C2ST programs The Science & Policy of Obesity will be televised on CAN TV:

What: The Science of Obesity

When: Sunday, January 15th 2012 – 12:30am CAN TV channel 21

            Wednesday, January 18th 2012 – 8:00am CAN TV channel 19

            Tuesday, January 24th 2012 – 12:00pm CAN TV channel 21

***CAN TV’s channels are only shown on the three cable systems in the city limits of Chicago. The cable companies are Comcast, RCN and Wide Open West (WOW.)

Click here for more information on the Science of Obesity

Click here for more information on the Policy of Obesity

Eric Isaacs is President of Argonne National Laboratory and Board Member of C2ST

Courtesy: The Huffington Post

If you want proof of the real-world value of basic science research, take a look under the hood of GM’s innovative new Chevy Volt. There you’ll find a safe, long-lasting lithium-ion battery that uses materials developed and patented at Argonne National Laboratory.

The Chevy Volt, and the Argonne-developed materials inside the GM battery that drives its wheels, demonstrate that American ingenuity, powered by American investment, can renew our industries, create good jobs, improve our energy security and protect our environment.

As America’s first mass-produced electric vehicle, the Volt represents a major, exciting step toward electrification of our nation’s transportation fleet — a critical component of President Obama’s vision of ending America’s dependence on foreign oil.

The 2011 Chevrolet Volts 16 kWh battery can be recharged using a 120V or 240V outlet. X11CH_VT159

Just as important, the development of the electric car is recharging the American battery industry, creating new green tech jobs where they are most needed. Under just-announced licensing agreements, battery manufacturer LG Chem is building batteries using Argonne’s cutting-edge lithium-rich materials, and General Motors can use Argonne’s battery technology throughout its supply chain — for the Volt and for future electric vehicles. Already, an LG Chem subsidiary is building a new battery facility in Michigan. The plant, which was partially funded through the federal stimulus program, will employ more than 400 workers.

As Director of a Department of Energy national laboratory, I am sometimes questioned about the investment of taxpayer dollars of basic scientific research, especially in these challenging economic times. Today I am proud to answer those questions by pointing to the role Argonne’s “dream team” of scientists and engineers has played in the development of the new electric car. Our fundamental research made it possible to develop reliable, safer cathode materials for car batteries, and our advanced energy storage technologies are backed up with years of world-class basic and applied research and development, as well as extensive testing and validation.

Argonne’s collaboration with the U.S. auto industry shows that our national laboratories are delivering on the Department of Energy’s mission to expand the innovation pipeline, which runs from the earliest discoveries of basic science to the development of amazing products built by U.S. industry and delivered to American consumers.

Our latest contribution to today’s electric car batteries is only the beginning. Argonne researchers already are racing to create a new generation of car battery technologies. As Foreign Policy magazine recently noted,

“The future of the electric-car industry belongs not to the scientists and engineers who perfect the batteries we have now, but the ones who figure out what comes next, in the 2020s, the 2030s, and beyond… The holy grail is a battery powerful and safe enough to challenge the energy density of gasoline and the freedom of the internal combustion engine.”

The stakes for our national economy are incredibly high. The research firm IHS Global Insight predicts that advances in battery technology will allow hybrids and electric cars to grab up to 15 percent of the world’s new-car sales by 2020. At today’s production rates, that adds up to about 7.5 million cars a year — and at an average cost of $30,000 per car, that equals $225 billion a year, roughly equivalent to Toyota’s entire global sales in 2009, Foreign Policy calculates.

It won’t be easy. But I am optimistic that the national laboratories, in collaboration with private industry, can provide world-class, mission-driven basic and applied research that will keep America in the forefront of energy technology.

The rollout of a practical, reliable electric car represents a milestone in American auto technology that underscores the critical need for continuing, significant investment in basic research at laboratories nationwide. It shows that intellectual curiosity, combined with an innovative spirit, continue to fuel the engine of America’s economic might.

Physicist Eric D. Isaacs is the Director of Argonne National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy’s first national laboratory for science and engineering research.

- Eric Isaacs

It is an annual rite of summer in Chicago: heavy or persistent rain causes a water backup from runoff and sewage that pollutes Lake Michigan, forcing officials to close beaches as a health precaution.

Chicago is exceptionally prone to the problem, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency knows it is exacerbated to greater or lesser extent by runoff from cities and communities of all sizes lining the shores of the Great Lakes. In response, they have asked engineers to propose ways to fix the problem.

One team led by University of Illinois at Chicago civil and environmental engineering professor Krishna Reddy thinks the best solution is a dose of prevention.

“There are lots of studies that include monitoring, but not much is being done about preventing the problem. We know pollution is caused by various sources, a major one being surface water runoff,” Reddy said.

“Our idea is to design a filter that the runoff passes through. Whatever comes out will be generally clean. As engineers, we wanted to come up with a solution to prevent the problem from happening.”

Reddy and co-investigator Krishna Pagilla, professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, received a two-year, $239,000 grant from the USEPA to examine the feasibility of such an approach.

Their focus is polluted water running off hard surfaces such as roads and parking lots adjacent to city beaches. A hard rain can wash away a witch’s brew of contaminants that often flow directly into the lake.

“It’s generally E. coli bacteria and nutrients such as nitrates, phosphorous, plus heavy metals such as mercury, zinc, copper, nickel and cadmium,” said Preethi Chinchoud, a UIC engineering doctoral student working with Reddy. “The nutrients come from landscape runoff. A lot of organic contaminants come from nearby gas stations or parking lots,” she said.

Other pollutants include salts, nanoparticles, leached plastic stabilizers and other chemicals that are often not monitored, but which pose potential risks to public health and lake ecosystems.

Reddy and Pagilla will test various filter media at UIC and IIT labs to determine which pull out the contaminants that commonly wash into the Great Lakes off paved surfaces. The goal is to come up with various pre-beach catch systems that use effective filter material that is relatively cheap and easy to maintain. Following lab tests, the researchers will work with the Chicago Park District to build an actual test site near a Chicago public beach.

“Ultimately our tests will result in a filter system design that’s hydraulically efficient with a lot of water flowing through it, but at the same time can retain a lot of types of contaminants.”

Reddy thinks if such a system proves effective, governmental agencies may deploy them along threatened lakes and waterways around the country.

“We see large-scale application,” he said.

- Paul Francuch

A study by researchers at the University of Chicago and Emory University in Atlanta shows that patients who were infected with the H1N1 flu in 2009 produced antibodies with broad protection against other types of flu virus.

The study, published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine,  shows that the patients’ antibodies were directed against H1N1’s most critical viral components.  These components make up the most basic structures of the virus, thus they are found in a wide variety of other flu viruses, making the 2009 H1N1 patients immune to multiple strains.

Using only those essential components in future vaccines could prevent the need to quickly mass produce a customized yearly vaccine which is based only on predictions of which strains might be present that year.

“The result is something like the Holy Grail for flu-vaccine research,” said Dr. Patrick Wilson, study author and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. “It demonstrates how to make a single vaccine that could potentially provide immunity to all influenza. The surprise was that such a very different influenza strain, as opposed to the most common strains, could lead us to something so widely applicable.”

For the study, white blood cells from nine infected patients (whose symptoms ranged from mild to life-threatening) were isolated and antibody genes analyzed.    A total of 86 different antibodies were tested.  Five of those bound to all seasonal H1N1 flu strains from the last decade as well as the deadly 1918 Spanish flu.

These results indicated that “while the flu changes from year to year, some core elements have been consistent for nearly a century,” said Wilson.

These types of antibodies, which bind to only the critical part of a virus, were previously thought to be very rarely made.

Dr. Jens Wrammert, lead author and assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine and the Emory Vaccine Center said, “Our data show that infection with the 2009 pandemic influenza strain could induce broadly protective antibodies that are only very rarely seen after seasonal flu infections or flu shots.  These findings show that these types of antibodies can be induced in humans, if the immune system has the right stimulation.”

Next up for the authors is studying those patients who received the 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine to see if they had the same type of immune response.

- Rebecca Hernandez

The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute is one of three charter partners of a new advanced safety research center that will help reduce the number of traffic fatalities and injuries on America’s roads.

The Collaborative Safety Research Center will be based at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor and will involve Toyota researchers and engineers from North America and Japan, as well as UMTRI researchers and those from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute. Toyota will commit $50 million over the next five years to fund the center.

Research at the new center will focus on integrated ways to enhance safety, involving the vehicle, driver and traffic environment. Initial areas of emphasis will include reducing the risk of driver distraction—a growing cause of accidents—and helping to protect the most vulnerable traffic populations, including children, teens and seniors, and conducting in-depth analyses of available accident and human behavior data to support efforts to evaluate and speed deployment of active safety systems.

UMTRI will be involved on a multidisciplinary project to assess the potential benefits of advanced safety systems in a systematic way, combining researchers’ expertise in driver behavior, crash data analysis and driver modeling.

“U-M is prominent in automotive safety research and injury prevention across UMTRI, the Medical School, the School of Public Health and the College of Engineering, and this Toyota initiative will bring new energy to our joint efforts,” said UMTRI director Peter Sweatman. “UMTRI will work closely with Toyota to coordinate opportunities for all of these university programs to collaborate in the new safety research center.”

Chuck Gulash, a senior executive engineer at the Toyota Technical Center, will serve as director of the Collaborative Safety Research Center.

“We have a long history of working closely with North American partners to achieve our safety objectives, and our new collaborative research initiative will build on this tradition,” Gulash said. “We intend to publish as much of the research as possible so that it is available to federal agencies, the industry and academia.”

In addition to UMTRI’s advanced safety systems research, other projects at the Collaborative Safety Research Center include research by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute on the effectiveness of an electronic coaching and monitoring system for newly licensed teenage drivers to help reduce unsafe driving behaviors, and a pilot study by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute to create America’s first publicly available national crash surveillance system focused on child vehicle occupants.

-  University of Michigan News Service

We track down the forensic astronomers who are seeking clues to historical events embedded in artworks and literature.

MYTHS AND CLASSICAL literature often refer to signs and omens in the sky. “These late eclipses in the Sun and Moon portend no good to us,” says a character in Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Modern readers tend to presume that these references are mere window dressing: like murder on a dark and stormy night or thunder in a B-grade horror movie. But recently, scientists have discovered that they can be used to resolve long-standing historical debates.

Scholars, for example, have never been sure when Shakespeare wrote King Lear. Estimates ranged from about 1604 to 1606. But in 2001, astronomer David Levy (co-discoverer of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which crashed into Jupiter in 1994) began a doctoral thesis on “The Sky in Early Modern Literature”. In 1605, he determined, Londoners were witness to both a lunar eclipse and a near-total solar eclipse, one in late September and the other in October. Odds are that Shakespeare had these in mind when he wrote his play. If so, he was still working on it in late 1605.

Donald Olson, a physics professor at Texas State University in San Marcos, U.S., has used similar techniques to help art historians pin down details of famous paintings. In 2000, for example, he found the location at which Vincent van Gogh created one of his last paintings, The White House at Night.

Knowing that van Gogh painted it in mid-June, and the direction in which the house faced, Olson was able to determine that a bright star in the painting was mostly likely the planet Venus, which would have been prominent at the time.

TWO YEARS LATER, Olson used a similar process with another van Gogh painting, Moonrise. That painting depicts the full Moon rising behind an overhanging cliff in southern France. Historians knew the work was made sometime in 1889, and haystacks in the foreground indicate that the time of year is somewhere around harvest season.

Olson’s team hunted down the location and, with a bit of astronomical detective work, determined that there was only one date on which the Moon rose in the right place: 13 July 1889. Since van Gogh once said he never worked from memory and always painted what he saw, this was probably the date on which he started painting Moonrise.

Scientists call this emerging field of research forensic astronomy. It’s becoming popular, says Geza Gyuk of Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois, because of the ready availability of off-the-shelf astronomical software such as Starry Night and RedShift. It means that anyone with a computer can see what the sky looked like from anywhere in the world, at any date in history. The programs are not only remarkably accurate, but they’re also easy to use. “It’s the work of an afternoon now to sort through all the autumn moonrises from a particular location on Earth during a particular span of years,” says Gyuk.

Geza Gyuk, PhD, Astronomer, Adler Planetarium Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors, KV 265

SHAKESPEARE AND VAN GOGH are only starting points for forensic astronomers. More recently, they’ve been investigating Homer’s Odyssey. Scholars have long debated the degree to which ancient Greek text, the Odyssey and its prequel, the Iliad, were inspired by actual events. Of particular interest is a passage in the Odyssey, shortly before Odysseus slaughters the suitors besieging his faithful wife, Penelope. The passage, an obvious prophesy of doom, asserts that the Sun has “perished out of heaven” and an “evil mist” has spread across the world.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Greek historian and philosopher Plutarch suggested that this might be a reference to an eclipse. By the 1920s, astronomers knew that a total eclipse had occurred in the region on 16 April 1178 BC. And they knew it occurred sometime around noon, as described in the poem.

But the idea that this was what Homer was describing was pooh-poohed by Homeric scholars. After all, Homer wrote his poem hundreds of years after the Trojan War. How could he possibly have known of the eclipse?

But it turns out the eclipse isn’t the only astronomical event described in the Odyssey. In a June 2008 paper in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Marcelo Magnasco, a physicist at Rockefeller University in New York City, and Constantino Baikouzis of the Astronomical Observatory in La Plata, Argentina, noted that the poem also sets the date of the slaughter on a new moon – a necessary condition for a solar eclipse.

ELSEWHERE, THE POEM describes Odysseus steering his boat by the positions of the constellations Boötes and the Pleiades, 29 days before the slaughter. That establishes the date as early spring. The poem also describes Venus as a morning star, high in the sky, and refers to the god Hermes (equivalent to the Roman god Mercury) taking a trip to the far west, then turning back, 34 days before the slaughter.

That, Magnasco and Baikouzis hypothesised, might be a description of the planet Mercury at the end of one of its retrograde cycles.

Any one of these events occurs fairly often, but they don’t always occur in the order described in the poem, and particularly not with the timing assigned to each event in the poem. As Magnasco explains, “The Moon gets out of whack with the solar calendar. Mercury and Venus have yet again different periods.”

So Magnasco and Baikouzis simulated the Greek skies, night-by-night for 135 years (49,000 nights), focussing on the date of the eclipse (see their reconstruction below). Even without adding the eclipse to their simulation, they found only one match for the sequence of events described in the poem: one that put the slaughter on precisely 16 April 1178 BC. Magnasco adds that he and Baikouzis were not “cherry picking” references in the Odyssey. “As far as we’re aware, there are no other astronomical references,” he says.

DID HOMER REALLY include an eclipse in his story? Who knows? What’s certain is that it’s one of the more controversial findings, to date, to come out of the infant field of forensic astronomy.

“The implication is that ‘Homer’ [who may have been many poets] was aware of astronomical events occurring four centuries before the poem was cast in its current form, and was interested enough in those events and knowledgeable enough about them to weave them into the narrative,” Magnasco says.

Historians didn’t think Greeks of the Trojan War era were interested in tracking the motions of the planets in such detail. If Magnasco and Baikouzis are right, it will force a reconsideration of what we thought we knew of early Greek astronomy. Their finding also heightens the debate over how much history is woven into the Odyssey and the Iliad. If the vanished Sun and evil mists are real, what else might also be real?

But not everything about the theory is perfect. “The astronomical reasoning seems fairly sound,” says Jerry Oltion, a telescope-maker, amateur astronomer and award-winning science fiction writer from Eugene, Oregon. But he thinks that if the description really applies to the eclipse, it must have been added as an afterthought.

THE PROBLEM, he says, is that the reference comes when the characters are indoors, at a banquet. “Any writer who has seen an eclipse – or even heard one described by someone who had seen one – would never put his characters indoors during the climactic moment,” he suggests. “Nor would he miss the opportunity to use the eclipse’s visual effects for dramatic purposes.”

Eclipses, Oltion says, are accompanied by many phenomena not described in the poem. The dappled sunlight beneath trees, for example, changes to crescent-shaped shadows as totality nears. There’s also the corona itself, “stretching away like fairy wings flying the Sun away.” Oltion doesn’t believe Homer could have ignored these dramatic, story-enhancing effects if he was indeed describing an eclipse.

Gyuk agrees that the evidence is tentative. “Does it convince me that a solar eclipse is referred to?” he asks. “No. Does it make it more plausible? Perhaps. We will probably never really know.” But, he suggests, that may not really matter.

“It gives us a new lens through which to look at the Odyssey…How would contemporaneous listeners have heard it? Would the vastly greater familiarity with the sky that the early Greeks enjoyed lead them to understand the poem differently?” And, he notes, the dream of any author is to make the reader think about the story. “This celebrates Homer and pays homage to the Odyssey in the most sincere way.”

- Richard A. Lovett

GE Intelligent Platforms has purchased SmartSignal, a company started by the University of Chicago based on technology developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory.

The GE acquisition demonstrates why the University of Chicago creates start-up companies to prove new technologies, said Alan Thomas, director of UChicagoTech, the university’s Office of Technology and Intellectual Property. “It’s great to see technology from Argonne that was incubated through the University of Chicago be adopted in a much wider way by such a prominent company. This is the innovation process at work,” he said.

“Part of Argonne’s mission is to partner with industry and promote the economic interests of the United States,” said Argonne Director Eric Isaacs. “This is an excellent example of how research investments can lead to new opportunities, new industries and new jobs as technology developed in the laboratory is transferred to the marketplace.”

SmartSignal provides software and services that monitor machinery and equipment, analyze data, and diagnose developing problems before they become serious. It continuously monitors approximately 12,000 assets at more than 300 sites worldwide.

“SmartSignal provides GE with proven analytic software technology that delivers real results,” said Erik Udstuen, Vice President of Software & Services for GE Intelligent Platforms. “At GE, we are always striving to solve the world’s toughest problems, and today the reliability and efficiency of the world’s infrastructure — from energy to water to transportation — is an important problem to solve. We are excited to bring SmartSignal’s advanced technology to help a broad set of customers improve their operations and proactively address problems across a wide range of their assets.”

SmartSignal, its customers and its employees have received many honors for developing and using its technology in a variety of industrial applications, including the following:

• Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards, Software Division Runner-Up, SmartSignal;
• Illinois Technology Association 2009 Lighthouse Award Winner, SmartSignal;
• M2M Magazine 2008 Top 100 Leader in M2M, SmartSignal;
• Edison Electric Institute 2007 Edison Award Winner, Great Plains Energy subsidiary Kansas City Power & Light (a SmartSignal customer).

The company is based on patented smart technology that Argonne scientists developed in the early 1990s to predict pump failures at nuclear facilities. When SmartSignal was legally incorporated in 1995, the company consisted of two employees and eight patents. The company became fully financed in 1999 and became profitable in 2007.

Based in Lisle, Ill., the company now has approximately 100 employees. The company focuses its business on the power and oil and gas industries, serving scores of clients in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, including Chevron, GenOn, Constellation Energy, Entergy and Delta Airlines.

The research that created the patented technology was originally funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy.

Argonne, which is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, owns the license for all power-generation applications of SmartSignal’s technology. A minority shareholder in SmartSignal, the university owns the license for all other applications. Both organizations will continue to receive royalties on the patents covering the technology.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America ‘s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLCfor the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Office of Science.

- Eleanor Taylor

A T-shaped battery replica (left) is positioned near a Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle. Argonne National Laboratory and LG Chem, Ltd., announced today that they have reached a licensing agreement to make and use Argonne's patented cathode material technology in lithium-ion battery cells. The technology is in the battery cell that is powering the Volt. Photo courtesy General Motors.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and LG Chem, Ltd., announced today that they have reached a licensing agreement to make and use Argonne’s patented cathode material technology in lithium-ion battery cells.

The technology is in the battery cell that is powering General Motors Company’s Chevrolet Volt, the first mass-produced plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. The Volt has an EPA estimated range of 35 miles on a full charge.

The Argonne-developed technology offers the longest-lasting energy available in the smallest, lightest package: a 50—100 percent increase in energy storage capacity over conventional cathode material. Further, its unique lithium- and manganese-rich mixed-metal oxide combination extends the operating time between charges, increases the calendar life and improves the inherent safety of lithium-ion cells.

“We believe that Argonne’s patented cathode material technology that helps increase the capacity of lithium-ion battery cells and LG Chem’s safety-enhanced SRS^®(separator) technology are the keys to producing high-performance and safe batteries for the GM Volt,” said Youngjoon Shin, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Battery R&D, LG Chem.

“The licensing agreement with LG Chem concretely illustrates the key role that DOE national laboratories like Argonne play in the manufacturing supply chain in the United States,” said Eric Isaacs, Argonne director and president of UChicago Argonne, LLC, a wholly owned laboratory management subsidiary of the University of Chicago. “The development of this cathode material is the result of research performed by a multidisciplinary team of world-class scientists based at Argonne.”

“It is especially gratifying to know that the commercialization of this Argonne-cathode is helping the development of an emerging U.S. battery manufacturing industry, as well as the creation of new American jobs,” said Jeff Chamberlain, who heads Argonne’s Energy Storage Initiative.

LG Chem Michigan, Inc. (LGCMI), a wholly owned subsidiary of LG Chem, will manufacture Li-ion polymer battery cells for the Chevy Volt at a Recovery Act-funded $303 million production facility under construction in Holland, Mich. The plant will employ more than 400 people.

“Department of Energy innovations are playing a critical role in advancing America’s electric vehicle industry,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “The commercialization of this cutting-edge battery technology once again highlights the importance of our national laboratories in advancing our clean energy goals and supporting U.S. manufacturing.”

Argonne has developed and patented a sizable suite of Li-ion battery technologies with funding from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Funding for the earlier stages of research and development of this technology was provided by DOE’s Office of Science.

A battery charging in the 2011 Chevy Volt. The battery is based on cathode technology invented at Argonne National Laboratory.

“Talented scientists at Argonne have long been a source for industry-leading innovations in the area of automotive research,” said Rep. Judy Biggert, (R-Ill.), a senior member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and long-time champion of federal research efforts.  ”With support for basic science research from the DOE’s Office of Science and Congress, the work going on right here in our community promises to transform our transportation industry and keep the U.S. economically competitive for years to come.  This agreement will help speed those innovations out of the laboratory and into the marketplace, where they can create jobs, benefit consumers and help reduce our dependence on foreign energy.”

“This licensing agreement underscores the importance of scientific research conducted at the DOE’s national laboratories, research that makes possible discoveries that benefit the American economy,” said University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer.

About LG Chem
LG Chem, Ltd. is Korea’s largest chemical and rechargeable battery maker in terms of both size and performance. The company’s chemical business is vertically integrated and manufactures a wide range of products, from petrochemical goods to high-value added plastics. It also extends its chemical expertise into high-tech areas such as rechargeable batteries and the display materials field. For more information, please visit the website at www.lgchem.com.

About LG Chem Michigan Inc.

LG Chem Michigan, Inc. (LGCMI) is a wholly-owned North American subsidiary of LG Chem. The company was established in 2010 to manufacture Lithium-ion battery cells at the $303 million production facility in Holland, Mich., that was funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

About Argonne

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America ‘s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Office of Science.