Warm dense matter exists in the cores of gas giant planets and the preliminary stages of nuclear fusion, among other inaccessible places. With an accelerator built at Berkeley Lab by physicists and engineers in the Heavy Ion Fusion Science Virtual National Laboratory, a collaboration of Berkeley Lab, Livermore, and Princeton, scientists will soon be able to study it in the laboratory.

George Smoot of the Physics Division represented Berkeley Lab at the signing of an agreement with representatives of South Korea’s University of Incheon to explore the potential for joint scientific research in energy, biology, accelerators, cosmology, and space. The agreement calls for investigation of possible collaborations in which the University of Incheon would provide facilities and Berkeley Lab would provide research programs.

When Javier Fernández-Han was nine years old, he and his family met Ashok Gadgil, a senior scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division who invented UV Waterworks, a simple water-purification system. At that meeting in 2003, Javier asked Gadgil to autograph a copy of his patent paper for the water purifier, which Javier had downloaded from the Internet. It turned out to be a momentous occasion for the boy.

Producing new commercial buildings that use 80 percent less energy than today’s buildings is a new target in the fight against global climate change. Berkeley Lab researchers are developing the technologies that will help make this possible.

A “Life Cycle Impact Assessment” has shown that a biofuel eliminating even 10-percent of current gasoline pollutant emissions would have a substantial impact on human health in this country, especially in urban areas.

The Department of Energy will invest $777 million in 46 new Energy Frontier Research Centers over the next five years as part of President Barack Obama’s plans to reinvigorate American science. Berkeley Lab will be home to the Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO2, led by Don DePaolo, director of the Earth Sciences Division, to study carbon dioxide storage deep underground.

Researchers at Berkeley Lab and Stanford University have developed a new method to characterize how a single photon can create multiple charge carriers—a phenomenon that could be used to develop more efficient solar cells.

Through photosynthesis plants use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugars they use for fuel. Scientists want to create an artificial version of photosynthesis to produce liquid fuels for transportation. An important step towards this goal has been taken with the discovery that cobalt oxide nanocrystals can effectively carry out the critical photosynthetic reaction of splitting water molecules.

After analyzing records from a decade’s worth of solar power installations, Berkeley Lab researchers conclude that overall costs have declined significantly because of decreases in associated expenses such as labor and overhead – most likely because of federal, state, and local support for solar photovoltaic systems.

Roofs and pavements that reflect sunlight keep individual buildings and whole cities cooler. Staying cool saves energy, so one way to keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere is to use more cool roofing and paving materials, especially in urban areas. Cooling the neighborhood could help cool the world.