News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-Jul-2025 17:10 ET (1-Jul-2025 21:10 GMT/UTC)

US Department of Energy announces Early Career Research Program for FY 2025

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it is accepting applications for the 2025 DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program to support the research of outstanding scientists early in their careers. The program will support over 80 early career researchers for five years at U.S. academic institutions, DOE national laboratories, and Office of Science user facilities.

Polymer editing can upcycle waste into higher-performance plastics

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

By editing the polymers of discarded plastics, chemists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found a way to generate new macromolecules with more valuable properties than those of the starting material. Upcycling may help remedy the roughly 450 million tons of plastic discarded worldwide annually, of which only 9% gets recycled; the rest is incinerated or winds up in landfills, oceans or elsewhere.

Journal: Journal of the American Chemical Society
Funder: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Laboratory Directed Research and Development program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Taking stock of the known and unknown microbial space

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Using publicly available genome sequence data generated over the past three decades, an analysis from researchers at the DOE Joint Genome Institute assesses what fraction of the microbial diversity we know about, and proposes a path forward to curate and cultivate what is still unknown.

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Elena Belova and Yevgeny Raitses recognized for groundbreaking plasma physics research

DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Grant and Award Announcement

Yevgeny Raitses and Elena Belova were named PPPL’s 2024 Distinguished Research Fellows for their exceptional contributions to plasma physics. Their pioneering work in low-temperature plasma and fusion simulations highlights PPPL’s leadership in advancing plasma research and fusion energy.

US Department of Energy announces selectees for $107 million fusion innovation research engine collaboratives, and progress in milestone program inspired by NASA

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $107 million in funding for six projects in the Fusion Innovative Research Engine (FIRE) Collaboratives, and that several privately funded fusion companies have completed early critical-path science and technology (S&T) milestones in the Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program (“the Milestone Program”). Both programs, administered by DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program in the Office of Science, are cornerstones of DOE’s fusion strategy to accelerate the viability of commercial fusion energy.

Department of Energy announces $71 million for research on quantum information science enabled discoveries in high energy physics

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $71 million in funding for 25 projects in high energy physics that will use the emerging technologies of quantum information science to answer fundamental questions about the universe.

Fresh, direct evidence for tiny drops of quark-gluon plasma

DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new analysis of data from the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) reveals fresh evidence that collisions of even very small nuclei with large ones might create tiny specks of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Scientists believe such a substance of free quarks and gluons, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, permeated the universe a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

State-of-the-art fusion simulation leads three scientists to the 2024 Kaul Foundation Prize

DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Grant and Award Announcement

PPPL scientists Choongseok (CS) Chang, Seung-Hoe Ku and Robert Hager are winners of the 2024 Kaul Foundation Prize for pioneering simulations that suggest excess heat from escaping plasma particles is less likely to damage the inside of a fusion vessel than once thought.

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