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  About

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Brieflies...

World's smallest refinery wins Discover Award: The Microplasmatron Fuel Convertor, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), won one of the Tenth Annual Awards for Technological Innovation, sponsored by Discover Magazine and the Christopher Columbus Foundation. The device, about the size of a large soup can, reduces smog-producing nitrous oxide pollutant emissions by about 90 percent from vehicles using a wide variety of fuels including ordinary gasoline, natural gas, diesel oil, and oils derived from biomass. The award was presented to Daniel Cohn, head of the PSFC's Technology Division. Collaborators were Jud Virden, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and T&R Associates. This work was supported by the Office of Science's Fusion Energy Science Program.
Contact: Daniel Cohn, MIT, (617) 253-5524, cohn@PSFC.MIT.EDU
New Superheavy Elements Discovered at Berkeley: Two new "superheavy" elements—118 and its immediate decay product 116—have been discovered by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). "We jumped over a sea of instability onto an island of stability that theories have been predicting since the 1970s," said Victor Ninov, one of the discovering scientists.

Ninov and Ken Gregorich at LBNL used the 88-Inch Cyclotron to bombard targets of lead with an intense beam of high-energy krypton ions. Robert Smolanczu, a visiting Fulbright scholar from Soltan Institute for Nuclear Studies in Poland, determined that this reaction should have particularly favorable production rates. Although both new elements almost instantly decay into other elements, the sequence of decay events is consistent with theories that have long predicted an "island of stability" for nuclei with approximately 114 protons and 184 neutrons. In addition, the measured decay energies can be used to refine these theories, leading to a better understanding of nuclear stability. The unexpected success in producing these superheavy elements in the bombardment of 208-Pb with 86-Kr represents a new reaction pathway to the production of superheavy elements. These experiments are just the beginning of what should prove to be a vigorous research field in the coming years.

This research is supported by the Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics.
Contact: Ken Gregorich, LBNL, (510) 486-5603, KEGregorich@lbl.gov; or Victor Ninov, LBNL, (510) 486-7860, Vninov@lbl.gov

More Trees, Please: More Trees, PleaseIncreased plant growth may actually lower the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on global climate, according to studies conducted in Wisconsin and North Carolina. Researchers increased the atmospheric CO2 concentration by 50 percent (the level expected in the year 2050) in large test areas in forests.

The growth rate of aspen and birch trees in Wisconsin and loblolly pine in North Carolina increased by up to 25 percent. In Arizona, cotton and wheat showed increased photosynthesis of CO2 when its atmospheric concentration was increased. These results may indicate a natural mechanism to remove some of the excess CO2 from the atmosphere and decrease the impact of man-made greenhouse gases on global warming.

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory, working with researchers from around the world, are examining the transport of CO2 in the environment and the effect of increased CO2 on plant growth at seven sites covering a variety of biomes (see aerial photograph). The duration of rapid growth under high CO2 concentration has not been determined, but researchers doubt that the 25 percent increased growth rate can be maintained for very many years. The impact of rapid growth on plant health is also an issue; increased insect infestation has already been noted in test plots.

This study is funded primarily by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, with additional funding from the Forest Service, the National Science Foundation, and the National Consortium for Air and Stream Improvement.
Contact: George R. Hendrey, Brookhaven National Laboratory, (516) 344-3262, hendrey@bnl.gov. For more information, see Brookhaven's website for the Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) Project.

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