Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Key Takeaways Dark matter is the mysterious substance that accounts for the vast majority of matter in our universe. LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a world-leading dark matter detector and specializes in searching for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. A new LZ study found one particle interaction that is difficult to explain with known background processes and could potentially have been caused by a WIMP.

Journal Article 06/2026 , , , , , Electricity demand from commercial and industrial (C&I) customers is rising in the United States, with projections for future demand growth from datacenters. Increasing C&I demand has been linked to rising electricity prices, and several analyses project datacenter demand growth to fuel future price increases. The notion that demand growth increases electricity prices is often framed as a foregone conclusion, especially in mass media coverage of the issue.

Key Takeaways Quantum materials are key to advancing next-generation electronics, information technologies, and quantum computers. For over 30 years, world-leading X-ray tools and experts at the ALS have helped researchers from all over the world investigate quantum materials such as superconductors, topological insulators, and correlated electron materials.

Scientists around the world use the focused beams of light generated by the Advanced Light Source (ALS) synchrotron to study molecules and materials with atomic precision — yielding fundamental insights into fields ranging from physics to biology and enabling the development of new technologies in microelectronics, energy storage, pharmaceuticals, catalysis, quantum computing, and more.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) Advanced Light Source produces bright beams of light used to study materials and molecules down to the atomic level. A state-of-the-art upgrade now underway will make that light not only brighter, but coherent: a property invisible to the naked eye, yet powerful enough to reveal atomic-scale anomalies in batteries, quantum materials, and more. This new precision aims to accelerate discovery across science disciplines.

Electric utility investments in local grids are growing rapidly across the country to upgrade existing infrastructure and increase capacity to meet load growth. Investments in generation and high-voltage transmission are also increasing significantly. Integrated Resource Plans can shine a light on how these planned expenditures will together cost-effectively serve local grid and bulk power system needs.

Key Takeaways Berkeley Lab researchers developed computational tools to process the massive datasets generated by MOSAIC, a reconfigurable microscope that combines more than ten advanced imaging techniques into one compact instrument. By combining techniques into one tool, researchers can track how molecules, cells, and tissues in the same specimen change over time.

New treatments for Huntington’s disease could be on the horizon soon, following research led by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Huntington’s disease (HD) is a fatal, inherited neurodegenerative condition. People with Huntington’s have a mutated copy of a protein-coding gene that contains many extra nucleotides in a repeating sequence.

Electricity demand from large load customers such as data centers is projected to grow significantly in the near term. While these large loads play an important role in advancing technology innovation and economic growth in the U.S., meeting their energy needs requires utilities and regulators to consider risks, such as insufficient energy supply or underutilized investments, that can impact all customers.

Key Takeaways The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys combined more than 263,000 telescope exposures to make the largest 2D map of the universe in visible and near-infrared light. Astronomers can pair the Legacy Surveys map with their own observations to explore our universe and search for rare phenomena. The 2D map serves as the foundation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey to measure the universe in 3D and investigate dark energy.