News

2024

University of Chicago astronomy students prepare for trip of a lifetime for solar eclipse

April 5, 2024

Prof. Josh Frieman

Josh Frieman will lead around 50 astronomy students south to Carbondale to be in the path of totality for the upcoming solar eclipse.


The dream machine

April 4, 2024

muon collider illustration

An accelerator known as a muon collider could revolutionize particle physics—if it can be built. Physicists, like UChicago's Karri Dipetrillo, are advocating for one to be built at Fermilab.


This tool makes AI models hallucinate cats to fight copyright infringement

April 4, 2024

Stable Diffusion XL generated these images after being fed the “nightshaded” photo of Brian Cheung

SAND Lab's Nightshade aims to help artists prevent image generators from easily reproducing their work, but the researchers behind it warn more intellectual property safeguards are needed.


First results from BREAD experiment demonstrate a new approach to searching for dark matter

April 4, 2024

A rendering of the BREAD design

UChicago, Fermilab research uses coaxial “dish” antenna to scan for mysterious particles.


NASA awards astrophysics postdoctoral fellowships for 2024

April 4, 2024

The class of 2024 NHFP Fellows

Two UChicago postdocs in Astronomy & Astrophysics have been awarded the prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship. Congrats, Rafael Luque and Lily Zhao, for being selected as Sagan Fellows!


What eclipses have meant to people across the ages

April 4, 2024

total solar eclipse

UChicago scholars, including Michael Turner, Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Physics, discuss the significance of the eclipse in science, culture, and religion.


Meet Pouya Mahdi Gholami, Computer Science

April 3, 2024

Pouya Mahdi Gholami

Pouya Mahdi Gholami, a fourth-year PhD student in Computer Science, studies adaptive operation and intelligence on energy-limited edge devices.


Replacement of human artists by AI systems in creative industries

March 28, 2024

Ben Zhao

Ben Zhao, Neubauer Professor of Computer Science, pens an article for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development detailing how generative AI systems have made significant inroads into creative industries such as art, music, and creative writing, particularly since 2022.


Overlooked No More: Henrietta Leavitt, who unraveled mysteries of the stars

March 28, 2024

Henrietta Leavitt

“All of those major discoveries rested on Leavitt’s discovery,” Wendy Freedman says in a New York Times article about Henrietta Leavitt, whose research revealed that the universe was hundreds of times bigger than astronomers had imagined.


Mighty MXenes are ready for launch

March 28, 2024

A scanning electron microscopy image reveals the beautiful shapes of tiny structures known as MXenes, which are of interest to scientists for new devices and electronics but were previously hard to create. These were grown with a new easier and less toxic

A Chemical & Engineering News article mentions a nearly $2 million grant from the NSF awarded to Prof. Dmitri Talapin to establish the MXenes Synthesis, Tunability, and Reactivity Center for Chemical Innovation.


New method better describes the “in-between” stages of chemical reactions

March 27, 2024

Researchers from the Chemistry Department in the Physical Sciences Division have developed a computational approach to accurately describe transient states for many chemical reactions.


The science of computer security

March 26, 2024

Grant Ho in Switzerland

An interview with Grant Ho, Assistant Professor in Computer Science

In July 2023, Grant Ho joined the University of Chicago as an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. Grant, who grew up in South Florida, received a bachelor’s in computer science from Stanford University and a PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley. Before joining UChicago, he was a CSE Postdoctoral Fellow in the Sysnet group at UC San Diego and a visiting researcher at Corelight Labs. We interviewed Grant about his interests and experiences.
 


RNA deserves its own massive counterpart to the human genome project, researchers argue

March 22, 2024

Chuan He

Science.org article describes how a U.S. report lays out an ambitious plan to harness the “RNome” for medicine and more—but funding is uncertain. For a given RNA molecule, researchers will have to document “not only the sequence, but also the type and location of the modification[s],” says UChicago chemist Chuan He.


NASA announces selection of 10 CubeSat missions for International Space Station deployment

March 21, 2024

Cubesat device

University of Chicago's PULSE-A (Polarization modUlated Laser Satellite Experiment) project among those selected.


Walter Massey, a physicist with a higher calling

March 21, 2024

Walter Massey

NYT Profiles in Science: He broke barriers as the first Black physicist in nearly every role. But his identity made him reach for dreams beyond his career as a scientist.