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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 631 records · Page 35
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

A global meta‐analysis of cover crop response on soil carbon storage within a corn production system

Abstract By influencing soil organic carbon (SOC), cover crops play a key role in shaping soil health and hence the system's long‐term sustainability. However, the magnitude by which cover crops impacts SOC depends on multiple factors, including soil type, climate, crop rotation, tillage type, cover crop growth, and years under management. To elucidate how these multiple factors influence the relative impact of cover crops on SOC, we conducted a meta‐analysis on the impacts of cover crops within rotations that included corn ( Zea mays L.) on SOC accumulation. Information on climatic conditions, soil characteristics, management, and cover crop performance was extracted, resulting in 198 paired comparisons from 61 peer‐reviewed studies. Over the course of each study, cover crops on average increased SOC by 7.3% (95% CI, 4.9%–9.6%). Furthermore, the impact of cover crop–induced increases in percent change SOC was evaluated across soil textures, cover crop types, crop rotations, biomass amounts, cover crop durations, tillage practices, and climatic zones. Our results suggest that current cover crop–based corn production systems are sequestering 5.5 million Mg of SOC per year in the United States and have the potential to sequester 175 million Mg SOC per year globally. These findings can be used to improve carbon footprint calculations and develop science‐based policy recommendations. Taken altogether, cover cropping is a promising strategy to sequester atmospheric C and hence make corn production systems more resilient to changing climates.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Author Correction: Engineering self-deliverable ribonucleoproteins for genome editing in the brain

Correction to: Nature Communicationshttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45998-2, published online 26 February 2024. In the Acknowledgements section of this article, the grant number relating to National Institutes of Health funding to J.A.D. was incorrectly given as RM1HG009490 and should have been U19NS132303. The grant number 2334028 relating to the National Science Foundation funding to J.A.D. was omitted. Funding from Hampton University Summer Undergraduate Research Program, Mr. Li Ka Shing, Emerson Collective and the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) were omitted. The original article has been corrected.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

COVID-19 Knowledge Graph -- Dataset for SMCDC 2021 Challenge 2

This repository contains the data for the 2021 Smoky Mountains Computational Sciences Data Challenge (SMCDC21) Challenge 2 -- Finding Novel Links in COVID-19 Knowledge Graph. The total size of all files in this repository is 285MB. Challenge website: https://smc-datachallenge.ornl.gov/2021-challenge-2/ More information about the challenge and the data: https://github.com/ORNL/smcdc-2021-covid-kg

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Genetically Controlled Iron Oxide Biomineralization in Encapsulin Nanocompartments for Magnetic Manipulation of a Mammalian Cell Line

Magnetic nanoparticles have proven invaluable for biomechanical investigations due to their ability to exert localized forces. However, cellular delivery of exogenous magnetic agents often results in endosomal entrapment, thereby limiting their utility for manipulating subcellular structures. This study characterizes and exploits fully genetically controlled biomineralization of iron-oxide cores inside encapsulin nanocompartments to enable magnetic-activated cell sorting (MACS) and magnetic cell manipulation. The fraction of MACS-retained cells showed substantial overexpression of encapsulins and exhibited both para- and ferrimagnetic responses with magnetic moments of 10 -15 A m 2 per cell, comparable to standard exogenous labels for MACS. Electron microscopy revealed that MACS-retained cells contained densely packed agglomerates of ≈30 nm iron oxide cores consisting of ultrafine quasicrystalline ordered nuclei within an amorphous matrix of iron, oxygen, and phosphorus. Scanning transmission X-ray microscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and Raman microspectroscopy confirmed that the iron-oxide species are consistent with ferric oxide (Fe 2 O 3 ). In addition, the encapsulin-overexpressing MACS-retained cells can be manipulated by a magnetic needle and regrown in patterns determined by magnetic gradients. This study demonstrates that the formation of quasicrystalline iron oxide with mixed para/ferrimagnetic behavior in the cytosol of mammalian cells enables magnetic manipulation without the delivery of exogenous agents.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Deep-ultraviolet ptychographic pocket-scope (DART): mesoscale lensless molecular imaging with label-free spectroscopic contrast

The mesoscale characterization of biological specimens has traditionally required compromises between resolution, field-of-view, depth-of-field, and molecular specificity, with most approaches relying on external labels. Here we present the Deep-ultrAviolet ptychogRaphic pockeT-scope (DART), a handheld platform that transforms label-free molecular imaging through intrinsic deep-ultraviolet spectroscopic contrast. By leveraging biomolecules’ natural absorption fingerprints and combining them with lensless ptychographic microscopy, DART resolves down to 308-nm linewidths across centimeter-scale areas while maintaining millimeter-scale depth-of-field. The system’s virtual error-bin methodology effectively eliminates artifacts from limited temporal coherence and other optical imperfections, enabling high-fidelity molecular imaging without lenses. Through differential spectroscopic imaging at deep-ultraviolet wavelengths, DART quantitatively maps nucleic acid and protein distributions with femtogram sensitivity, providing an intrinsic basis for explainable virtual staining. We demonstrate DART’s capabilities through imaging of tissue sections, cytopathology specimens, blood cells, and neural populations, revealing detailed molecular contrast without external labels. The combination of high-resolution molecular mapping and broad mesoscale imaging in a portable platform opens new possibilities from rapid clinical diagnostics, tissue analysis, to biological characterization in space exploration.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

How Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Transform the Human Condition

Our July 2021 symposium, “How Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Transform the Human Condition,” was hosted through a partnership between Los Alamos National Laboratory and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. The symposium is part of a broader initiative focusing on harnessing transformative technologies, and builds on our September 2020 symposium titled, “COVID-19: Harnessing a Transformational Pandemic.” Topics such as systems biology and artificial intelligence not only represent compelling research frontiers but also highlight national security challenges with social, ethical, and legal implications.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Biolink Model: A universal schema for knowledge graphs in clinical, biomedical, and translational science

Abstract Within clinical, biomedical, and translational science, an increasing number of projects are adopting graphs for knowledge representation. Graph‐based data models elucidate the interconnectedness among core biomedical concepts, enable data structures to be easily updated, and support intuitive queries, visualizations, and inference algorithms. However, knowledge discovery across these “knowledge graphs” (KGs) has remained difficult. Data set heterogeneity and complexity; the proliferation of ad hoc data formats; poor compliance with guidelines on findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability; and, in particular, the lack of a universally accepted, open‐access model for standardization across biomedical KGs has left the task of reconciling data sources to downstream consumers. Biolink Model is an open‐source data model that can be used to formalize the relationships between data structures in translational science. It incorporates object‐oriented classification and graph‐oriented features. The core of the model is a set of hierarchical, interconnected classes (or categories) and relationships between them (or predicates) representing biomedical entities such as gene, disease, chemical, anatomic structure, and phenotype. The model provides class and edge attributes and associations that guide how entities should relate to one another. Here, we highlight the need for a standardized data model for KGs, describe Biolink Model, and compare it with other models. We demonstrate the utility of Biolink Model in various initiatives, including the Biomedical Data Translator Consortium and the Monarch Initiative, and show how it has supported easier integration and interoperability of biomedical KGs, bringing together knowledge from multiple sources and helping to realize the goals of translational science.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

ASU’s DAC polymer-enhanced cyanobacterial bioproductivity (AUDACity)

ASU’s DAC polymer-enhanced cyanobacterial bioproductivity (AUDACity) project aims to demonstrate a novel, scalable method for removing carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) directly from ambient air and delivering it to cyanobacterial cultures to produce commodity biofuel, mid-value protein for supplements, and high value phycocyanin (PC), a natural blue colorant (Figure A). This approach uses low-cost, reusable anion exchange polymers embedded in modular mesh packets, which capture CO 2 during drying cycles when exposed to ambient air, and release concentrated CO 2 into aqueous cultivation systems. The project addresses a critical challenge in energy research needed for developing sustainable, economically viable methods of Direct Air Capture (DAC) that can be integrated with bio-based systems for fuel and chemical production. AUDACity contributes to scientific understanding by integrating materials chemistry, cyanobacterial biology, and system engineering to create a distributed CO 2 delivery platform. Key insights have emerged around the design of biocompatible sorbents, optimization of CO 2 capture-release cycles, and durability of packet-based delivery systems under outdoor conditions. Notably, the team has synthesized and tested a range of polymer sorbents, identified mechanisms of material degradation and fouling, and advanced both lab- and pilot-scale cultivation systems to evaluate performance. From a technical and economic standpoint, AUDACity shows promise for achieving cost-effective CO 2 capture and delivery into aqueous media and biofuel production. Preliminary techno-economic analysis (TEA) indicates that the DAC system based on current performance can reach $\$$680/tonne CO 2 delivered into aqueous solution; with reasonable improvements to sorbent lifetime, sorbent capacity, reducing water uptake the approach could reach $\$$66/tonne by avoiding the need for energy-intensive sorbent regeneration and CO 2 compression, making it more feasible for decentralized deployment. With these costs for CO 2 and by extracting and selling high-value PC ($\$$50/kg) and mid-value protein supplement ($\$$6/kg), the remaining biomass can be hydrothermally treated into biofuel for $\$$2.50/gallon, and would support a small first-of-a-kind biorefinery capable of producing 500 barrels per day of biofuel. The project offers meaningful public benefits by advancing carbon removal technologies that are low-energy, modular, and adaptable to non-arable land and brackish water use. It aligns with national goals to develop advanced biotechnology and supports future pathways for bio-based fuels and products. By enabling direct coupling of CO 2 transfer into aqueous medium and biological carbon utilization, AUDACity lays the groundwork for effective algae cultivation without wasteful CO 2 delivery and is a promising and innovative solution for low-carbon fuel and bioproduct generation contributing to a vigorous bioeconomy.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2021

NM Science, Technology and Telecommunications committee: State of the Lab [Slides]

Our priority throughout COVID has been protecting our employees and our communities. To this end, we stood up internal testing and vaccination programs; kept disease risk low via maximum teleworking; leveraged world-class expertise to support federal and state through disease modeling and forecasting; and stored vaccines for the school district. COVID-19 taught us there are many ways to leverage technology to work safely and effectively.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

What regulates decomposition in agroecosystems? Insights from reading the tea leaves

Litter decomposition is a critical Earth process, recycling nutrients and setting a portion of plant tissue on a path toward soil organic matter. Despite this importance, we still lack a good understanding of local factors that regulate decomposition, especially in agroecosystems where management plays an outsized role. Using a narrow range of climate and soils, we buried 1,308 pre-manufactured “litter bags” of differing residue quality (i.e., green and rooibos tea leaves) in 109 plots across several management practices to (1) explore the local controls on decomposition in agroecosystems and (2) test the robustness of the Tea Bag Index (TBI). We found that management practices intended to increase soil ecosystem services, that is, soil health, altered the decomposition of both teas. For example, adding nitrogen fertilizer and implementing perennial cropping decreased the extent of green tea decomposition (carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, or C:N = 12.8). No-tillage increased, but perennial cropping decreased, the rate of rooibos tea decomposition (C:N = 50.1). Cropped prairie accelerated green tea decomposition and increased the extent of red tea decomposition. A random forest regression model showed that soil temperature was the strongest predictor of green tea decomposition, but a soil health score also played a significant role in predicting the mass remaining. Soil texture and nutrient availability best predicted rooibos tea decomposition. Finer textured soils seemed to decelerate rooibos decomposition but increased the extent of decomposition. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the TBI metrics correlated somewhat well with empirically derived decomposition constants and were similarly sensitive to the effects of management. Still, the green tea stabilization factor had a substantial prediction bias. Our study increased our basic understanding of what regulates decomposition in agroecosystems. It also showed that the TBI can be a scientifically rigorous citizen science approach to monitoring changes in soil health.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Shaping the Future of Science: COVID‐19 Highlighting the Importance of GeoHealth

Abstract From the heated debates over the airborne transmission of the novel coronavirus to the abrupt Earth system changes caused by the sudden lockdowns, the dire circumstances resulting from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic have brought the field of GeoHealth to the forefront of visibility in science and policy. The pandemic has inadvertently provided an opportunity to study how human response has impacted the Earth system, how the Earth system may impact the pandemic, and the capacity of GeoHealth to inform real‐time policy. The lessons learned throughout our responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic are shaping the future of GeoHealth.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

The narrative arc: Revealing core narrative structures through text analysis

Scholars across disciplines have long debated the existence of a common structure that underlies narratives. Using computer-based language analysis methods, several structural and psychological categories of language were measured across ~40,000 traditional narratives (e.g., novels and movie scripts) and ~20,000 nontraditional narratives (science reporting in newspaper articles, TED talks, and Supreme Court opinions). Across traditional narratives, a consistent underlying story structure emerged that revealed three primary processes: staging, plot progression, and cognitive tension. No evidence emerged to indicate that adherence to normative story structures was related to the popularity of the story. Last, analysis of fact-driven texts revealed structures that differed from story-based narratives.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Discovery of Proteoforms Associated With Alzheimer's Disease Through Quantitative Top-Down Proteomics

The complex nature of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and its heterogenous clinical presentation has prompted numerous large-scale - omic analyses aimed at providing a global understanding of the pathophysiological processes involved. AD involves isoforms, proteolytic products, and posttranslationally modified proteins such as amyloid beta (Aβ) and microtubule-associated protein tau. Top-down proteomics directly measures these species and thus, offers a comprehensive view of pathologically relevant proteoforms that are difficult to analyze using traditional proteomic techniques. Here, we broadly explored associations between proteoforms and clinicopathological traits of AD by deploying a quantitative top-down proteomics approach across frontal cortex of 103 subjects selected from the ROS and MAP cohorts. The approach identified 1213 proteins and 11,782 proteoforms, of which 154 proteoforms had at least one significant association with a clinicopathological phenotype. One important finding included identifying Aβ C-terminal truncation state as the key property for differential association between amyloid plaques and cerebral amyloid angiopathy. Furthermore, various N-terminally truncated forms of Aβ had noticeably stronger association with amyloid plaques and global cognitive function. Additionally, we discovered six VGF neuropeptides that were positively associated with cognitive function independent of pathological burden. The database of brain cortex proteoforms provides a valuable context for functional characterization of the proteins involved in AD and other late-onset brain pathologies.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Optimizing genomic prediction for complex traits via investigating multiple factors in switchgrass

Genomic prediction has accelerated breeding processes and provided mechanistic insights into the genetic bases of complex traits. To further optimize genomic prediction, we assess the impact of genome assemblies, genotyping approaches, variant types, allelic complexities, polyploidy levels, and population structures on the prediction of 20 complex traits in switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), a perennial biofuel feedstock. Surprisingly, short read-based genome assembly performs comparably to or even better than long read-based assembly. Due to higher gene coverage, exome capture and multi-allelic variants outperform genotyping-by-sequencing and bi-allelic variants, respectively. Tetraploid models show higher prediction accuracy than octoploid models for most traits, likely due to the greater genetic distances among tetraploids. Depending on the trait in question, different types of variants need to be integrated for optimal predictions. Furthermore, our study provides insights into the factors influencing genomic prediction outcomes, guiding best practices for future studies and for improving agronomic traits in switchgrass and other species through selective breeding.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Human-Centric Lighting: Foundational Considerations and a Five-Step Design Process

At its best, human-centric lighting considers the visual and non-visual effects of light in support of positive human outcomes. At its worst, it is a marketing phrase used to healthwash lighting products or lighting design solutions. There is no doubt that environmental lighting contributes to human health, but how might one practice human-centric lighting given both the credible potential and the implausible hype? Marketing literature is filled with promises. Technical lighting societies have summarized the science but have not yet offered design guidance. Meanwhile, designers are in the middle, attempting to distinguish credible knowledge from that which is dubious to make design decisions that affect people directly. This article is intended to: (1) empower the reader with fundamental understandings of ways in which light affects health; (2) provide a process for human-centric lighting design that can dovetail with the decision-making process that is already a part of a designer's workflow.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Biotechnological solutions for critical mineral recovery from unconventional feedstocks

Secure and sustainable metal recovery from unconventional feedstocks is needed to meet the mineral demands of energy, defense, and electronic technologies. Here, we highlight the potential to leverage nature’s ability to extract and differentiate metal ions in biotechnologies that could become the next generation of mining and refining. We describe bulk and trace processes and then discuss the advances and opportunities of two key bioprocesses: microbially mediated solubilization of metal ions from solid matrices (termed ‘bioleaching’) and bio-based separation of solubilized ions via selective adsorption to proteins. Both biotechnologies have advantages such as reduced energy input for leaching low-grade feedstocks and reduced organic solvent demand for separating ions with similar physiochemical properties but require more development for industrial scale recovery from unconventional feedstocks. Innovation in biological science and engineering may bring timely solutions to key challenges toward recovering critical minerals from unconventional feedstocks.

organic↗
DOE OSTI2021

Towards prevention and prediction of infectious diseases with virus sterilization using ultraviolet light and low-temperature plasma and bio-sensing devices for health and hygiene care

Inspired by the ideas of many authors, we provide insight on state-of-the-art potential technologies for the prevention and prediction of infectious diseases before they spread. This review also surveys virus sterilization with ultraviolet light and low temperature plasma technologies. Researchers in the various fields of medicine, materials, electronics, and plasma sciences have addressed increasingly challenging demands and the discussion encompasses the major challenges in societies that are faced with the threat of infectious diseases. In addition, technologies that use nanomaterials are evaluated for infection prevention and hygiene purposes. Advances in biomedical diagnostics for health care in terms of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor transistors-based devices and telemetry for health monitoring are also reviewed.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

G4CMP: Condensed matter physics simulation using the G$\scriptsize{\mathrm{EANT}}$4 toolkit

G4CMP simulates phonon and charge transport in cryogenic semiconductor crystals using the Geant4 toolkit. The transport code is capable of simulating the propagation of acoustic phonons as well as electron and hole charge carriers. Herein processes for anisotropic phonon propagation, oblique charge-carrier propagation, and phonon emission by accelerated charge carriers are included. The simulation reproduces theoretical predictions and experimental observations such as phonon caustics, heat-pulse propagation times, and mean charge-carrier drift velocities. In addition to presenting the physics and features supported by G4CMP, this report outlines example applications from the dark matter and quantum information science communities. These communities are applying G4CMP to model and design devices for which the energy transported by phonons and charge carriers is germane to the performance of superconducting instruments and circuits placed on silicon and germanium substrates. The G4CMP package is available to download from GitHub: github.com/kelseymh/G4CMP.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗