the sky in climate models.
LLNL to collaborate with industry in advancing clean energy technology
October 25, 2011 8:55 am | News | CommentsLawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) issued a call to energy businesses of all sizes for proposals to collaborate with LLNL teams of experts in advancing energy technology through the use of high performance computing (HPC).
Team helps measure femtosecond pulses of X-ray free electron
October 21, 2011 7:49 am | News | CommentsAn international team has measured, for the first time, the spatial and temporal coherence of a single femtosecond X-ray pulse generated by the first hard X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL), the Linac Coherent Light Source, at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
Energy that drives the stars comes closer to Earth
October 20, 2011 4:01 am | News | CommentsHeavy-ion fusion, a special approach to creating fusion for electrical power production, has long been the choice of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory accelerator physicists. Now the near prospect of "burn and gain" at the National Ignition Facility, plus a forthcoming National Academies report on inertial confinement fusion energy, have spurred new interest in heavy-ion fusion.
LLNL, Loyola win NIH grant to develop anthrax vaccine
October 10, 2011 9:07 am | News | CommentsLawrence Livermore National Laboratory, working with Loyola University, has won a $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to help develop a new anthrax vaccine. The grant is the first major NIH-funded biodefense grant focused on LLNL's nanolipoprotein technology.
NIH acquires LLNL's bioAMS instrument
October 6, 2011 6:25 am | News | CommentsResearchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently received $3 million from the National Institutes of Health to acquire a new biomedical accelerator mass spectrometry (bioAMS) instrument. The instrument will provide faster analysis for medical and other biological research.
Scientists make near-instantaneous DNA analysis possible
October 5, 2011 5:14 am | News | CommentsPicture this: You've brought your sick child to the doctor's office. After checking her pulse and blood pressure, he takes a nasal or throat swab and inserts it into a mysterious black box. Before the doctor finishes his examination, the black box beeps, indicating that the pathogen that's making your child sick has been identified. This scenario is now closer to becoming a reality.
