NEWS RELEASES

Researchers have determined that six gas valves provide the best protection against plasma disruptions in SPARC, a next-generation, experimental fusion system. By refining the setup for the fusion vessel’s massive gas injection system, researchers are ensuring that disruptions — sudden jets of plasma that can damage the fusion vessel’s inner walls — are controlled efficiently, paving the way for safer, more robust fusion power plants.

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, entered its 25^th and final year of operations, smashing together the nuclei of gold atoms traveling close to the speed of light.

A new analysis of data collected over three years by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration provides even stronger evidence than the group’s previous datasets that dark energy, long thought to be a “cosmological constant,” might be evolving over time in unexpected ways. Dr. Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki, professor of physics at The University of Texas at Dallas, is co-chair of the DESI working group that interprets cosmological survey data gathered by the international collaboration.

Until now, a global evaluation of ocean current energy with actual data was lacking. Using 30 years of NOAA's Global Drifter Program data, a study shows that ocean currents off Florida’s East Coast and South Africa have exceptionally high-power densities, ideal for electricity generation. With densities over 2,500 watts per square meter, these regions are 2.5 times more energy-dense than “excellent” wind resources. Shallow waters further enhance the potential for ocean current turbines, unlike areas like Japan and South America, which have lower densities at similar depths.

Kathleen Stebe, Richer & Elizabeth Goodwin Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE), is tackling this challenge head-on with a collaborative group of researchers across five institutions under the support of a grant from the Department of Energy. Stebe is leading a groundbreaking research initiative that aims to create an eco-friendly, bioinspired process for separating REEs that would also avoid shipping semi-processed REEs to other countries for purification.

Researchers carefully positioned lasers to compress billions of electrons together, creating a beam five times more powerful than ever before.

Plants and microbes are known to secrete enzymes to transform organic phosphorus into bioavailable inorganic phosphorus. Now, researchers report iron oxides can drive the same conversion at comparable rates as enzymes. The study adds yet another missing piece to nature’s mysterious phosphorus cycle that can be used to fuel plant growth.