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Simon Pallin

A scientist that sings opera and performs in musical theater? Sure. If you're a Renaissance Man like Simon Pallin. Pallin is a researcher in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Buildings Technologies Research & Integration Center. But his early interests and activities reveal a versatile person that could have chosen a number of occupations.

The image above shows the chain of the studied calcium isotopes. The “doubly magic” isotopes with mass numbers 40 (Ca-40) and 48 (Ca-48) exhibit equal charge radii. The first measurement of the charge radius in Ca-52 yielded an unexpectedly large result.

For decades nuclear physicists have tried to learn more about which elements, or their various isotopes, are “magic.” This is not to say that they display supernatural powers. Magic atomic nuclei are composed of “magic” numbers of protons and neutrons—collectively called nucleons—such as 2, 8, 20, and 28.

In conventional, low-temperature superconductivity (left), so-called Cooper pairing arises from the presence of an electron Fermi sea. In the pseudogap regime of the cuprate superconductors (right), parts of the Fermi sea are “dried out” and the charge-ca
When physicists Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Muller discovered the first high-temperature superconductors in 1986, it didn’t take much imagination to envision the potential technological benefits of harnessing such materials.
Fernanda Foertter
Fernanda Foertter, a user support specialist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, considers herself a tinkerer. Foertter’s tinkering started when she was a child, but her innate inquisitiveness still influences her work at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing...
An illustration of the dopamine transporter in its outward- (left) and inward-opening (right) state. Note that the inward opening has brought about an outward closing and change in the number of water molecules (blue, pink spheres) inside and outside the

In an era of instant communication, perhaps no message-passing system is more underappreciated than the human body. Underlying each movement, each mood, each sight, sound, or smell, an army of specialized cells called neurons relays signals that register in the brain and connect us to our environment.

Illustration shows the one dimensional Yb ion chain in the quantum magnet Yb2Pt2Pb. The Yb orbitals are depicted as the iso-surfaces, and the green arrows indicate the antiferromagnetically aligned Yb magnetic moments.
A new study by a multi-institutional team, led by researchers from Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University, has revealed exotic magnetic properties in a rare-earth based intermetallic compound. Similar studies suggest a better understanding of those types of behavio...
A simulation of combustion within two adjacent gas turbine combustors. GE researchers are incorporating advanced combustion modeling and simulation into product testing after developing a breakthrough methodology on the OLCF’s Titan supercomputer.

In the United States, the use of natural gas for electricity generation continues to grow. The driving forces behind this development? A boom in domestic natural gas production, historically low prices, and increased scrutiny over fossil fuels’ carbon emissions. Though coal still acco...

Department of Energy national lab researchers found strain dramatically influences low-temperature oxygen electrocatalysis on perovskite oxides, enhancing bifunctional activity essential for fuel cells and metal–air batteries.

Catalysts make chemical reactions more likely to occur. In most cases, a catalyst that’s good at driving chemical reactions in one direction is bad at driving reactions in the opposite direction. However, a research team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory ...

A 3D structure of the HIV-1 protease in cartoon representation with bound clinical drug darunavir (shown as sticks).
A team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutron analysis to better understand a protein implicated in the replication of HIV, the retrovirus that causes AIDS. The enzyme, known as HIV-1 protease, is a key drug target for HIV and AIDS therapies. &nbs...
The silo-shaped tower for the 25-megavolt Tandem Electrostatic Accelerator also serves as an ORNL landmark.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory's 25-megavolt Tandem Electrostatic Accelerator received an opportunity for one last hurrah in a series of experiments that ended in late March, nearly four years after the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam (RIB) Facility at the Department of Energy national l...