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An Express Train to Crescent Junction
In the 1950s, one of the largest uranium deposits in the U.S. was found near Moab, Utah. The Department of Energy began cleaning up the uranium mill tailings from the Moab Site in April 2009, using steel containers to transport more than five million tons of tailings for safe disposal near Crescent Junction, Utah. In this May 2012 photo, one of the trains is shown on the Union Pacific Railroad in Utah, passing a butte capped by a familiar southwest U.S. rock formation known as Navajo Sandstone.
Image: Department of Energy
Date taken: Fri, 2013-01-04 09:00
1 of 17An Express Train to Crescent Junction
In the 1950s, one of the largest uranium deposits in the U.S. was found near Moab, Utah. The Department of Energy began cleaning up the uranium mill tailings from the Moab Site in April 2009, using steel containers to transport more than five million tons of tailings for safe disposal near Crescent Junction, Utah. In this May 2012 photo, one of the trains is shown on the Union Pacific Railroad in Utah, passing a butte capped by a familiar southwest U.S. rock formation known as Navajo Sandstone.
Image: Department of Energy
Date taken: 2013-01-04 09:00
2 of 17I, Robot Olympics
Last week, students from dozens of local Tennessee high schools gathered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility to check out the game field that they'll be working with in the next six weeks. This year, the young engineers' challenges include building robots that can throw discs and climb pyramids.
Image: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Date taken: 2013-01-11 09:00
3 of 17Controlling Chaos with Magnetic Fields
This artistic rendition of "spin vortices" illustrates tiny magnetic vortices that spin according to the polarization of each disk's vortex core. At Argonne National Laboratory, scientists are using alternating magnetic fields to control the behavior of these spin vortices, which are small dots made of iron and nickel. The experiments will help to create new, more efficient magnetic devices -- like the random access memory (RAM) in the device you are using to look at this very photo.
Image: Sander Munster, Dresden University of Technology
Date taken: 2013-01-18 09:00
4 of 17Inside the 60-Inch Cyclotron
In this 1939 photo, Eric and Margaret Lawrence are sitting inside the tank of something called the 60-inch cyclotron -- a machine invented by their father, Ernest Lawrence. The cyclotron is a unique circular particle accelerator, which Lawrence himself referred to as a "proton merry-go-round." In reality, the cyclotron specialized in smashing atoms. Fun facts: this cyclotron contains a magnet that weighs 220 tons, and experiments conducted on this very machine led to the discovery of plutonium and Nobel Prizes for researchers Glenn Seaborg and Melvin Calvin.
Image: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Date taken: 2013-01-25 09:00
5 of 17What Do Airborne Radioactive Particles Taste Like?
At Sandia National Laboratories, researchers have developed pods that can survey and "taste" radioactive particles without exposing a human crew to nuclear hazards. The three pods, when attached to aerial vehicles, can collect and analyze airborne radioactive particles to track and source gases that can identify a nuclear bomb’s origins.
Image: Randy Montoya/Sandia National Laboratories
Date taken: 2013-02-08 09:00
6 of 17Repurposing the Xbox
At Brookhaven National Laboratory, scientists have developed a custom-built machine that can grow special lenses, one atomic layer at a time. The machine is as long as an entire room, and scientists use a reprogrammed Xbox controller to direct a transport car through the vacuum-sealed chamber (pictured). The transport car collects plasma-borne particles that form the lenses that will eventually be used to focus high-intensity x-ray beams to reveal the details of nano material structures. <a href="http://1.usa.gov/12pXCFV" target="_blank">Learn more about the deposition chamber</a>.
Image: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Date taken: 2013-02-15 09:00
7 of 17Students from Roosevelt Middle School win Argonne's 2013 Regional Science Bowl
Each year, the National Science Bowl brings together thousands of middle and high school students from across the country to compete in a range of science disciplines, including biology, chemistry, earth science, physics, astronomy and math. The members of the winning team, from Roosevelt Middle School of River Forest, Illinois, competed against 14 other teams from across the Midwest in one of the regional competitions in the 23rd Annual U.S. Department of Energy National Science Bowl. This April, the winning teams from each region will compete for a national title in Washington, D.C. View a full gallery of <a href="http://www.anl.gov/photos/2013-argonne-regional-science-bowl">photos from the 2013 Regional Science Bowl at Argonne</a>. | Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory.
Image: Argonne National Laboratory
Date taken: 2013-02-25 09:00
8 of 17Photo of the Week: Women in STEM Introducing Girls to Engineering
This Friday, March 8, marks International Women's Day, and the recognition of women's achievements all over the world. At the Energy Department and each of the National Laboratories, some of the nation's top women scientists and engineers attend events to urge girls to open their minds to careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). In this February 2012 photo, a group of eighth grade girls were invited to Argonne National Laboratory to participate in events during the annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. Division director Amanda Petford-Long and other Argonne mentors are pictured observing a trial run of race cars built by the eighth grade students.
Image: George Joch/Argonne National Lab
Date taken: 2013-03-04 12:00
9 of 17Photo of the Week: The Alternating Gradient Synchrotron
Since 1960, the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) has been one of the world's premiere particle accelerators, well known for the three Nobel Prizes won as a result of research performed there. The AGS name is derived from the concept of alternating gradient focusing, in which the field gradients of the accelerator's 240 magnets are successively alternated inward and outward, permitting particles to be propelled and focused in both the horizontal and vertical plane at the same time. In this 1958 photo, giant magnets await installation into the AGS accelerator ring tunnel at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Image: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Date taken: 2013-03-11 06:30
10 of 17More than One Way to Hammer a Nail
Last week, Argonne National Laboratory hosted the 18th annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, which gathered nine high school teams in a competition to build a series of simples tasks, combining the principles of physics and engineering. By using common objects like marbles and bicycle parts, the students were assigned to build a machine that takes at least 20 steps to hammer a nail. In this photo, members of a Hoffman Estates High School team works on assembling a Toyland-themed Rube Goldberg machine.
Image: Argonne National Laboratory.
Date taken: 2013-03-18 16:00
11 of 17Women in STEM -- Elaine Zworykin
In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Department of Energy is honoring some of the nation's best and brightest women in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) community. In this 1949 photo, U.S. Geological Survey mineralogist Elaine Zworykin is shown with an electron microscope, a piece of technology developed by her father, Vladimir Zworykin. Elaine had been assigned to RCA laboratories to teach researchers how to use the microscope.
Image: Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 90-105 - Science Service, Records, 1920s-1970s
Date taken: 2013-03-25 16:58
12 of 17RoHAWKtics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signs the robot of Hardin Valley Academy's FIRST robotics team during the dedication of DOE's Carbon Fiber Technology Facility, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The RoHAWKtics team (named after their school mascot) spent an intense six weeks constructing the robot, using design, engineering, and problem-solving skills. The team will be moving on to a national competition in April.
Image: Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Date taken: 2013-04-01 09:00
13 of 17Laser Beats Rock
On August 5, 2012, the Curiosity rover touched down on the surface of Mars. The ChemCam instrument package, developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is a device mounted on the Mars Curiosity rover that uses two remote sensing instruments: the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS) and a Remote Micro-Imager (RMI). The LIBS fires a powerful laser that determines chemical compositions of rock and soil samples, while the RMI takes photos of the samples within the rover's vicinity. In this photo, the ChemCam is being prepared in the clean room prior to the launch of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission.
Image: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date taken: 2013-04-08 09:00
14 of 17Boosting Solar Technology
Concentrated solar panels are getting a power boost. This summer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will be testing a new concentrated solar power system -- one that can help natural gas power plants reduce their fuel usage by up to 20 percent. PNNL has developed a system that uses a thermochemical conversion device to convert natural gas and sunlight into a more energy-rich fuel called syngas. By installing the pictured device in front of a concentrating solar power dish, power plants can burn less fuel.
Image: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Date taken: 2013-04-17 09:00
15 of 17What You Needed to Contain 100 Million Degree Plasma for 100 Millionths of a Second… in 1974
In the early years of magnetic fusion, there was talk among scientists of controlling nuclear energy to create useful power. To do this, scientists heated plasma to temperatures as high as 100 million degrees Celsius -- ten times hotter than the center of the sun. Controlling such high levels of energy required the construction of large machines that could withstand these extremely high energy levels. In this 1974 photo, laboratory scientists are shown working on Scyllac, one of the largest machines used for magnetic fusion experiments, located at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Scyllac filled a 100-by-100-foot building from wall to wall, and used 12 miles of one-inch cables and 3,000 capacitors to contain hot plasma the size of a small garden hose for just 100 millionths of a second.
Image: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date taken: 2013-04-23 09:00
16 of 17National Science Bowl Participants on the Fast Track to a Future in STEM
After months of training and preparation, regional Science Bowl champions gathered in Washington, D.C. to compete for the national title at the 2013 National Science Bowl. Some of the nation's best and brightest high school and middle school students spent the past few days showing off their science, technology and engineering skills by completing a series of tasks, including the construction of a miniature electric car, using only household items and a lithium-ion battery. In this photo, Yaniel Ramirez from Colegio Catolico Notre Dame in Caguas, Puerto Rico launches his team's electric car down the test track.
Image: Jack Dempsey, Department of Energy
Date taken: 2013-05-02 09:00
17 of 17Converting Solar Energy into Fuel
In this photo, Brookhaven scientist Dmitry Polyansky examines a vial containing a specialized catalyst designed to help convert solar energy into fuel. Producing clean-burning hydrogen fuel from just sunlight and water requires custom-built catalysts for water oxidation -- the part of the water-splitting process that generates oxygen atoms. A tiny amount of the solid catalyst, developed in collaboration with the University of Houston, dissolves and turns the water that lovely shade of blue.
Image: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Date taken: 2013-05-09 13:00
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