A technique from Berkley Lab for creating a new molecule that structurally and chemically replicates the active part of the molybdenite catalyst paves the way for developing catalytic materials that can serve as effective low-cost alternatives to platinum for generating hydrogen gas from water.

To broaden and accelerate its efforts at poverty alleviation Berkeley Lab announces the launch of the LBNL Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies (LIGTT, pronounced “light”). Its ambitious mandate is to foster the discovery, development, and deployment of a generation of technologies that will advance sustainable methods to fight global poverty.

Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered a rotational motion that plays a critical role in the ability of breast cells to form the spherical structures in the mammary gland known as acini. This rotation, called “CAMo,” for coherent angular motion, is necessary for the cells to form spheres. Otherwise, cells undergo random motion, leading to loss of structure and malignancy.

Paul Alivisatos, Berkeley Lab director and UC Berkeley professor, has won the prestigious Wolf Foundation Prize in Chemistry for 2012. Alivisatos is an internationally recognized authority on nanochemistry and a pioneer in the synthesis of semiconductor quantum dots and multi-shaped artificial nanostructures. He shares this year’s Wolf Prize in Chemistry with fellow nanoscience expert Charles Lieber of Harvard University.

Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have used visual data from nearly a million galaxies to derive the most accurate calculation yet of how matter clumps together – from a time when the universe was only half its present age until now. The results yield cosmic rulers to measure how the universe has expanded and to determine how much dark matter, dark energy, and even hard-to-detect neutrinos it contains.

Berkeley researchers have provided the most detailed look ever at the “regulatory particle” used by the proteasome – one of the most critical protein machines in living cells – to identify and degrade proteins marked for destruction. This new information holds implications for a broad range of vital biochemical processes, including transcription, DNA repair and the immune defense system.

Two teams at Fermilab and Berkeley Lab have independently made the largest direct measurements of the invisible scaffolding of the universe, using the gravitational lensing effect known as “cosmic shear” to build maps of the distribution of dark matter. Their methods show that surveys with ground-based telescopes can measure cosmic shear with enough accuracy to aid in better understanding the mysterious space-stretching effects of dark energy.

Omar Yaghi, one of the world’s most cited chemists and leading authorities on nanoscience, is the new director of the Molecular Foundry, a U.S. Department of Energy nanoscience center at Berkeley Lab.

Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) researchers have developed computer assisted design (CAD)-type tools for engineering RNA components to control genetic expression in microbes. This holds enormous potential for microbial-based production of advanced biofuels, biodegradable plastics, therapeutic drugs and a host of other goods now derived from petrochemicals.

Berkeley Lab researchers have developed a nanowire endoscope that can provide high-resolution optical images of the interior of a single living cell, or precisely deliver genes, proteins, therapeutic drugs or other cargo without injuring or damaging the cell.