Number 261

Sandia researchers predict worldwide water shortage in Nature article

By 2025 more than half the nations in the world will face freshwater stress or shortages. By 2050 up to 75 percent of the world’s population could face freshwater scarcity, according to Sandia National Laboratories water experts Mike Hightower and Suzanne Pierce in an article published in Nature. Freshwater withdrawals already exceed precipitation in many parts of the U.S., frequently in areas with the greatest population growth, such as the Southwest. Solutions will involve all water sources — more than just freshwater supplies — and require innovative treatments, such as those using advanced membrane separation technologies, applied to nontraditional water sources such as wastewater and seawater.

[Chris Burroughs, 505/844-0948,
coburro@sandia.gov]

New software HUSTLEs to identify proteins

SVM-HUSTLE identifies up to 50 percent more homologous proteins than other methods.

As the mass of proteomics data continues to grow, the challenge of discovering what job a specific protein does also increases. Scientists have effective tools for identifying proteins that are similar in function and composition, or sequence. But it is far more difficult to detect remote homologs, proteins with similar function but largely dissimilar sequence. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed software that outperforms current methods for remote homolog identification. SVM-HUSTLE was created under the laboratory's Data-Intensive Computing Initiative and DOE's Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research Bio-Pilot project. It can be downloaded without charge. The research was published in the March issue of Bioinformatics.

[Judith Graybeal, 509/375-4351,
graybeal@pnl.gov]

Brains in the beamline

Uwe Bergmann and Helen Nichol position human brain slices for rapid scanning.

From X-rays to MRIs, advances in physics have been instrumental in improving human health. A new imaging technique developed at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) may represent the next big advance for biological imaging. The new method, called biological rapid scanning or X-ray fluorescence (XRF) imaging, uses the intense X-rays to reveal the identities of trace elements in a scanned sample. Currently being used to study neurodegenerative diseases, the technique is an advance over earlier microprobe X-ray analysis because it's very fast, scanning in one hour what used to take nearly 12 days to scan. XRF imaging provides lower resolution than microprobe analysis, but its speed makes it practical for the first time large samples—such as the human brain—are scanned.

[Kelen Tuttle, 650/926-2585,
kelen.tuttle@slac.stanford.edu]

Microbes may hold biofuel secret

Last October a team of researchers from DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory went to Yellowstone National Park in search of "superbugs." Now a  batch of microbes is stockpiled in dozens of bottles of silt, rocks and soils, collected from the same hot springs that draw throngs of summertime visitors. Yellowstone's warm waters offer the promise of microbes that can rapidly and efficiently degrade cellulosethe woody, leafy matter that makes up plants. Scientists hope to tap the power of these microbes for industrial-scale consolidated bioprocessing of plants, including trees and switchgrass, the species central to research efforts at ORNL's BioEnergy Science Center.

[Bll Cabage, 865/574-4399,
cabagewh@ornl.gov]

SRNL’s Joe Cordaro:
Coulometry on the go

Joe Cordaro

A staple in the NNSA complex is precision gas analysis, and a key tool in that work is the high-resolution mass spectrometer. Enter the Network of Senior Scientists and Engineers, whose current chairman is Joe Cordaro of DOE's Savannah River National Laboratory. 

Joe is no stranger to this machinery. He’s recognized across the DOE complex and internationally as an expert in nuclear instrumentation, process control and high speed data acquisition.

NSSE work plus his regular assignments keep him on the go.  “Seventy percent of my work this year is outside of Savannah River,” he says. “The NSSE spearheaded a collaboration in mass spectrometry, SRNL is now upgrading equipment at Pantex and SRS. There’s going to be more work in upgrading the electronics in similar legacy equipment that the vendors don’t support any more.”

Another focus for Joe is coulometry, not only for SRS, but also in Japan and the IAEA. He and a colleague developed an automated controlled potential coulometer for the measurement of plutonium, independent of certified reference material. 

“A major NSSE initiative now is a collaboration on short-range wireless sensors for new facilities, which may save taxpayers millions of dollars,” he says.

Joe joined SRS after graduating from State University of New York in Buffalo in both electrical and computer engineering and is now an advisory engineer at SRNL. He has numerous publications and nine inventions, including one patent and one pending. The pending one is for an electrometer that can accurately measure 1 femto-amp.

“The most rewarding aspect for me in coulometry and mass spectrometry is the ability to blend electrical engineering with physics and chemistry,” he says. “It’s even more exciting to help tie together common needs and solutions for NNSA sites.”

Submitted by DOE's Savannah River National Laboratory

DOE Pulse highlights work being done at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. DOE's laboratories house world-class facilities where more than 30,000 scientists and engineers perform cutting-edge research spanning DOE's science, energy, national security and environmental quality missions. DOE Pulse is distributed every two weeks. For more information, please contact Jeff Sherwood (jeff.sherwood
@hq.doe.gov, 202-586-5806)