Feature Stories

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Fenter has spent much of his career at Argonne studying “interface dynamics”—the particular physical and chemical processes that occur at the boundaries between different materials.
 Argonne physicist Fenter wins Warren Award for X-ray diffraction studies

Paul Fenter, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, has been named the next recipient of the American Crystallographic Association's Bertram E. Warren Award, which recognizes contributions to the physics of solids through the use of diffraction-based techniques.

 June 10, 2011
Argonne mechanical engineer Steve Ciatti takes a crack at some of the more persistent myths surrounding the technology of diesel engines.
 Five myths about diesel engines

Diesel engines, long confined to trucks and ships, are garnering more interest for their fuel efficiency and reduced carbon dioxide emissions relative to gasoline engines. Argonne mechanical engineer Steve Ciatti takes a crack at some of the more persistent myths surrounding the technology.

 June 13, 2011
Kawtar Hafidi, an experimental nuclear physicist, has been awarded the 2011 Innovative Award Winner Award by the Chicago chapter of the Association for Women in Science.
 Argonne physicist receives 2011 Innovator Award

Kawtar Hafidi of Argonne National Laboratory studies the interactions of quarks, the fundamental constituents of ordinary matter, enabling a deeper insight into particles and forces that build our universe; she has been named this year's annual Innovator Award winner by the Chicago chapter of the Association for Women in Science.

 June 14, 2011
The Center for Electrical Energy Storage (CEES) is one of three Argonne-led Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) that were established in 2009. The CEES program focuses on researching lithium battery systems.
Battery research gets extra juice with research center

CEES is one of three Argonne-led Energy Frontier Research Centers that were established in 2009 thanks to a special block grant from the U.S. Department of Energy that sought to establish five-year interdisciplinary programs focused around discrete scientific challenges.

 June 20, 2011
Energy storage research visualized: Scalar potential of a point charge shortly after exiting a dipole magnet, moving left to right.
 Argonne electrifies energy storage research

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Argonne National Laboratory is working in overdrive to develop advanced energy storage technologies to aid the growth of a nascent U.S. battery manufacturing industry, help transition the U.S. automotive fleet to one dominated by plug-in hybrid and electric passenger vehicles, and enable greater use of renewable energy technologies.

 June 29, 2011
Chains of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, produce oils which could be used for transportation fuels.
 Getting to know bacteria with "multiple personalities"

Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, have been the subject of decades of debate over exactly how they should be classified. While they reproduce and share DNA with their bacterial cousins, they are the only phylum of bacteria that can photosynthesize like plants.

 July 7, 2011
Researchers learned that to get into cells, plutonium uses iron as a "Trojan horse."
 Plutonium tricks cells by "pretending" to be iron

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University have identified a new biological pathway by which plutonium finds its way into mammalian cells. The researchers learned that, to get into cells, plutonium acts like a "Trojan horse," duping a special membrane protein that is typically responsible for taking up iron.

 July 8, 2011
"What we are doing now is looking at batteries in situ: that is, actually watching the battery as it charges and drains, using powerful X-rays from the Advanced Photon Source and electrons from the Electron Microscopy Center. That's the cutting edge of battery diagnostics."
 Diagnosing advanced batteries for a longer life

Daniel Abraham and his colleagues are working to extend battery life, while simultaneously trying to increase storage capacity.

 July 13, 2011
Members of a team from the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute won the college-level biodiesel challenge. From left to right: Vernetta Long, Josh Begay, Dorothy Wester, Dr. Nader Vadiee Back row: Dr. Massoud Ahghar, Monique Mousseaux, Felipa DeLeon, Ralph Kelly. Not pictured: John David.
 Tribal schools create their own biodiesel to win energy challenge

Last year, American Indian tribal colleges and high schools competed to build the best wind turbine; this year, their challenge was different, but still related to renewable energy—creating biodiesel fuel out of raw biomass.

 July 22, 2011
Maria Goeppert Mayer, an Argonne physicist who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics, appears on a commemorative stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service.
 Nobel Prize-winning physicist honored with U.S. postage stamp

Though physicists know Maria Goeppert Mayer left her own stamp on history, the U.S. Postal Service recently issued one of its own to commemorate the nuclear physicist.

 July 28, 2011
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