Nuclear chemistry

Scientists recruit new atomic heavyweights in targeted fight against cancer

December 15, 2020

Katherine Shield (from left), Dahlia An, and Tyler Bailey at Berkeley Lab

Research authors Katherine Shield (from left), Dahlia An, and Tyler Bailey (lead author) are part of a research team that developed new methods for the large-scale production, purification, and use of the radioisotope cerium-134, which...

A forgotten legacy: How nuclear reactors built for war transformed peacetime science

July 28, 2020

X-10 Reactor at Oak Ridge, Tenn, WWII

Workers load uranium slugs into the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge in 1943. Image: Ed Westcott/US Army/Manhattan Engineer District.

On July 16 this year, on what marks the 75th anniversary of the first nuclear bomb test, a patient may go to the doctor for a heart scan. A student may open her...

This Superheavy Atom Factory Is Pushing the Limits of the Periodic Table

February 19, 2020

heavy elements

As we push the Periodic Table of the Elements further and further into the unknown, its familiar columns and rows are threatening to crumble. What’s next for this science icon? Superheavy elements exist for a fraction of time and are nearly impossible to catch. But understanding them could force us to reimagine the most iconic scientific symbol of all time..

Q&A With Eric Seaborg: Science Writer, Author, and Outdoorsman

January 23, 2020

 U.S. National Archives)Eric Seaborg, a writer and author, outdoorsman and environmentalist, has a love for hiking that he shared with his father, the late chemist and Nobel laureate Glenn Seaborg (1912-1999) who blazed trails in element and isotope discoveries during an illustrious career at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley.

The Element Named After Berkeley

September 17, 2019

berkelium

Glenn Seaborg was born too late to have spawned Cal’s spirit cry. It’s coincidence, surely, that his name is an anagram for “Go Bears!” And, although he was definitely a Bears fan and was Chancellor when Cal last made it to the Rose Bowl in 1959, he was never in Oski’s league as a campus celebrity. While others led rallies, he had to settle for spearheading decades of trailblazing nuclear science, endowing UC Berkeley with bragging rights to the discovery of a record 16 new elements. Now, though, the 1951 Nobelist is making a bid to play in the social media space.

A Single Dose for Good Measure: How an Anti-Nuclear-Contamination Pill Could Also Help MRI Patients

September 12, 2019

Rebecca Abergel

When chemist Rebecca Abergel (Ph.D. '06, Chem) and her team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory successfully developed an anti-radiation-poisoning pill in 2014, they hoped it would never have to be used. Now the researchers are studying how that very same pill could help protect people from the potential toxicity of something else – the long-term retention of gadolinium, a critical ingredient in widely used contrast dyes for MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans.

Stellar reactions in a galaxy not so far, far away

July 2, 2019

Dawn ShaughnessyDawn Shaughnessy leads the Nuclear and Radiochemistry Group of the Physics and Life Sciences Directorate at Lawrence Berkeley Livermore Lab and uses the National Ignition Facility to generate some of the most extreme conditions in our solar system for high energy density experiments.

Chemistry alum Rebecca Abergel joins nuclear engineering faculty

September 18, 2018
Rebecca Abergel

Meet Berkeley's new faculty: Rebecca Abergel, nuclear engineering.

Meet alumna Dawn Shaughnessy, a real-life alchemist

November 27, 2018

Dawn Shaughnessy

The periodic table is chemistry’s holy text. Not only does it list all of the tools at chemists’ disposal, but its mere shape – where these elements fall into specific rows and columns – has made profound predictions about new elements and their properties that later came true. But few chemists on Earth have a closer relationship with the document than Dawn Shaughnessy, whose team is partially responsible for adding six new elements to table’s ranks.

Scientists revise understanding of the limits of bonding for very electron-rich heavy elements

November 15, 2018

Berkelium and Californium

New research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been published in "Chemistry: a Europena Journal" about two elements discovered at Berkeley: Berkelium and Californium. Researchers show that berkelium and californium, two elements in the actinide series (elements 89 to 103), have a surprisingly stable +5 oxidation state.