NEWS RELEASES

DOE Funded News

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 22-Jun-2026 18:16 ET (22-Jun-2026 22:16 GMT/UTC)

What honey bee brain chemistry tells us about human learning

Virginia Tech
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A multi-institutional team of researchers led by Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute has for the first time identified specific patterns of brain chemical activity that predict how quickly individual honey bees learn new associations, offering important insights into the biological basis of learning and decision-making.

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: Max Planck Society, American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, Red Gates Foundation, Virginia Tech Seale innovation Fund, The Swartz Foundation

Scientists camouflage heart rate from invasive radar-based surveillance

Rice University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Rice researchers and collaborators have developed a system to camouflage heart rate from radar-based surveillance.

Journal: Computer Communications
Funder: Army Research Office, Intel Corporation, Cisco Systems

Watching a critical green-energy catalyst dissolve, atom by atom

Duke University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Why the world’s best clean-energy catalysts still fail — and how to fix them? Iridium oxide is one of the best catalysts for making hydrogen fuel, but it’s rare and slowly breaks down inside electrolyzers. In a new study, researchers at Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania captured iridium oxide degrading atom by atom, in real time — revealing that the degradation process is not at all what they expected. Understanding how these materials fail is a critical step toward designing longer-lasting catalysts — and a more sustainable green-energy economy.

Journal: Journal of the American Chemical Society
Funder: State of North Carolina, State of North Carolina, State of North Carolina

UC Riverside doctoral student awarded prestigious DOE fellowship

University of California - Riverside
Grant and Award Announcement

Ryan Milton, a fourth-year doctoral student in nuclear physics at UC Riverside, has been awarded a U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Fellowship.

Genes from corn's wild ancestor change soil microbial community, improve sustainability

University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Corn bred with genes from wild relatives can reshape soil microbial communities and reduce nitrogen loss — with no yield reduction — according to new research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: Illinois Nutrient Research and Education Council, National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Bringing fusion energy to the grid using artificial intelligence

Princeton University

To help make commercial fusion energy a reality, PPPL leads the StellFoundry project, which uses AI to sift through enormous amounts of data to determine which fusion system configurations are best. This project aligns with the U.S. Department of Energy’s new Genesis Mission, a major DOE initiative to accelerate scientific discovery and enhance national security using AI, as well as with the DOE’s recently released Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap.

Novel approach to a key biofuel production step captures an elusive energy source

Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Plants grown for biofuel have the potential to power our travel industry, but an important fraction of their chemical power has remained stubbornly difficult to recover. New research from the DOE-funded Center for Advanced Biofuel and Bioproduct Innovation on the University of Illinois campus has demonstrated a way to preserve native lignin structure, a key component of plant matter for conversion to other valuable products, putting an improved pathway for biofuel and bioproduct production within reach.

Journal: Chemical Engineering Journal Advances

New 3D printing method makes affordable, realistic replicas as structurally complex as a human hand

University of Texas at Austin
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have developed a new method for 3D printing objects with very different properties, including levels of hardness and transparency, on a pixel-by-pixel basis while using commonly available materials and inexpensive 3D printers. The method could lend itself to the creation of realistic models of body parts for medical students to practice surgery on or new types of personal protective gear.

Journal: Science
Funder: Welch Foundation

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