2012 Press Release Archive

December 12, 2012
Press Release
X-ray Laser Takes Aim at Cosmic Mystery
Menlo Park, Calif. – Scientists have used powerful X-rays from the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to study and measure, in atomic detail, a key process at work in extreme plasmas like those found in stars, the rims of black holes and other massive cosmic phenomena.
Image - Chandra spacecraft overlaid on astronomical image
December 10, 2012
Press Release
Experiment Finds Ulcer Bug's Achilles' Heel
X-rays Pinpoint Drug Target for Bacteria that Affect Hundreds of Millions Worldwide
Image - Diagram of protein overlayed on microscope im...
November 29, 2012
Press Release
X-ray Laser Helps Fight Sleeping Sickness
Menlo Park, Calif. — An international group of scientists working at the Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has mapped a weak spot in the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness, pinpointing a promising new target for treating a disease that kills tens of thousands of people each year.
Image collage of Protein structure, diffraction pattern and tsetse fly involved in story
November 19, 2012
Press Release
BaBar Experiment Confirms Time Asymmetry
Menlo Park, Calif. — Time marches relentlessly forward for you and me; watch a movie in reverse, and you’ll quickly see something is amiss.
Illustration - Big letter "B"s change color to represent transforming B mesons
November 12, 2012
Press Release
Study Provides Recipe for 'Supercharging' Atoms with X-ray Laser
Menlo Park, Calif. — Researchers using the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have found a way to strip most of the electrons from xenon atoms, creating a “supercharged,” strongly positive state at energies previously thought too low.
Photo of the CAMP Chamber at LCLS
November 1, 2012
Press Release
NASA's Fermi Measures Cosmic 'Fog' Produced by Ancient Starlight
Astronomers using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have made the most accurate measurement of starlight in the universe and used it to establish the total number of stars that have ever shone, accomplishing a primary mission goal.
Image - Plot of blazars on top of a Fermi gamma-ray sky map
October 24, 2012
Press Release
Chi-Chang Kao, Noted X-ray Scientist, Named SLAC Director
Chi-­Chang Kao, an associate laboratory director at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, has been named as the lab's fifth director, Stanford University President John Hennessy announced today.
Headshot of Chi-Chang Kao
August 13, 2012
Press Release
World's Most Powerful X-ray Laser Beam Refined to Scalpel Precision
Menlo Park, Calif. — With a thin sliver of diamond, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have transformed the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) into an even more precise tool for exploring the nanoworld.
LCLS Self-Seeding Hardware Panorama (Photo by Matt Beardsley)
August 6, 2012
Press Release
Extreme Plasma Theories Put to the Test
Menlo Park, Calif. — The first controlled studies of extremely hot, dense matter have overthrown the widely accepted 50-year-old model used to explain how ions influence each other’s behavior in a dense plasma.
LCLS Charts Extreme Plasma Environments (Image courtesy of Sam Vinko, University of Oxford)
June 27, 2012
Press Release
X-ray Vision Exposes Aerosol Structures
Laser probes microscopic components of air pollution
Simulated Soot Particles (Image by Duane Loh and Andy Freeberg, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
June 18, 2012
Press Release
BaBar Data Hint at Cracks in the Standard Model
Menlo Park, Calif. — Recently analyzed data from the BaBar experiment may suggest possible flaws in the Standard Model of particle physics, the reigning description of how the universe works on subatomic scales.
Concept Art: B to D-Star-Tau-Nu
June 4, 2012
Press Release
Underground Search for Neutrino Properties Unveils First Results
Scientists studying neutrinos have found with the highest degree of sensitivity yet that these mysterious particles behave like other elementary particles at the quantum level.
EXO-200 in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
June 1, 2012
Press Release
X-ray Laser Probes Biomolecules to Individual Atoms
An international team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has proved how the world's most powerful X-ray laser can assist in cracking the structures of biomolecules, and in the processes helped to pioneer critical new investigative avenues in biology.
a lysozyme structural model against its X-ray diffraction pattern
April 24, 2012
Press Release
World's Largest Digital Camera Project Passes Critical Milestone
Menlo Park, Calif. — A 3.2 billion-pixel digital camera designed by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is now one step closer to reality.
LSST Lens
March 14, 2012
Press Release
Molecular Graphene Heralds New Era of 'Designer Electrons'
Menlo Park, Calif.
Molecular Graphene
March 5, 2012
Press Release
X-rays Reveal How Soil Bacteria Carry Out Surprising Chemistry
Menlo Park, Calif. — Researchers working at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have used powerful X-rays to help decipher how certain natural antibiotics defy a longstanding set of chemical rules – a mechanism that has baffled organic chemists for decades.
A ribbon diagram of the protein Lsd19
January 25, 2012
Press Release
World's Most Powerful X-ray Laser Creates 2-Million-Degree Matter
Menlo Park, Calif. — Researchers working at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have used the world’s most powerful X-ray laser to create and probe a 2-million-degree piece of matter in a controlled way for the first time.
The interior of an LCLS chamber set up for an investigation into hot, dense matter.
January 25, 2012
Press Release
Scientists Create First Atomic X-ray Laser
Menlo Park, Calif. — Scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have created the shortest, purest X-ray laser pulses ever achieved, fulfilling a 45-year-old prediction and opening the door to a new range of scientific discovery.
Atomic X-ray Illustration

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