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Jacob McCulley

Jacob McCulley of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been named a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or  IEEE, one of the world’s largest technical professional 

top view of cicada wing

Over the past decade, teams of engineers, chemists and biologists have analyzed the physical and chemical properties of cicada wings, hoping to unlock the secret of their ability to kill microbes on contact. If this function of nature can be replicated by science, it may lead to products with inherently antibacterial surfaces that are more effective than current chemical treatments.

This map illustrates the natural climate variability that affects the cold-season climate of the Central Southwest Asian region. Credit: Moetasim Ashfaq/ORNL

As extreme weather devastates communities worldwide, scientists are using modeling and simulation to understand how climate change impacts the frequency and intensity of these events. Although long-term climate projections and models are important, they are less helpful for short-term prediction of extreme weather that may rapidly displace thousands of people or require emergency aid.

This illustration shows how the TFIIH protein complex changes its structure to execute different functions. The TFIIH subunits are colored as follows: XPD red, p62 blue, p44 orange, p34 green, p52 purple, p8 light grey, XPB pink; MAT1 and XPA are shown in yellow, and DNA is cyan. Credit: Chunli Yan/Georgia State University

Transcription factor IIH is a veritable workhorse among the protein complexes that regulate human cell activity, playing critical roles both in synthesizing DNA and in enabling DNA repair. But how can one protein assembly participate in two such vastly different jobs? A team of researchers led by chemistry professor Ivaylo Ivanov of Georgia State University used the Summit supercomputer at ORNL to tackle that question.

The cosmic web shown in detail with other critical components of the simulations including dark matter, gas, temperature and neutral hydrogen density. The last panel shows the absorption features of the Lyman-alpha forest. Image credit: Bruno Villasenor/UCSC

A research team from the University of California, Santa Cruz, have used the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s Summit supercomputer to run one of the most complete cosmological models yet to probe the properties of dark matter. 

An illustration shows how the composite is pressed into a seamless aluminum liner, which is then sealed with an aluminum powder cap. The research is sponsored by the DOE Isotope Program. Credit: Chris Orosco/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a method to simplify one step of radioisotope production — and it’s faster and safer.

Reuben Budiardja, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory computational scientist, worked with the early users who helped prepare Frontier, the world’s first exascale supercomputer, for scientific operations. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

With the world’s first exascale supercomputer now fully open for scientific business, researchers can thank the early users who helped get the machine up to speed.

3D supernova simulations

As a result of largescale 3D supernova simulations conducted on the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s Summit supercomputer by researchers from the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, astrophysicists now have the most complete picture yet of what gravitational waves from exploding stars look like. 

A new method to control quantum states in a material is shown. The electric field induces polarization switching of the ferroelectric substrate, resulting in different magnetic and topological states. Credit: Mina Yoon, Fernando Reboredo, Jacquelyn DeMink/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

An advance in a topological insulator material — whose interior behaves like an electrical insulator but whose surface behaves like a conductor — could revolutionize the fields of next-generation electronics and quantum computing, according to scientists at ORNL.

CFM’s RISE open fan engine architecture. Image: GE Aerospace

To support the development of a revolutionary new open fan engine architecture for the future of flight, GE Aerospace has run simulations using the world’s fastest supercomputer capable of crunching data in excess of exascale speed, or more than a quintillion calculations per second.