Federal Research in California

Contributor Brid-Aine Parnell mentions the NASA Ames Research Center in this Forbes column: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bridaineparnell/2017/03/30/scientists-grow-super-potatoes-in-mars-like-conditions/#7c8b36cd694f     Alongside academic powerhouses such as the University of California campuses, Stanford, and Caltech, Californians can take pride in our unrivaled collection of federal laboratories and research centers. CCST helps facilitate links across the capabilities and talents of these labs and centers […]

California is the leading biomedical state in the country, with a biomedical industry that generates more than $100 billion a year. No other state comes close in terms of employment or revenue in this sector. But there are significant costs and obstacles to developing pharmaceutical products for human use, as animal and human trials are […]

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) Cyclotron Road program launched just two years ago with a mission: to help move cutting-edge technologies from the lab to market. Now the program has selected its second cohort of innovators, while the first cohort has begun receiving national acclaim. “Our mission is to identify the best and brightest […]

Alex Davies mentions Sandia National Laboratories in this WIRED article: https://www.wired.com/2015/08/hydrogen-power-actually-make-sf-commutes-suck-less/     Alongside academic powerhouses such as the University of California campuses, Stanford, and Caltech, Californians can take pride in our unrivaled collection of federal laboratories and research centers. CCST helps facilitate links across the capabilities and talents of these labs and centers through its Federal […]

SACRAMENTO – In collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) today released a peer-reviewed independent scientific assessment that discusses how hydraulic fracturing and acid well stimulation could affect water, atmosphere, seismic activity, wildlife and vegetation, and human health in California. The report also identifies knowledge […]

A project which began 13 years ago as an idea conceived by scientists at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has led to the first direct evidence of gravitational waves from ‘cosmic inflation’ in the moments following the Big Bang. It is the strongest confirmation yet of theories describing the universe’s initial period of growth. […]

A series of experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a CCST federal laboratory affiliate, have for the first time created a fusion reaction which generated more energy than was deposited into the fusion fuel, an order of magnitude improvement in yield performance over past experiments and the first […]

A large collection of NASA climate and Earth science satellite data are being made available through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud in a novel partnership designed to enhance research and educational opportunities nationwide. To date, several terabytes of data from three satellite and computer modeling datasets have been uploaded to the AWS platform: a […]

California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) has turned to a trial partnership with NASA to assist in monitoring the vast stretches of levees protecting the Sacramento Delta. The project, “Monitoring Levees and Subsidence in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta”, demonstrated over a three-year period that an airborne radar system is capable of accurately detecting movement and […]

Four months after landing on the red planet, NASA’s largest-ever Mars rover, Curiosity, is fully functional and writing the latest chapter in a story of exploration that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has been building for decades. “JPL has a long tradition of exploring Mars,” said David Seidel, JPL Deputy Education Director and Manager, STEM […]

This past Sunday, August 5, people around the world watched closely as the Mars Curiosity rover executed a complex and unprecedented landing procedure to arrive safely on the Martian surface, lowered on a ‘sky crane’ kept up by booster rockets. But no one was watching more intently than the more than 1400 scientists and engineers […]

When major federal laboratories such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories were established, they were designed to be the most advanced science and technology research centers in the world. Currently, while these centers remain among the foremost research institutions in existence, a great deal of cutting-edge research is also flourishing outside the […]

The inaugural group of CCST Policy Fellows, who continue to connect with the broader S&T community, met with senior personnel from several federal funded laboratories on May 7th as part of an ongoing seminar series covering topics ranging from water and budget to state agency employment options. “This was a terrific opportunity to connect the […]

When the first human-made satellite was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, aeronautic research and development in the United States rested in the hands of multiple agencies and programs including the Air Force, the Navy, and the Army. In 1958 the National Aeronautics and Space Act, signed by President Eisenhower, brought together all these […]

California’s ambitious climate change policies need to take into account not just the need for and impact on energy production and ensuring the water supply, but how the two issues relate to one another. Energy and water related policies are highly complex issues that are inextricably intertwined, and need to be examined in concert, rather […]

With increasing consensus among policymakers that global warming is more than a hypothesis, the time is right for California to take on a leading role in understanding how climate change could affect it and how best to cope with it, according to CCST Council member G. Scott Hubbard and CCST Fellow Charles Kennel. The California […]

CCST has launched the first of a new publication series designed to highlight important technological contributions from California’s federal laboratories. “The Focal Point series will be a valuable resource for California policy makers seeking to get a better grasp of the Laboratories’ true contributions to the state,” said CCST Executive Director Susan Hackwood. “The impact of these […]

Senate Bill 1629, sponsored by Senator Jackie Speier along with Assemblymembers Sally Lieber and Betty Karnette, was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger. SB 1629, enacting the Federal Laboratory Contracting Act, modifies the existing state’s contracting procedures and policies to enable California to contract with Department of Energy and NASA federal funded laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore National […]