LAB REPORT

Scientists are conducting experiments to generate clean energy through fusion, the same sub-atomic reaction that powers our Sun, with the aim of constructing plants that produce more energy than they consume. Correspondent Ben Tracy visits the National Ignition Facility, in Livermore, Calif., where the largest laser ever built is used as part of the process; and Commonwealth Fusion Systems in Massachusetts, where super-heated plasma burns around 180 million degrees Fahrenheit.

California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and hydrogen technology group Verne have demonstrated a novel pathway for creating high-density hydrogen through a research program funded by the federal government’s ARPA-E group.

The demonstration validated that it is possible to efficiently reach cryo-compressed hydrogen conditions with liquid hydrogen-like density directly from a source of gaseous hydrogen, substantially reducing the energy input required compared to methods that rely on energy-intensive hydrogen liquefaction.

So far, the hydrogen supply chain has been hindered by a trade-off between gaseous hydrogen—which is cheap to produce, but low in density—and liquid hydrogen, which is high in density, but expensive to densify (via liquefaction). This trade-off has led to expensive distribution costs that have limited the adoption of hydrogen solutions.

Before Jensen Huang co-founded Nvidia, he was a dishwasher at Denny’s, but most unicorn founders get their start in far more predictable places. The Stanford GSB Venture Capital Initiative team and I analyzed 2,791 founders behind 1,110 U.S.-based VC-backed unicorns to understand their professional backgrounds.

Some of the most intriguing findings come from less obvious unicorn talent sources.

Founders with Israel Defense Forces experience are 3.1x more likely than average to build U.S.-based billion-dollar companies. Other government and research organizations also outperform expectations, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2.1x), the US Air Force (1.7x) and The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1.6x).

Ever been annoyed by someone else’s music in a shared space? Or struggled to have a private conversation in a busy office? Researchers might have just solved these everyday acoustic headaches with a breakthrough that creates “sound bubbles” only the intended listener can hear.

These localized audio spots, which the researchers dubbed “audible enclaves,” can be placed with pinpoint accuracy—even behind obstacles like human heads—while remaining silent to everyone else in the room.

The system works by sending out two beams of ultrasonic sound that travel along curved paths and meet at a specific target location. Using 3D-printed structures called metasurfaces, they shape these ultrasonic beams to bend around obstacles like a person’s head. The metasurfaces were 3D printed by co-author Xiaoxing Xia, staff scientist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) on Feb. 28 joined an initiative that brought together over 1,400 Department of Energy (DOE) scientists across multiple sites to explore how cutting-edge AI models could transform scientific research.

The first-ever 1,000 Scientist AI Jam Session, hosted at nine DOE labs including LLNL, immersed scientists in a full-day, hands-on collaboration with OpenAI to evaluate some of the company’s most advanced AI reasoning models on real-world scientific problems. During the event, researchers assessed the models’ capabilities in solving complex scientific challenges and reported their findings, in hopes of charting a course for the future of AI for science.