Gashostage.com

Two remarkable pulsed-power machines used to test the nation’s defenses against atomic weapons have surpassed milestones at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories: 4,000 firings, called ‘shots,’ on the Saturn accelerator and 9,000 shots on the HERMES III accelerator.

A thin film of water more quickly solidifies gaseous carbon dioxide, according to scientists at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who are studying underground storage of the common pollutant.

Neutron scattering studies of “cobalt blue,” a compound prized by artists for its lustrous blue hue, are revealing unique magnetic characteristics that could answer questions about mysterious properties in other materials.

DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory broke ground in August on a $34.5 million Advanced Protein Crystallization Facility (APCF) that will enable scientists from Illinois and around the world to produce, purify and characterize a wide range of proteins more rapidly and have a critical role in the development of important medical therapies.

A group of scientists recently sandwiched two non-magnetic materials together and discovered a startling result: The layer where the two materials meet has both magnetic and superconducting regions’two properties that normally can’t co-exist.

A project that began a decade ago to enhance radioactive waste operations has led Dr. David Hobbs into a variety of new fields, with exciting results.