Oak Ridge National Laboratory is debuting a small satellite ground station that uses high-performance computing to support automated detection of changes to Earth’s landscape. The new system will reduce the time it takes to collect, process and analyze satellite imagery, saving precious seconds when human life may be at risk.

The HPC-enabled automated change detection and satellite integration can help speed emergency response and relief efforts following crises such as wildfires, natural disasters or sudden population migrations.

A team of researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital has developed a novel, machine learning–based technique to explore and identify relationships among medical concepts using electronic health record data across multiple healthcare providers.

A study led by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could help make materials design as customizable as point-and-click.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers demonstrated an electron microscopy technique for imaging lithium in energy storage materials, such as lithium ion batteries, at the atomic scale.

The properties of energy storage materials stem directly from their atomic structures, which are only visible using electron microscopy. Today's advanced electron microscopes are able to image heavy elements at atomic resolution. One challenge is simultaneously observing light elements including lithium, sodium and potassium, which are essential for modern batteries.

Several electrolyte and thin-film coating technologies, developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have been licensed by BTRY, a battery technology company based in Virginia, to make batteries with increased energy density, at lower cost, and with an improved safety profile in crashes.

The enabling technologies, called Safe Impact Resistant Electrolytes, or SAFIRE, are particularly suitable for application in the electric vehicles and aerospace industries.