In 2007, when Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) researchers calculated that adding boron would bend carbon nanotubes, they did little with the information. Boron was one of several elements the computational scientists plugged into their model as they investigated ways to induce useful changes in nanotube structures. There were experiments to compare with the results [...]
Articles written by Thomas R. O'Donnell
About the Author
Thomas R. O'Donnell is senior science writer at the Krell Institute and a frequent contributor to DEIXIS.
September 2012
Kinky nanotubes
With the help of Oak Ridge computations, scientists are probing the properties of macroscale sponges made of nanoscale carbon-boron tubes. The material could soak up oil spills, help store energy or meet other needs.
August 2012
A passion for pressure
Plasmas are the purview of Livermore scientist and Computational Science Graduate Fellowship alumnus Jeffrey Hittinger. He works both sides of the fusion street – inertial confinement and magnetic confinement – while simulating aspects of these tremendously hot, fast-moving particle clouds.
March 2012
Prime-time punch
The mantis shrimp packs one of the strongest punches on Earth. Computational Science Graduate Fellow Michael Rosario is investigating the physics, design and material properties behind the crustacean’s prey-crunching wallop. His research has landed him on the National Geographic Wild channel.
September 2011
Boosting Berkeley Lab’s bacteria research
For one summer, Sarah Richardson postponed her work computerizing yeast genome research and probed bacteria instead. As part of her Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, Richardson served a 2009 practicum under Adam Arkin, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Physical Biosciences Division. She made important contributions to Arkin’s research into an RNA-based transcription [...]
October 2010
Seeing the invisible
Armed with computing power from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers are detailing the nature of dark matter surrounding a galaxy much like our own Milky Way.
Dark matter predictions put to test
Collisions in dark matter “clumps” should produce gamma rays, but a satellite looking for them has come up empty so far.
Parsing particle experiments
A detector suggested dark matter collisions, but no other test has seen similar signs.
June 2010
From Cuba to Cambridge by way of Miami
The former Computational Science Graduate Fellowship recipient escaped the communist regime with his family, then found a love of physics.
Forceful thinking
A quantum curiosity called the Casimir force gums up micro- and nanomachines. Work at MIT led by a newly minted alumnus of the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship suggests uses for the force – and ways around it.
Getting a grip on the grid
A PNNL team enlists new algorithms and powerful computers to quickly analyze which combinations of failures most threaten the power grid.
Grids grasp at multiple threads to block blackouts
A supercomputer’s unusual qualities make it a good fit with electric system problems.
March 2010
Putting catalysts on track
Computation and experimentation combine to improve and speed design of useful compounds.
December 2009
Breaking the biomass barrier
What Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are learning could help make ethanol from cellulose a viable fuel alternative – and help the United States replace foreign oil with a green, renewable resource.
Program may mean cutting the tags
Image searches typically rely on tags – text humans have attached to the pictures to identify objects or people they depict. The algorithms PNNL scientists Rob Farber and Harold Trease have created could largely eliminate tags because they recognize content automatically in massive amount of data. The application could make it as easy to index [...]
The big face off
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers say their algorithms can analyze millions of video frames, pluck out the faces and quantify them to create searchable databases for facial identification.
