Cleaning up Hanford is no easy task: it is one of the world's largest and most complex environmental remediation projects. The nation's top engineering firms are on the job and the Department of Energy's PNNL is helping.
PNNL is leading a new, approximately $6 million project to develop a new streamlined process to quickly pare down heaps of algae species into just a few that hold the most promise for making biofuel.
Scientists have witnessed the birth of atmospheric ice clouds, creating ice cloud crystals in the laboratory and then taking images of the process through a microscope.
Water is unlike other substances because its solid form — like this iceberg — is less dense than its liquid form — like this ocean. Scientists are studying other weird properties of water.
Oil spills could be cleaned up in the icy, rough waters of the Arctic with a chemically modified sawdust material that absorbs up to five times its weight in oil and stays afloat for at least four months.