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What's NewThe What's New page contains information about recent developments on Department of Energy (DOE) Research and Development (R&D) Accomplishments, including additions of Database reports, Snapshots, Featured Topics, and other related topics of interest. It is divided into general categories: Recently Added Features , Recently Added Database Reports, and Recently Added Laureates.
Recently Added FeaturesArthur Holly Compton was a professor at Washington University, studying the scattering of X-rays, when he discovered, in 1922, what has become known as the Compton effect, or Compton scattering. It is defined as the decrease in energy (increase in wavelength) of an X-ray or gamma ray photon, when it interacts with matter. Compton played a lead role at the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory during the Manhattan Project and also wrote a key letter at the beginning of the Project about establishing Site X in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. [added 8/2012] F. Sherwood Rowland shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for helping to discover that chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, used in hair spray, aerosol deodorants, air conditioners, and kitchen refrigerators was slowly destroying Earth’s ozone layer. CFCs were known for their considerable stability, which also allowed them to waft high into the atmosphere near the ozone layer. The researchers’ principal discovery was that the CFCs were thinning the ozone layer, without which plants and animals could not live on Earth’s surface. Moreover, the process would continue to get worse: CFCs were so hardy that they could linger in the air for 100 years. [added 6/2012] In his host-guest research, Donald Cram created synthetic host molecules that mimic some of the actions that enzymes perform in cells. Since 1970, he and his colleagues designed and prepared more than 1,000 hosts — each with unique chemical and physical properties. These molecules are designed to attract and bind — in other words, to serve as hosts — to specific guest molecules, which can be either organic molecules or inorganic ions. Twenty years after beginning work in host-guest chemistry, [a field he helped to create,] Cram won the Nobel Prize [in Chemistry] in 1987. [added 6/2012] Owen Chamberlain is most remembered for his role in the discovery of the antiproton in 1955, for which he shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in physics. The discovery of the antiproton, the mirror image counterpart to the proton in ordinary matter, was made possible through the combination of the Bevatron accelerator and a unique detector, designed by Chamberlain and his colleague, Clyde Wiegand, that was set off only by particles moving at the speed predicted for antiprotons. [added 5/2012] This year is the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Manhattan Project, a predecessor of the U.S. Department of Energy. In honor of its impacts on science and history, various aspects of its background, its establishment, its operations, and its immediate and long-term influences are highlighted in the Blog. [added 3/2012] Recently Added Database Reports
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