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Nuclear and Chemical Sciences
Search for sterile neutrinos continues at nuclear reactors
Neutrinos, elusive fundamental particles, can act as a window into the center of a nuclear reactor, the interior of the earth, or some of the most dynamic objects in the universe. Their tendency to change "flavors" may provide clues into the prominence of matter over antimatter in the universe or explain the existence of dark matter. Physicists are particularly interested…
CERN teams, including LLNL researchers, win 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
In 2012, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN jointly announced the discovery of the Higgs boson — a missing piece in the Standard Model of particle physics. Since beginning work, the teams have also observed never-before-seen quark states, ruled out different theories of new physics, and studied the properties of quark-gluon plasma,…
Jennifer Pett-Ridge inducted into Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Jennifer Pett-Ridge has been selected as one of this year’s 12 inductees to join the 2025 Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame. Since its establishment in 1993, the Hall of Fame has honored almost 300 exceptional women who have made a lasting impact in Alameda County’s communities. “I’m hugely flattered to be selected,…
LLNL’s Jennifer Pett-Ridge named 2024 AAAS fellow
Jennifer Pett-Ridge is a biogeochemist who likes to ‘dig deep’ into the soil. She knew early on that she wanted to pursue environmental science and has now become one of the world’s foremost experts in soil ecology and carbon cycling. Now, Pett-Ridge will be recognized as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest…
Emilie Dunham shoots for the stars
What if we could determine what material built our solar system, how old it is, and even the type of star it came from? Emilie Dunham, postdoctoral researcher in the Nuclear and Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), is exploring the answers to these very questions, all while following a childhood passion. Dunham, a 2023 Lawrence…
Inspired by nature, proteins pick out mission-critical metals
Rare-earth elements are essential for many electronic, energy and advanced defense technologies. In particular, they are required for key national defense systems as well as permanent magnets in cell phones. However, most of the mining and processing of rare-earth elements happens in China, and establishing a domestic supply chain is a priority. Turns out, advanced…
Sizing up the ever-elusive neutrino
About 100 trillion neutrinos are passing through your body at this very second. The particles are the second most abundant form of matter in the universe (behind light), but they interact very, very rarely. That property makes them ideal objects for studying the fundamentals of quantum mechanics; however, it also complicates measurements. For example, neutrinos were…
Assessing groundwater contamination risks near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
As the war in Ukraine continues, the risk of environmental disasters grows, particularly around critical infrastructure like the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). LLNL and collaborators recently conducted a study, published in ACS EST Water, to assess the vulnerability of groundwater contamination in the region surrounding the nuclear power plant, using a model…
Quantum computers successfully model particle scattering
Scattering takes place across the universe at large and miniscule scales. Billiard balls clank off each other in bars, the nuclei of atoms collide to power the stars and create heavy elements, and even sound waves deviate from their original trajectory when they hit particles in the air. Understanding such scattering can lead to discoveries about the forces that govern the…
LLNL hosts Nuclear Science and Security Consortium workshop
Once a year, a community of university professors, students and national lab researchers who focus on nuclear science and security gather to share research updates and develop collaborations, among other tasks. The group — known as the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium (NSSC) — recently held its workshop at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The NSSC…
Three LLNL scientists honored with presidential early-career award
In an announcement this week, President Biden awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) to nearly 400 distinguished scientists and engineers, recognizing their exceptional contributions and potential for leadership in their research fields. Among the honorees are three distinguished researchers from Lawrence Livermore National…
Samples from the surface needed to unravel history of Mars
Geologically, Mars is very reminiscent of the moon. But it also looks a lot like the Earth. It all depends on who you ask. Current understanding of Mars’ evolution is based on spacecraft measurements and meteorite analysis. Those meteorites were ejected from Mars and traversed space before landing on Earth, where they were discovered primarily in African deserts and…
Big Ideas Podcast tackles the road to carbon removal
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has released a new episode of the Big Ideas Lab Podcast, focusing on the critical efforts being made to help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The episode provides insights into how 68 researchers nationwide came up with a comprehensive analysis of the capacity and costs for carbon dioxide removal at a county level…
'Lighting' up antineutrino detection
How do you find and measure nuclear particles, like antineutrinos, that travel near the speed of light? Antineutrinos are the antimatter partner of a neutrino, one of nature’s most elusive and least understood subatomic particles. They are commonly observed near nuclear reactors, which emit copious amounts of antineutrinos, but they also are found abundantly throughout the…
LLNL’s Gauthier Deblonde selected as ‘Rising Star’
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) staff scientist Gauthier Deblonde has been named a 2024 “Rising Star“ by the American Chemical Society for his work in environmental science. Deblonde’s research as well as this year’s cohort of winners will be featured in a special issue of the American Chemical Society journal ACS Environmental Au. Deblonde’s research also…
LLNL internship sets chemistry student on the right PATH
Internships at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) provide graduate students with hands-on research experience that they can bring back to their home institutions, applying their newfound skillsets to their PhD work. Since interning for LLNL’s Glenn T. Seaborg Institute in 2023, Zachary Murphy, a PhD student at the University of Central Florida (UCF), has gone on…
Becoming a nuclear scientist: LLNL traineeship inspires SJSU students
Historically, most undergraduate students in STEM are limited in their exposure to the field of nuclear science. This is especially true at minority-serving institutions, which often do not have the infrastructure, resources and technical support needed to maintain such courses. To broaden the nuclear science pipeline and establish an equitable and inclusive workforce that…
DOE honors seven early-career Lab scientists
Seven scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are recipients of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science Early Career Research Program (ECRP) award. Steven Blazewicz, Kostas Kravvaris, Shusen Liu, Filippo Scotti, Jennifer Shusterman, Kyle Wendt and Ben Zhu are among 91 awardees receiving the recognition under the program. “Investing in…
Experiment sets new record in search for dark matter
Figuring out the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in our universe, is one of the greatest puzzles in physics. New results from the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), have narrowed down possibilities for one of the leading dark matter candidates: weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. LZ, led…
Revolutionizing Quantum Science
In recent years, Lawrence Livermore has increased efforts in quantum information science, a multidisciplinary field aimed at applying the scientific theories underpinning quantum mechanics to problems of extraordinary computational magnitude and precision sensing.
