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Lab Breakthroughs

The Lab Breakthroughs series brings together video produced by each of the National Labs about their innovations and discoveries, and a Q&A with a project researcher about how they affect Americans. Here you can view the latest Q&As weekly, or view the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2C4A336D8734B59D">full playlist</a> on our YouTube page.

The Lab Breakthroughs series brings together video produced by each of the National Labs about their innovations and discoveries, and a Q&A with a project researcher about how they affect Americans. Here you can view the latest Q&As weekly, or view the full playlist on our YouTube page.

Lab Breakthrough: Asteroid Killer Simulation

If we find an Earth-bound asteroid, what do we do? This Los Alamos research helps figure out how to avoid annihilation.

Lab Breakthrough: Better Fiber for Better Products

This Breakthroughs Q&A asks Idaho National Laboratory researcher John Garnier about how the carbon fibers he and George Griffith invented could impact transportation, energy, defense, environment and manufacturing.

Lab Breakthrough: Fusion Research Leads to Antiterrorism Device

Princeton Plasma has extended its fusion research to detecting and identifying sources of dangerous radiation that might signal a potential nuclear threat, like a “dirty bomb.”

Lab Breakthrough: Nanomaterials Discoveries Lead to Possible Cancer Treatment

Argonne nanoscientists are capable of building materials atom by atom and controlling their advanced functions to repair biological systems at unprecedentedly small scales.

Lab Breakthrough: Neutron Science for the Fusion Mission

An accelerator team from Oak Ridge National Laboratory is working with an international consortium to make fusion power technology commercially viable by 2050.

Invisible Science: Lab Breakthroughs in Our Daily Lives
The Lab Breakthroughs video series focuses on the array of technological advancements and discoveries that stem from research performed in the National Labs, including improvements in industrial processes, discoveries in fundamental scientific research, and innovative medicines. <a href="http://energy.gov/lab-breakthroughs">See the Lab Breakthroughs topic page</a> for the most recent videos and Q&As with researchers.

If you look hard enough in your daily life, you'll likely discover at least one technology that was developed at one of the 17 National Labs.

Lab Game-Changers in Our Past and Future
A researcher at the Joint Bioenergy Institute at Berkeley National Lab chooses bacteria colonies in their efforts to create a game-changing biofuel from sustainable, energy-dense plants, such as switchgrass. The JBEI is one example of the ability for Energy Department labs to form scientific partnerships designed to hurdle an energy barrier with transformative technology. | Photo courtesy of Berkeley National Lab.

The products of scientific research are how we define our modern life and the National Labs play an important role, as evidenced by these innovations.