Top Story Archive
Russian capabilities benefit the hydrogen economy
The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has brokered a cooperative partnership between a U.S. firm, a Russian Institute and its scientists for commercialization of a miniature hydrogen gas sensor with improved reliability and response time. Such a device will provide added safety, detection capability and efficiency to a variety of applications industry-wide.
12.13.2006
Night of the living enzyme
Inactive enzymes entombed in tiny honeycomb-shaped holes in silica can spring to life, scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found.
11.28.2006
Biofuel cells without the bio cells
Proteins keep cells humming. Some are enzymes that taxi electrons to chemicals outside the cell, to discharge excess energy generated during metabolism. This maintains energy flow in the cell and, in turn, keeps the cell alive.
10.17.2006
Research to illuminate inner workings of 'protein nanomachines'
Development of new instrumentation and methods for studying the molecular mechanisms of enzymes are the goals of a three-year, $1.5 million contract awarded to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory by the Department of Energy's energy biosciences program.
10.5.2006
An infectious agent of deception, exposed through proteomics
Salmonella bacteria, infamous for food poisoning that kills hundreds of thousands worldwide, infect by stealth. They slip unnoticed into and multiply inside macrophages, the very immune system cells the body relies on to seek and destroy invading microbes.
9.29.2006
Uniform Tungsten Trimers Stand and Deliver
Like tiny nano-soldiers on parade, the cyclic tungsten trioxide clusters line up molecule-by-molecule on the titanium dioxide platform. One tungsten atom from each cluster is raised slightly, holding forth the potential to execute catalytic reactions.
9.15.2006
New computer model concept could solve big, real-world problems on a small, porous scale
The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory today was awarded a Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing, or SciDAC, grant to develop a computer model that can simulate biogeochemical processes on multiple scales. This computational advancement would enable researchers to make more accurate predictions of the movement and fate of contaminants in groundwater so that appropriate cleanup and human safety measures can be applied to the problem.
9.7.2006
Uranium 'pearls' before slime
Since the discovery a little more than a decade ago of bacteria that chemically modify and neutralize toxic metals without apparent harm to themselves, scientists have wondered how on earth these microbes do it.
8.7.2006
New research offers "green" technology for perchlorate removal
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have demonstrated a new, environmentally friendly process for treating water contaminated by perchlorate, a toxic chemical that has been found in drinking water in 35 states.
7.21.2006
Live Wires
When Yuri Gorby discovered that a microbe which transforms toxic metals can sprout tiny electrically conductive wires from its cell membrane, he reasoned this anatomical oddity and its metal-changing physiology must be related.
7.10.2006
You scream, I scream...there's something in my ice cream!
Looks like ice cream. Smells like ice cream. But does it sound like ice cream? A new ultrasonic technology could tell ice cream manufacturers if foreign objects have fallen into their tasty product before customers find them at the bottom of their cones. It could also be used in quality assurance of other food process streams.
6.21.2006
High-flying satellites give land managers the low-down on cheatgrass
Cheatgrass, a fast-growing, fire-fueling weed, has met its match.
6.15.2006
'Mercury sponge' technology goes from lab to market
A material designed to capture and remove mercury and other toxic substances from industrial waste streams is now available for commercial use.
5.23.2006
New century of thirst for world's mountains
By the century's end, the Andes in South America will have less than half their current winter snowpack, mountain ranges in Europe and the U.S. West will have lost nearly half of their snow-bound water and snow on New Zealand's picturesque snowcapped peaks will all but have vanished.
5.18.2006
Buckyballs make room for gilded cages
Scientists have uncovered a class of gold atom clusters that are the first known metallic hollow equivalents of the famous hollow carbon fullerenes known as buckyballs.
5.15.2006
A biosensor layered like lasagna
In a mixing of pasta metaphors, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists have used electrostatic attraction to layer reactive biological molecules lasagna-like around spaghetti-like carbon nanotubes.
The configuration can accommodate a wide range of applications, from ultra-precise blood-sugar monitoring to infectious-agent detection, said Yuehe Lin, who led the research at the Department of Energy campus' W.R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory.
4.28.2006
From Europa to the lab, a new recipe for oxygen on icy moons
Some may be surprised to learn that bleach-blondes and the enabler of life elsewhere in our solar system have something in common. And, no, it's not intelligence. It is, in fact, hydrogen peroxide.
3.27.2006
New coating protects steel and superalloys
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a new ceramic-based coating for steel and superalloys that prevents corrosion, oxidation, carburization and sulfidation that commonly occur in gas, liquid, steam and other hostile environments.
3.22.2006
New nano-canary in the nanotoxicology coalmine: the body itself
There is growing consensus among scientists, regulators, politicians, industry and the public that we need to know more about the possible harmful or adverse effects of nanoparticles on human health.
2.17.2006
Haze dynasty
China has darkened over the past half-century. Where has all the sunshine gone? The usual suspect, at least to a climatologist, would be cloud cover.
1.25.2006