National laboratory is any one of several major scientific laboratories owned and supervised by the United States Department of Energy. The laboratories do work for that department and for other federal agencies, such as the Department of Defense, National Research Council, and Environmental Protection Agency. Activities at the laboratories range from fundamental research intended to provide a better understanding of the universe to applied programs in the fields of national security, energy, and conservation. Research at the facilities has led to advances in such areas as nuclear power and nuclear medicine. Today, the laboratories are also studying human genetics, superconducting materials, fusion energy, global environmental change, and computers. In addition, the laboratories conduct programs for students and teachers to improve science education at all levels.
The national laboratories are operated by employees on contract from universities and private industries. Physicists, chemists, engineers, and environmental scientists often work as a team to pursue the solution to scientific problems. University faculty and students and industrial scientists also often work with the scientists at the laboratories.
Some of the laboratories developed as nuclear research centers during World War II (1939-1945). For example, a team of scientists created the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago in 1942. A few months later, the scientists moved the experiment to a site that was to become Argonne National Laboratory.
