The rapid pace of global climate change has added urgency to developing technologies that reduce the carbon footprint of transportation technologies, especially in sectors that are difficult to electrify. In response, researchers collaborating through the Center for Bioenergy Innovation make the case that scientific advances support a hybrid approach using biological and catalytic methods for producing cellulosic biofuel for use in airplanes, ships and long-haul trucks.

Jack Dongarra, an innovator in computational software development who holds joint appointments at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will receive the 2021 A.M. Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery. The award recognizes his pioneering contributions to numerical algorithms and libraries that enabled high-performance computational software to keep pace with exponential hardware improvements for over four decades.

While most people think first of atmospheric carbon emissions from fossil fuels when considering climate change, the planet’s soil actually stores more carbon and could become a major source of carbon release or a mitigation tactic in the years ahead. Just how soils store carbon, when and how much they release to the atmosphere, and how to get them to absorb more is the subject of intense research as scientists race to understand the processes at play, predict environmental change and use that knowledge to help heal the planet.

Surrounded by the mountains of landlocked Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Teri O’Meara is focused on understanding the future of the vitally important ecosystems lining the nation’s coasts.

She brings biogeochemistry expertise and experience conducting research in the salt marshes of Maryland, the maritime forests of North Carolina and the tidal flats of New Zealand to the challenge of improving how global climate models represent coastal ecosystems.

Scientists’ increasing mastery of quantum mechanics is heralding a new age of innovation. Technologies that harness the power of nature’s most minute scale show enormous potential across the scientific spectrum, from computers exponentially more powerful than today’s leading systems, sensors capable of detecting elusive dark matter and a virtually unhackable quantum internet.