*Berkeley Lab Researchers Develop New Infrared Coating for Windows*
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have unveiled a semiconductor nanocrystal coating material capable of controlling heat from the sun while remaining transparent. Based on electrochromic materials, which use a jolt of electric charge to tint a clear window, this breakthrough technology is the first to selectively control the amount of near infrared radiation. This radiation, which leads to heating, passes through the film without affecting its visible transmittance. Such a dynamic system could add a critical energy-saving dimension to “smart window” coatings. (more…)
*Berkeley Lab Researchers Show How Loss of Bone Quality Also a Major Factor*
It is a well-established fact that as we grow older our bones become more brittle and prone to fracturing. It is also well established that loss of mass is a major reason for older bones fracturing more readily than younger bones, hence medical treatments have focused on slowing down this loss. However, new research from scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) shows that at microscopic dimensions, the age-related loss of bone quality can be every bit as important as the loss of quantity in the susceptibility of bone to fracturing. (more…)
*New computer modeling study, led by a Berkeley Lab scientist, could help revise understanding of permafrost’s role in global warming*
Billions of tons of carbon trapped in high-latitude permafrost may be released into the atmosphere by the end of this century as the Earth’s climate changes, further accelerating global warming, a new computer modeling study indicates.
The study also found that soil in high-latitude regions could shift from being a sink to a source of carbon dioxide by the end of the 21st century as the soil warms in response to climate change. (more…)
*Berkeley Lab researchers are leaders in an international effort to close in on neutrino mass*
Some of the most intriguing questions in basic physics focus on neutrinos. How much do the different kinds weigh and which is the heaviest? The answers lie in how the three “flavors” of neutrinos – electron, muon, and tau neutrinos – oscillate or mix, changing from one to another as they race virtually without interruption through unbounded reaches of matter and space.
Three mathematical terms known as “mixing angles” described the process, and the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment has just begun taking data to establish the last, least-known mixing angle to unprecedented precision. China and the United States lead the international Daya Bay Collaboration, including participants from Russia, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. U.S. participation is led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). (more…)
*Berkeley Lab scientists join their KamLAND colleagues to measure the radioactive sources of Earth’s heat flow*
What spreads the sea floors and moves the continents? What melts iron in the outer core and enables the Earth’s magnetic field? Heat. Geologists have used temperature measurements from more than 20,000 boreholes around the world to estimate that some 44 terawatts (44 trillion watts) of heat continually flow from Earth’s interior into space. Where does it come from?
Radioactive decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium in Earth’s crust and mantle is a principal source, and in 2005 scientists in the KamLAND collaboration, based in Japan, first showed that there was a way to measure the contribution directly. The trick was to catch what KamLAND dubbed geoneutrinos – more precisely, geo-antineutrinos – emitted when radioactive isotopes decay. (KamLAND stands for Kamioka Liquid-scintillator Antineutrino Detector.) (more…)
To tally the energy consumption of a city, the usual method is to add up all the energy used by residents—when they drive their car or turn on the air-conditioning—plus all the energy consumed by commercial buildings and industries in their day-to-day operations. But how should one account for the energy that went into building the office park where people work or paving the roads that people drive? And what about the energy required to make the clothes they are wearing? (more…)
An international team of scientists led by groups from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany, and from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley has used ultrashort flashes of laser light to directly observe the movement of an atom’s outer electrons for the first time.
Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have obtained the closest look yet of how a gargantuan molecular machine breaks down unwanted proteins in cells, a critical housekeeping chore that helps prevent diseases such as cancer.
