Molecular-level studies of tension wood formation in poplars could ultimately fuel the discovery of biomass crops with thicker cell walls, less lignin and more cellulose that can be converted into ethanol. While typical poplar woody biomass is composed of about 45 percent cellulose, tension wood cel...
Changing the behavior of a material isn't big magic? it's nanoscale chemistry. Alejandro Lopez-Bezanilla used the computing power of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar supercomputer, America's fastest, to study the effects of adding oxygen, sulfur and hydrogen to nanoribbons made of boron nitri...
An upgrade is transforming Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar supercomputer, America's fastest, into Titan, a next-generation supercomputer that will employ the latest AMD Opteron central processing units as well as NVIDIA Tesla graphics processing units ? energy-efficient processors that accele...
By selectively applying different coatings, scientists have discovered they can influence the toxicity of particles on mouse cell lines from the lung and immune system. These findings, published in Langmuir, build on previous work that showed surface coatings can influence toxicity to bacteria. "The...
A clearer understanding of magnetic interactions in insulating materials can help in developing magnets for motors in electric vehicles and can enhance the performance of magnets in many other devices. Researchers expected that introducing atoms of a nonmagnetic material into a magnetic insulator wo...
Carbon trapped in the top few meters of permafrost soils across nearly 19 million square kilometers of northern regions could be released at a rate of about two to five times greater than previous estimates. This is the conclusion of 41 international scientists who publish on various aspects of perm...
Bronze and brass artifacts excavated at the ancient city of Petra have been imaged in three dimensions using neutrons at the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Neutron imaging allows archeologists and historians otherwise unobtainable insights into the manufacturing techniqu...
To comply with the mandate to increase the use of alternative fuels, the Coast Guard has enlisted the help of Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers with expertise in fuels and engines. "The Coast Guard has decided to use biobutanol rather than ethanol to mix with gasoline in their smaller craft,...
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor are getting a leg up in their research from an ingenious "low-tech" lighting tool using LEDs that, when fixed to their samples and pushed directly into the neutron beam, illuminate the response of layers of cyanobacteria to cha...
Cell death, or apoptosis, is a naturally occurring and necessary biological process. In apoptosis, the 92 amino acid BAX protein inserts itself into mitochondrial membranes