CommUnique: News from the DOE's Office of Science

US Department of Energy Office of Science sent this bulletin at 12/20/2021 04:29 PM EST

20 December 2021

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Meet Ilke Arslan, the Director of the Center for Nanoscale Materials

When Ilke Arslan received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2010, it turned out to be more than a milestone honor. The presidential award came with an opportunity to meet President Barack Obama and high-level government leaders of scientific agencies. At the time, Arslan was an assistant professor in the chemical engineering and materials science department at the University of California, Davis. The trip to Washington marked a career turning point.

NEWS CENTER

The Office of Science posted 65 science headlines and university and stakeholder news pieces between 12/7/21 and 12/20/21.

Forests are some of the planet’s most important carbon sinks. An international team of researchers led by DOE Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley found that global photosynthesis has risen by 12 percent from 1982 to 2020. While that has resulted in increased carbon storage, it is not enough to compensate for the overall increase in greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.

A life-cycle assessment of the amount of energy to produce French fries from field to plate revealed that improving how plants photosynthesize could help us use fewer inputs that depend on fossil fuels. Researchers at Michigan State University-DOE’s Plant Research Laboratory found that 80 times more energy is lost by the plants during photosynthesis than humans spend growing, shipping, and preparing French fries.

CRISPR technologies have quickly become the primary tools of bioengineering. With technology developed at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, it is now possible to detect the activity of CRISPR gene editing tools in organisms with the naked eye and an ultraviolet flashlight. This tool will help improve bioengineering processes.

An international team led by physicists at the University of California, Irvine has detected neutrino candidates produced by the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN facility in Switzerland for the first time. This study verifies where scientists should place equipment to detect these particles in future experiments.

Researchers at the DOE Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory have uncovered a new piece of a process that occurs in the swirling masses of plasma around black holes and neutron stars. This process – part of magnetic reconnection – causes unexplained emissions of light and heat as well as huge plumes of plasma. These findings can increase our basic understanding of fundamental astrophysical processes throughout the universe.

Switchgrass has the potential to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and store it underground. It is also a source of renewable biofuels. By studying the plant’s genetic structure, scientists at the University of Texas at Austin found that it is feasible for switchgrass to both have a large root system that is effective at storing carbon and large above-ground growth useful for biofuels.

SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

The Office of Science posted five new highlights between 12/7/2021 and 12/20/2021.

To understanding how drought, fire, warming, and increased human demand affects surface and subsurface waters, scientists require computer models that can represent complex environments. It’s especially difficult to make predictions about patterned land cover like those in Arctic permafrost landscapes. A team of scientists on several DOE-supported projects developed a new mathematical way for models to predict water runoff in these complex landscapes.

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IN THE NEWS

Nature: The science news that shaped 2021: Nature’s picks

The magazine lists 10 defining moments in science this past year, including the initial results from the Muon g-2 project at DOE’s Fermilab.

The Atlantic: We’re not at endemicity yet

This article covers how COVID-19 is not yet endemic, which would start when everyone has either been vaccinated or infected. It refers to a paper on how COVID spreads that has a co-author from DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

NPR: Climate change and city lights are tricking trees into growing leaves too soon

Trees in cities start to grow leaves and turn green six days earlier than their rural counterparts, according to a study from DOE’s Berkeley Lab.

BASIC TO BREAKTHROUGH

Energy Frontier Research Centers

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The Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) bring together creative, multidisciplinary teams to tackle the toughest scientific challenges that are posing barriers to improving energy technologies. Launched in 2009, there have been 88 EFRCs. Forty-one of them are currently active. The centers take advantage of powerful tools for characterizing, understanding, modeling, and manipulating matter on a variety of scales. They also train the next generation of scientists, providing support for their research and opportunities to communicate about their results. To read research highlights and features from the EFRCs, check out the EFRC newsletter and community website.

END NOTES

A Closer Look: DOE’s SBIR/STTR Programs

Photo of Hispanic man with text: Felipe Gomez, Founder & CEO, FGC Plasma Solutions

DOE’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs are devoted to helping small businesses conduct research and development. Funded projects support specific research needs to fulfill DOE’s mission. Although the DOE’s Office of Science manages the SBIR/STTR program, the research areas range from fundamental energy sciences to energy production. These grants are often essential to small businesses working to develop new technologies. Check out our series of videos that highlight the importance of SBIR/STTR to four small businesses: FGC Plasma Solutions, Giner, Creare Inc., and ClearlyEnergy. DOE also recently announced $54 million in funding through the latest SBIR call for applications.

CommUnique provides a review of recent Office of Science Communications and Public Affairs stories and features. This is only a sample of our recent work promoting research done at universities, national labs, and user facilities throughout the country.

Please see the CommUnique archive on Energy.gov for past issues.

No. 70: 20 December 2021