News Releases

Scientists have reported new clues to solving a cosmic conundrum: How the quark-gluon plasma – nature’s perfect fluid – evolved into the building blocks of matter during the birth of the early universe.

An experiment to study gravity at the quantum scale, insights into an antibiotic-building enzyme, and the backstory of an incredible new protein prediction algorithm are featured in this month's roundup of science highlights.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley will be home to a cutting-edge quantum network testbed, following a new five-year, $12.5 million funding award from the U.S. Department of Energy.

A team led by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley has demonstrated an approach for achieving LEDs with near 100% light-emission efficiency at all brightness levels.

Scientists at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have taken the clearest picture yet of electronic particles that make up a mysterious magnetic state called quantum spin liquid (QSL). The achievement could facilitate the development of superfast quantum computers and energy-efficient superconductors. The scientists are the first to capture an image of how electrons in a QSL decompose into spin-like particles called spinons and charge-like particles called chargons.

Mountain watersheds provide 60 to 90% of water resources worldwide, but there is still much that scientists don’t know about the physical processes and interactions that affect hydrology in these ecosystems. Now a team of U.S. Department of Energy scientists led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) aims to plug that gap, with an ambitious campaign to collect a vast array of measurements that will allow scientists to better understand the future of water in the West.

Mathematicians at Berkeley Lab's Center for Advanced Mathematics for Energy Research Applications have developed an algorithm to decipher the rotational dynamics of twisting particles in large complex systems from the X-ray scattering patterns observed in X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy experiments.

Berkeley Lab Science Snapshots August 2021: COVID antibody discovery, efficient thermoelectric system, low-cost battery testing

A paper published July 28 in Nature Reviews Physics highlights the growing adoption of autonomous discovery as a way to enhance data collection and analysis for research conducted at experimental facilities. Berkeley Lab's CAMERA organization has been at the forefront of this multi-year, multinational effort, which initially focused on synchrotron beamline research but is rapidly expanding into other scientific fields.

A comprehensive new study led by researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) quantifies what can be done to make buildings more energy efficient and flexible in granular detail by both time (including time of day and year) and space (looking at regions across the U.S.). The research team found that maximizing the deployment of building demand management technologies could avoid the need for up to one-third of coal- or gas-fired power generation.