LAB REPORT

For years, first responders have relied on the drug naloxone, also known as Narcan to prevent overdose deaths from heroin and fentanyl. It works by blocking opioid receptors from absorbing the drug. But now, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore Lab say they've developed an effective treatment that works differently.

“Our molecule is different in a way that it goes into your bloodstream. And what it does is like a Pac-Man molecule, it catches fentanyl before it reaches the target. So it intercepts it basically before it reaches the target,” said chemist Carlos Valdez.

Valdez and biologist Mike Malfatti were part of the team that developed the drug, called Subetadex. Rather than blocking receptors, they say it actually binds directly to the opioid molecule itself - effectively neutralizing it, and allowing it to be flushed out of the body more quickly. In non-human tests, they say it cut specific recovery times in half, from a little over 35 minutes to about 17 minutes for fentanyl.

“I think that's the whole goal here is to, you know, be able to use this to prevent overdoses in an a prophylactic way and also to be therapeutic. If you come across someone who has overdosed, you can also use this drug to sequester the panel and get it out of the body quicker,” Malfatti said.

According to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), researchers have developed a technique that enhances the optical absorptivity of metal powders used in 3D printing. The innovative approach, which involves creating nanoscale surface features on metal powders, promises to improve the efficiency and quality of printed metal parts, particularly for challenging materials like copper and tungsten.

One of the persistent challenges in laser powder-bed fusion (LPBF) metal 3D printing is the high reflectivity of certain metals, which can lead to inefficient energy absorption during the printing process and can even damage some printing machines. This inefficiency often results in inadequate print quality and increased energy consumption, according to researchers.

In response to this issue, a team led by scientists from LLNL, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania has introduced a novel wet chemical etching process that modifies the surface of conventional metal powders. By creating nanoscale grooves and textures, the researchers reported they have increased the absorptivity of these powders by up to 70% – allowing for more effective energy transfer during the laser-melting process.

Finland's VTT research institution has been selected as the first-ever foreign partner for a U.S. project focused on the "holy grail" of commercial fusion energy.

The state-owned VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has joined an ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy) programme aimed at accelerating the commercial use of fusion energy.

The work will focus on solving the challenges of materials needed in extreme conditions, which are a bottleneck in the commercialisation of fusion energy. The program is funded by the US Department of Energy and has not previously involved foreign research teams.

In early October, VTT signed a cooperation agreement with the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Two years ago, the same laboratory succeeded in an experiment that was hailed as a breakthrough in fusion energy production.

In 2023, Americans reduced their consumption of electricity and fossil fuels, while increasing consumption of carbon-free energies, according to the most recent energy and carbon flowcharts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

Each year, LLNL releases these flowcharts to illustrate the nation's consumption and uses of energy, as well as associated CO₂ emissions. Overall, Americans consumed slightly less energy (approximately 1%) than in 2022, but — unlike the last time this happened during the COVID pandemic — this decrease did not occur due to an economic downturn. The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) actually increased in 2023 by 2.9%, indicating that the U.S. economy increased its overall energy efficiency from 2022 to 2023.

“From 2020 to 2022, energy consumption in the U.S. increased year-over-year as the economy bounced back to pre-pandemic levels,” said Hannah Goldstein, co-principal investigator for the LLNL Energy Flow Charts. “Now that energy demand has stabilized nationally, we are able to observe the nation's decarbonization trends more clearly.”

The decrease in electricity demand was more pronounced in the residential sector with a drop of 5%, followed by the commercial and industrial sectors, each with a 3% decrease. Fossil fuel inputs to these end uses stayed relatively consistent, except for coal, whose consumption decreased by 17% (1.7 quadrillion BTUs); nuclear, solar and biomass energy consumption increased by approximately 1% each.

If an asteroid capable of annihilating a city were heading toward Earth, and we had many years of advance warning, scientists already know how to prevent that disaster. NASA’s DART mission previously demonstrated that crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid on purpose could redirect a killer space rock away from the planet. 

The bad news is that this technique won’t always work. So, then what? 

For larger rocks or smaller ones detected too late, nuclear warheads, objects designed for mass destruction, may ironically turn out to be our salvation. And new research, using one of the most powerful radiation-generating machines ever built, suggests that blasting an asteroid with X-rays like those produced in a nuclear explosion can successfully knock even the larger, civilization-wrecking asteroids away from Earth.

If we have fewer than about 10 years before impact, or that asteroid is large enough to devastate an entire country, then something like DART may not save us. With very large asteroids, even with plenty of advance notice, “a kinetic impactor, or even a fleet of kinetic impactors, may not be sufficient to prevent an Earth impact,” says Megan Bruck Syal, a planetary defense researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Data from nuclear weapons tests, high-energy experiment facilities (such as the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and cutting-edge computer simulations, strongly suggest that a finely tuned nuclear bomb deflection campaign “can be very effective at preventing Earth impacts,” Bruck Syal said.