Earth Sciences Division (ESD) Department of Energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)

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14 posts from May 2015

05/28/2015

Romps’ New Technique Tracks Cloud Behavior

ESD’s David Romps and Rusen Oktem are collecting three-dimensional data (using off-the-shelf digital cameras) on cloud behavior that have never been possible to collect before. In this way, Romps can measure how fast the clouds rise, which in turn can shed light on a wide range of areas, ranging from...

05/21/2015

Clay Barriers Restrict Ionic Transport

Carl Steefel and Ian Bourg (and others) proved, for the first time, that anions can be completely excluded from the smallest pores within a compacted illitic clay material, indicating the effectiveness of clay-based barriers for waste containment.

The Microbiome of Leaf-Nosed Bats

ESD ecologist Neslihan Taş was one of the leading authors of a recently published paper studying the relationship between different leaf-nosed bat feeding strategies and host microbiome composition.

05/19/2015

Jillian Banfield: Profile

Jill Banfield shares her perspective on how the DOE Joint Genome Institute helps advance her research, addressing knowledge gaps related to the roles of subsurface microbial communities in biogeochemical cycling.

Symphony of the Soil: 5/21, 11 a.m., 50 Auditorium

On Thursday, May 21, as part of the International Year of Soils and the Berkeley Lab Microbes-to-Biomes initiative, ESD is hosting a screening of the movie "Symphony of the Soil".

05/15/2015

High Performance Computing Meets Mesoscale Science

The convergence of world-class microscopic characterization and computational resources has made it possible to address subsurface geological carbon sequestration using a new generation of pore-scale flow and reactive transport models.

Bacteria as Biosensors of Environmental Damage

Eric Dubinsky was part of a team whose work, reported on in mBio (the online journal of the American Society for Microbiology), has shown the power of microbial communities to predict sources of contamination in the environment.

05/12/2015

Steefel a Key Developer of Complex Flow Code

ESD’s Carl Steefel was one of the key developers of Chombo-Crunch, a reactive flow code that could enhance efforts toward carbon sequestration and greater safety in the oil and gas industry.

05/11/2015

May 12: ESD-Wageningen Minisymposium

Please join the ESD-Ecology Department May 12, in welcoming the Wageningen University Microbiology and Systems Biology Groups (from The Netherlands), and participating in a mini-symposium at 8:30 am in the bldg. 66 Auditorium.

Energy Future: The Gut of an Insect?

ESD’s Javier Ceja-Navarro was featured this past week (May 7, 2015) in a video presentation within a Gizmodo article, on the potential of biofuel derived from insects—“a strange new future for agriculture and energy production.”