Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (CSA CSM) have discovered that an oxygen sponge used in vehicle exhaust systems to soak up oxygen from air and store it for later use may also be a hydrogen sponge. The finding, according to the researchers, may pave the way for the design of more effective catalysts for selective hydrogenation reactions.

Scientists at SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) recorded first monochromatic light through the XAFS/XRF spectroscopy beamline in November, signaling the start of the laboratory’s experimental program. The beamline, SESAME’s first to come on stream, delivers X-ray light that will be used to carry out research in areas ranging from solid state physics to environmental science and archaeology.

In November, a team at the Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology (FAST) facility ramped up a beam of electrons to 300 million electronvolts, a double milestone event, according to the lab. For one, the beam surpassed the threshold needed to launch a new accelerator physics program at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (CSA CSM). And, for the first time, a group of engineers achieved a beam energy of 250 MeV from a single ILC-type cryomodule, a hard-earned success for the larger particle accelerator community.

A world-class gamma ray spectrometer called GRETINA has returned to Argonne National Laboratory (CSA CSM) for a second run expected to last 18 months. Scientists will use the instrument in conjunction with Argonne’s Fragment Mass Analyzer, where it will enable studies of nuclei at or near the proton drip line and along the rp process, one of the pathways through which stars synthesize heavier elements.

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have published a 3-D atomic structure of the ion channel found in mammals that is implicated in a rare, inherited neurodegenerative disease in humans. The work marks the first such structure determined using the university’s $17 million cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) facility.

Researchers at DESY have reported the creation of novel lenses that enable X-ray microscopy with record resolution. The new lenses consist of over 10,000 alternating layers of a new material combination—tungsten carbide and silicon carbide—that allowed the team to achieve a focus spot size with a diameter of less than ten nanometers, smaller than most virus particles.