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Seeing the difference Ac-225 could make to cancer patients made Raina Setzer want to come to ORNL to directly work with the isotope. Credit: Allison Peacock/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Raina Setzer knows the work she does matters. That’s because she’s already seen it from the other side. Setzer, a radiochemical processing technician in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Isotope Processing and Manufacturing Division, joined the lab in June 2023.

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In response to a renewed international interest in molten salt reactors, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a novel technique to visualize molten salt intrusion in graphite.

Sarah Walters portrait

Walters is working with a team of geographers, linguists, economists, data scientists and software engineers to apply cultural knowledge and patterns to open-source data in an effort to document and report patterns of human movement through previously unstudied spaces.

red and green sphagnum moss

A type of peat moss has surprised scientists with its climate resilience: Sphagnum divinum is actively speciating in response to hot, dry conditions. 

Sam Hollifield displays a prototype of the Secure Hijack, Intrusion and Exploit Layered Detector, or SHIELD, the device monitoring the cybersecurity of the semi-truck. Credit: Lena Shoemaker/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

As vehicles gain technological capabilities, car manufacturers are using an increasing number of computers and sensors to improve situational awareness and enhance the driving experience.

When exposed to radiation, electrons produced within molten zinc chloride, or ZnCl2, can be observed in three distinct singly occupied molecular orbital states, plus a more diffuse, delocalized state. Credit: Hung H. Nguyen/University of Iowa

In a finding that helps elucidate how molten salts in advanced nuclear reactors might behave, scientists have shown how electrons interacting with the ions of the molten salt can form three states with different properties. Understanding these states can help predict the impact of radiation on the performance of salt-fueled reactors.

Mike Benson portrait

Mike Benson has spent the last 10 years using magnetic resonance imaging systems — much as you find in a hospital — to understand the fluid dynamics of flows around objects and even scaled replicas of cities. He aims to apply MRI scanning to

3d prnited lunar rover wheel based on a NASA design

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with NASA, are taking additive manufacturing to the final frontier by 3D printing the same kind of wheel as the design used by NASA for its robotic lunar rover, demonstrating the technology for specialized parts needed for space exploration.

ORNL’s Ben Sulman and Shannon Jones at a mangrove habitat in Port Aransas, Texas

To better understand important dynamics at play in flood-prone coastal areas, Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists working on simulations of Earth’s carbon and nutrient cycles paid a visit to experimentalists gathering data in a Texas wetland.

Susan Hubbard, ORNL’s deputy for science and technology and Quincy Quick, TSU’s associate vice president for Research and Sponsored Programs, sign a memorandum of understanding to strengthen research cooperation and provide diverse undergraduate students enriching educational research opportunities at the lab. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Tennessee State University have signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen research cooperation and provide diverse undergraduate students enriching educational research opportunities at the lab.