Berkeley Lab

09/02/2026

A leader’s impact can be measured in the people they’ve influenced.

At a retirement reception for Berkeley Lab Director Emeritus Mike Witherell, employees shared how his time at the Lab shaped their careers, their leadership styles, and their lives.

Hear their reflections as they say farewell to Mike. 🎥

At the retirement reception for Lab Director Emeritus Mike Witherel...

09/01/2026

In a new study, the LZ experiment has observed one particle interaction that is difficult to explain with known background processes. It could be interpreted as a signal from WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, a dark matter candidate – but researchers will need more data to know for sure.

The result isn’t a discovery, but is the most compelling hint of dark matter reported by the experiment to date. LZ continues to run to see if additional data strengthens or weakens the hint of a dark matter interaction.

“Outlier events in the data are not unexpected, but they usually stand out as a background of some kind when you look at them deeper,” says Aaron Manalaysay, a physicist at Berkeley Lab. “This is the first example in any experiment I’ve worked on of an outlier that appears valid in every way. Of course, we’re still twisting our brains trying to think if there’s a rare background mechanism we could’ve missed, but it’s thrilling to wonder if this could be the first hint of a dark-matter observation.”

Learn more via link in comments below.

08/27/2026

What is coherence and what can it reveal? It turns out: A LOT! 💡

From microelectronics to quantum materials, the Advanced Light Source upgrade is turning to coherent light for deeper insights.

Watch the video to see the science behind it all.

08/26/2026

Then and now, science is a team effort.

Across 95 years, generations of Berkeley Lab researchers and staff have worked together to push knowledge forward and make new discoveries possible. Today, we’re proud to celebrate our 95th birthday. 🎂 https://www.lbl.gov/about/

08/26/2026

95 looks good on us. 🎉 Today we’re celebrating Berkeley Lab’s birthday and the generations of people who have made this place what it is.

Here’s to curiosity, collaboration, discovery, and everyone who keeps the Lab moving forward. 🎂

Learn more about us via link in comments below!
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Photo 1:
Robert Lyster Thornton (left), Edwin McMillan (center), and an unidentified person at the controls of the 184" Cyclotron.

Photo 2:
Heavy Element Group photographed in the control room in Building 88 on Monday, July 8, 2024 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. Experts in the Nuclear Science Division use the 88-Inch Cyclotron to test a new way to make superheavy element 116, livermorium.

08/18/2026

Biology happens across scales — from millisecond molecular events to disease spanning millimeters of tissue. The MOSAIC microscope merges 10+ imaging modes into one compact instrument, generating up to 4TB of data hourly.

To keep pace, researchers built an open-source toolkit that processes this data in real time using the Perlmutter supercomputer at NERSC. Together, they're laying the computational groundwork for training biological AI models.

(Details via link in comments)

UC Berkeley

08/17/2026

After 30 years of focusing on fixing the genetic mutation behind Huntington's Disease, and no successful treatments, work from Berkeley Lab illuminates a new aspect of the fatal disease that could be targeted with simple, already-available compounds.

The team’s study, published in Nature Communications, revealed an additional, previously overlooked characteristic of HD appears to be driving the neurodegeneration — a marked increase in breaks in DNA strands across the genome. They then demonstrated that treatment with an antioxidant suppresses these breaks and rescues mice from neuron damage and symptoms of the disease.

“I believe we’re opening the door to a new way to treat Huntington’s patients. Clinical agents already exist for humans that are known to change these breaks. We love that these could be easily tested and lead to a therapeutic strategy more quickly. And the simplicity of the approach is beautiful.” — Cynthia McMurray, study co-lead, retiree affiliate in Biosciences Area at Berkeley Lab.

(Details via link in comments below)

08/17/2026

Big science takes serious computing power.

NERSC’s 2026 allocation call is now open, connecting researchers with Berkeley Lab’s high-performance computing and data storage resources to tackle complex scientific questions.

See the post below for details and the Oct. 6 application deadline. ⬇️

Want to use NERSC's supercomputers and other resources in your research? The submission window for the 2026 allocation year is now open. Projects supporting DOE Office of Science priorities are invited to apply for time on CPU-only or GPU-accelerated nodes on Perlmutter, in addition to Community File System (CFS) and High-Performance Storage System (HPSS) storage.

Applications are due by October 6 at 5 p.m. PDT.

For more information, see the link in the comments.

Berkeley Lab Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences

08/13/2026

What does a summer of research at Berkeley Lab look like? 📸

For 145 students, affiliates, and guest faculty in our Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences Area, this summer brought 10 weeks of hands-on research, professional development, and opportunities to explore Berkeley Lab facilities.

The program wrapped up this week with a poster session where 83 community college, undergraduate, and graduate students shared their projects with staff from across Computing Sciences.

Swipe through for a look at the poster session and the people behind this summer’s research. 👇🏽

08/11/2026

A clearer picture can make a real difference in cancer treatment.

Berkeley Lab’s Time of Flight Cascade Gamma Ray Imaging has won a 2026 R&D 100 Award for advancing how clinicians can detect and visualize very low concentrations of therapeutic radionuclides in the body.

The technology could help support more precise alpha-targeted cancer therapies by giving doctors a better view of where treatment is going.

Berkeley Lab researchers also contributed to Pele, an open-source combustion simulation suite that was named a 2026 R&D 100 Award winner.

Congratulations to the teams behind both innovations.

Details via link in comments below.