Archived Features for 2012

For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to the resources listed below or to one of our Media Contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to news@ornl.gov.

 
RSICC marks its 50th year
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 9, 2012 — One of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's longest-running institutions, the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC), has its golden anniversary in November. To celebrate the Laboratory hosted a recognition ceremony on October 9 with Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Peter Lyons keynoting the event.

SNS researchers overcome the freezing sample problem in biostudies
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sep. 13, 2012 — Researchers at the Spallation Neutron Source BASIS beam line at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have successfully developed a method to study biomolecules (proteins) at temperatures far below freezing using a lithium chloride preparation in the aqueous solvent that prevents freezing.

Ramgen Simulates Shock Waves, Makes Shock Waves Across Energy Spectrum
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 17, 2012 — One of the most pressing scientific challenges facing the United States and the world is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Compounding that challenge is the fact that power plants burning fossil fuels account for more than 40 percent of the world's energy-related CO2 emissions and will continue to dominate the supply of electricity until the middle of the century. There is an urgent need for cost-effective methods to capture and store their carbon emissions.

Mars 'Curiosity' has ORNL tech
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 6, 2012 — Editor's note: With the successful landing of the Mars Curiosity probe, we are reprising and updating from last November this feature on ORNL's role in the U.S. space exploration mission.

Bioenergy boost
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 1, 2012 — With the recent completion of upgrades to its steam plant, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory may be setting the pace for large physical plants that can use a renewable source of feedstock for energy.

Fishing for answers
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 26, 2012 — Harnessing the power of water currents has never been easy, but predicting how hydrokinetic energy conversion will affect fish is an even tougher task. Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are trying to do just that.

Kudzu crusade
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 9, 2012 — A controlled burn licked its way across 42 acres on the Oak Ridge Reservation as Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Natural Resources Management Team completed another step towards eliminating kudzu, an invasive exotic species that had overtaken the area.

Peering into protein dynamics
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 27, 2012 — Two post docs and a doctoral student donned safety glasses and put their arms into a high purity, inert atmosphere glove box recently, to prepare protein samples for neutron scattering on the Cold Neutron Chopper Spectrometer (CNCS) at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the Deparatment of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

100 rounds
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 15, 2012 — One of ORNL's most celebrated "trash to treasure" projects is observing a centennial. The Laboratory's Nuclear Medicine Program is in its 100th campaign of thorium-229 and actinium-225 processing, which provides radioisotopes for medical uses that include cancer treatment.

Far beyond cookware
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 6, 2012 — Corning is not just your mother's white and blue cooking and baking dishes anymore, a research project recently at the VULCAN instrument at the Spallation Neutron Source illustrates.

Establishing standards
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 23, 2012 — In the world of international manufacturing standards, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Wayne Manges knows that his efforts are making a difference that saves money, jobs and lives.

'Where atoms are, and what they do'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 23, 2012 — A 100-million-year old fossil from Antarctica's tropical age, revealed by neutron imaging, fascinated participants at the "Neutron Scattering for Novices" workshop at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), held May 16.

Transformers
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 8, 2012 — Shape-memory alloys (SMAs) are an engineer's dream, able to shape-shift spontaneously to accommodate changing operating conditions. A research team from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the University of Central Florida is studying the internal mechanisms of these real-life "Transformers" at the Spallation Neutron Source at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with an eye toward increasing their use in everyday scenarios.

ORNL biologist 'looks for life in all the wrong places'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 26, 2012 — A scientist finds himself two miles below ground in a gold mine in Africa

Half-century of science
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 18, 2012 — Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility (HRIBF) operations have ended in style, with researchers scurrying to complete three exciting experiments before the program's last day on April 15. The final day was initially scheduled for April 1, but the user program received a two-week "reprieve" to finish the three experiments.

Energy development at U.S. dams could power more than 4 million homes
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 18, 2012 — In a study of the energy-producing potential of untapped U.S. dams, Oak

Carbon dioxide caused global warming at Ice Age's end, pioneering simulation shows
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 4, 2012 — Climate science has an equivalent to the "what came first—the chicken or the egg?" question: What came first, greenhouse gases or global warming? A multi-institutional team led by researchers at Harvard, Oregon State University, and the University of Wisconsin used a global dataset of paleoclimate records and the Jaguar supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to find the answer (spoiler alert: carbon dioxide drives warming). The results, published in the April 5 issue of Nature, analyze 15,000 years of climate history. Scientists hope amassing knowledge of the causes of natural global climate change will aid understanding of human-caused climate change.

'Cow-laboration'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., April 2, 2012 — Martha, a cow placidly grazing in a field in The Netherlands, became an important collaborator with researchers who successfully analyzed and characterized the internal protein structure and the composite particles of her milk using small-angle neutron scattering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR).

'Bridging the Gap'
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 28, 2012 — With a dozen licenses and cooperative research and development agreements since Oct. 1, business is flourishing in Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Science and Technology Partnerships Directorate. One of the forces behind the bustle is Bridging the Gap, which kicked off just one year ago with a two-day conference that attracted 65 attendees.

Five ORNL teams target new technologies for societal impact
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 23, 2012 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory has selected five projects for its inaugural

Performing under pressure
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 14, 2012 — Imagine a robot sent out on the prowl on this energy hungry planet looking for methane, the principal component of what we call "natural gas" and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth.

POWGEN workshop nets Ph.D. student a paper in scientific journal
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 7, 2012 — A young Oregon State University graduate student has successfully turned her participation in a two-day POWGEN Neutron Diffraction workshop at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) into a published paper in the Journal of Solid State Chemistry.

Climate Scientists Compute in Concert
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 27, 2012 — Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are sharing computational resources

Computer Scientists Collect Computing Tools for Next-Generation Machines
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 14, 2012 — Researchers using the OLCF's resources can foresee substantial changes in their scientific

ORNL offers mentors, working space for students to build robots
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 9, 2012 — Students from eight local high schools will work hand in hand with ORNL

When worlds collide
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 6, 2012 — If the sun is anything, it is reassuring. It rises, sets, and rises again, allowing us to grow crops, get tan, and power homes, just to name a few of humanity's most important life-sustaining functions. No wonder it was considered a deity by countless ancient civilizations.

Between a rock and a hard place: Searching for a solid that flows like a liquid
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 2, 2012 — A series of neutron scattering experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other research centers is exploring the key question about a long-sought quantum state of matter called supersolidity: Does it exist?

Journal special issue features 6 ORNL collaborations
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 30, 2012 — Six neutron sciences research collaborations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are featured in "Dynamics of Water and Glass-Forming Liquids," a special issue of Journal of Physics Condensed Matter.

Fuel for fusion
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Jan. 5, 2012 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Fusion Pellet Fueling Lab has been at the center of design and testing of plasma fueling systems for tokamak research applications for decades. Since the mid-1970s, lab researchers have been designing, testing and contributing hardware for fusion magnetic confinement experiments here in the United States and around the world. As the US ITER project moves from design and testing of components to manufacturing, the lab is making prototypes for the ITER tokamak. ITER's "first plasma" is planned for around the close of this decade.