Argonne News 2004 Articles
Argonne News is the Argonne weekly employee newsletter. This page contains Argonne News articles that focus on the APS.
Glass gives up secrets under pressure (Dec.
10)
Glass is a mysterious material, but when researchers apply pressure, it reveals secrets. Using a variety of techniques at the APS and the IPNS, Argonne researchers saw for the first time ever, the atomic structure of a dense, purely octahedral glass that has eluded scientists for decades. They also witnessed a continuous structural change in the glass, disproving the theory that tetrahedral glasses go through a distinct transition between low- and high-density phases.
Opening New Doors to APS Beamlines (Nov. 26)
Each year, the APS hosts thousands of experimenters who carry out research that impacts nearly every aspect of our lives. Now, the outlook for this U.S. Department of Energy-funded national research facility is even brighter. Changes in the way scientists access the APS are significantly increasing opportunities for frontier experimentation with this nation’s brightest x-ray beams.
Argonne realigns top management (Nov. 22)
The Intense Pulsed Neutron Source division and the divisions of the Advanced
Photon Source will be integrated into a new Scientific User Facilities Directorate
under the leadership of Murray Gibson, who has been associate laboratory director
for the Advanced Photon Source. This reorganization will enable Argonne to
provide better service to users of both facilities.
New method studies living bacteria cells (Oct.
22)
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's
Argonne National Laboratory have found a new way to study individual living
bacteria cells and analyze their chemistry.
Accelerator Systems Division keeps nation's brightest
X-rays beaming (Sept. 17)
Argonne is home to the Advanced
Photon Source, this hemisphere's most brilliant source of X-rays for scientific
research. The Accelerator Systems Division maintains the equipment to provide
optimal X-ray quality with few interruptions to scientists.
Automated
science speeds solution of Human Genome data (Aug.
9)
Scientists in Argonne 's Biosciences Division are automating and accelerating
the complex processes that coax a protein to reveal its structure so they can
learn the role Nature assigned it.
The researchers found that the ferroelectric phase — the ability to hold
a switchable electric polarization — is stable for thicknesses as small
as 1.2 nanometers, one-billionth of a meter, or a size several hundred thousand
times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
Scientists determine structure of staph, anthrax enzyme (Jul. 14)
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago have determined the crystal structure of sortase B, an enzyme found in the bacteria that cause staph and anthrax. While an antibiotic is probably five to seven years away, the structure could provide the first clue in developing a treatment for the infections.
Studies
on electric polarization open potential for tinier devices (Jun.
11)
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory
and Northern Illinois University have shown
that very thin materials can still retain an electric polarization, opening
the potential for a wide range of tiny devices.
Beethoven hair experiment re-enacted for film (Jun. 7
)
A camera crew visited the Advanced Photon Source (APS) May 11-13 to film the
re-enactment of a highly- publicized experiment from 2000, when researchers
using the APS confirmed that composer Ludwig van Beethoven's years of chronic
illness were due to lead poisoning. This toxin also may have contributed to
the 19th-century composer's death.
Argonne, U of Wisconsin engineers visualize electric memory as it fades (Jun. 1)
While the memory inside electronic devices may often be more
reliable than ours, it too can worsen over time. 
APS
Users honor young investigator (May 3)
Alexis S. Templeton, postdoctoral research associate at the Scripps Institution
of Oceanography, will receive the first Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator
Award of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) Users Organization.
`XSW' imaging probes solid-liquid interfaces (April
26)
Argonne researchers have taken the guesswork out of determining structures at
the interface between minerals and water. They have directly visualized, in three
dimensions, ion site distributions at the mineral-water interface using a technique
called X-ray standing wave (XSW) imaging.
X-ray
method speeds study of mineral-water interfaces (Apr.
10)
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have
taken the guesswork out of interfacial structure determination. Their work is
published in the April 10 issue of Surface Science Letters.