Fifteen years ago was the genesis of DOE R&D Accomplishments. It was established with the purpose of featuring U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and predecessor agency past research accomplishments whose benefits are being realized now. As the individual responsible for the growth and development of this Web product, the journey has been challenging, fun, exciting, and thought-provoking -- but never boring.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has historically played a leading role in supporting human genome research. March 2014 is the anniversary of the 1986 Santa Fe Workshop, which brought together participants from government, academia, and the private sector to explore the possibility of sequencing the human genome. This workshop was sponsored by DOE and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The Human Genome Project (HGP) was formalized in mid-February 1990.
In honor of the anniversary of the Santa Fe Workshop, DOE R&D Accomplishments has published a new feature page, Human Genome Research: DOE Origins. This page describes the key role played by Charles DeLisi, then Associate Director of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Health and Environmental Research (OHER) in conceiving the idea for a program to sequence the human genome. The Santa Fe Workshop met DeLisi’s goal of laying out an approach to sequence the human genome.
DOE R&D Accomplishments is a unique website and database in the OSTI collection. For over 14 years, special Feature pages have been methodically researched and useful information collected on scientists, discoveries, and historical events to include in this searchable resource. It is a rich source of DOE trivia unto itself.
On June 12th, 2013, the 100th Feature Page was released on the website and it highlighted 2004 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, David Gross. Gross joins other featured DOE Nobel Laureates such as Glenn Seaborg, E. O. Lawrence, Melvin Calvin and Saul Perlmutter on this distinguished list.
Major operations for the Manhattan Engineer District (Manhattan Project) took place in remote site locations in the states of Tennessee, New Mexico, and Washington, with additional research being conducted in university laboratories at Chicago and Berkeley.
At the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, Enrico Fermi's experiments at the CP-1 pile took place to determine the exact amount of neutron reduction needed for a safe and controlled sustained nuclear reaction. A second pile (CP-2), with external cooling, was built at Argonne in order to move the continuing experiments away from populated areas.
DOE-associated researchers have contributed to the advancement of a variety of science disciplines as a result of research they have conducted. Twenty years ago, the work of two of these researchers (Georges Charpak and Rudolph Marcus) was recognized when they were awarded Nobel Prizes.
Georges Charpak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber".
DOE's RTG is doing it again. The Department's Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) is providing continuous power to the Mars rover Curiosity. This radioactive power source is "essentially a nuclear battery that will operate the rover’s instruments, robotic arm, wheels, computers and radio. It is fueled with plutonium-238 that gives off heat as it naturally decays. No moving parts are required to convert this heat into electricity."1
On August 13, 1942, the Manhattan Engineer District, whose name was based upon the geographical location of its headquarters, was established. In September, the Army appointed Colonel Leslie R. Groves to head the effort. Groves held that the exigencies of war required scientists to move from laboratory research to development and production in record time. Though traditional scientific caution might be short-circuited in the process, there was no alternative if a bomb was to be built in time to be used in the current conflict (World War II).
Various isotope separation methods (uranium enrichment) to produce uranium-235 were being researched at this time. One was gaseous diffusion being done at Columbia and another was the electromagnetic method being done at Berkeley under Ernest O. Lawrence. Based upon the success of the electromagnetic method, the S-1 (The Office of Scientific Research and Development Section On Uranium) Executive Committee recommended building plants in Tennessee at Site X (now Oak Ridge).
This year is the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Manhattan Project, a predecessor of the U.S. Department of Energy. In honor of its impacts on science and history, a 'Manhattan Project' series on this blog will revisit various aspects of its background, establishment, operations, and immediate and long-term influences. The first of the series is about the background of the Manhattan Project.
During the fall of 1939, President F. D. Roosevelt was made aware of the possibility that German scientists were racing to build an atomic bomb and he was warned that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon. As a result, Roosevelt set up the Advisory Committee on Uranium, consisting of both civilian and military representatives, to study the current state of research on uranium and to recommend an appropriate role for the federal government. The result was limited military funding for isotope separation and the work on chain reactions by Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard at Columbia University.
"For the Discovery of the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe through Observations of Distant Supernovae"
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics to Saul Perlmutter, an astrophysicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley. Perlmutter heads the International Supernova Cosmology Project, which pioneered the methods used to discover the accelerating expansion of the universe. Dr. Perlmutter has been a leader in studies to determine the nature of dark energy.
You can get a quick read on exciting historical research accomplishments of DOE and its predecessors via the DOE R&D AccomplishmentsBlog. The Blog provides comments about and calls attention to the multiple diverse aspects of the outcomes of past DOE R&D that have had significant economic impact, have improved people's lives, or have been widely recognized as a remarkable advance in science. After viewing the short entries on the blog, you can then select the link to the DOE R&D Accomplishments website for more information.
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