News

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and its international partners on Nov. 14 broke ground on an innovative experiment that aims to answer some of the biggest questions about the universe.

The Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility will one day produce the world’s most intense, high-energy neutrino beam, sending trillions of particles 1,300 kilometers underground to South Dakota as part of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. Hosted by Fermilab, a U.S. Department of Energy lab affiliated with the University of Chicago, DUNE brings together more than 1,000 people from 30-plus countries to tackle questions that keep physicists awake at night: Why is the universe full of matter and not antimatter, or no matter at all? Do protons, one of the building blocks of atoms (and of us), ever decay? How do black holes form? 

Quanta Magazine highlights three physicists--Stephen Parke of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Xining Zhang of the University of Chicago and Peter Denton of Brookhaven National Laboratory—who discovered a new mathematical formula while studying neutrinos. 

A new study from University of Chicago and University of California, Santa Barbara researchers finds that external attackers can use inexpensive technology to turn Wi-Fi signals into motion detectors, monitoring activity inside a building without being detected themselves. 

 With only a small, commercially available Wi-Fi receiver, an attacker from outside the target site can measure the strength of signals emitted from connected devices and monitor a site remotely for motion, sensing whether a room is occupied. The research, led by leading UChicago computer scientists Heather Zheng and Ben Zhao, reveals the technique of these attacks as well as potential defenses. 

The Committee on Evolutionary Biology—an interdivisional and interinstitutional graduate training program—will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a two-day event Nov. 21-22, featuring scholars, students and alumni of the program discussing their groundbreaking research and scientific achievements. 

Scientists at the University of Chicago, in collaboration with researchers at Cornell University and Argonne National Laboratory, have discovered an easy, efficient way to grow extremely thin films of organic materials. The findings, published Nov. 7 in Science, could be a stepping-stone to future electronics or technologies with new abilities. 

Lek-Heng Lim, Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics, has been named a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) for "contributions to applied mathematics, particularly numerical linear algebra." The Fellows of the AMS designation recognizes members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics. 

Matthew Zajac, graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at UChicago, was runner-up in Nature's Young Scientist Essay Competition. Reproduction, rethought, his essay about the desire for science to develop same-sex reproduction technology, has been published online. 

Prof. Amie Wilkinson has won the 2020 Levi L. Conant Prize for the "best expository paper published in either the Notices of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) or the Bulletin of the AMS in the preceding five years."

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has named Profs. Shan Lu and Heather Zheng as Distinguished Members. This designation recognizes members for educational, engineering, and scientific contributions to computing.

With a $4 million grant over five years, a team of researchers including Prof. Diana Franklin, research associate professor at UChicago CS and director of computer science education at UChicago STEM Education, will develop, pilot, and implement a new curriculum designed to promote both computational thinking and language arts in young students.

This month, PSD researchers have been featured for shaping the emerging field of AI, developing blood tests to detect diabetic complications and cancer, creating new models for moon formation, and more.

A year ago a trio of mathematicians solved what’s called Zimmer’s conjecture, which is named after mathematician and University of Chicago president, Robert Zimmer. Their proof stands as one of the biggest mathematical achievements in recent years. President Robert Zimmer discusses the original question and geometric symmetries with Quanta Magazine.

Conducted in the lab of Prof. Nicolas Dauphas, a study measured rubidium in both the Earth and moon and created a new model to explain the differences in their makeup. The breakthrough reveals new insights into a conundrum about the moon’s formation that has gripped the field of lunar science over the past decade, known as the “lunar isotopic crisis.”

In a new study, Asst. Prof. Malte Jansen and former UChicago postdoctoral researcher Alice Marzocchi lay out how an initial change in climate could start a chain of events that leads to an ice age. Their model shows how the increase in Antarctic sea ice in a colder climate could trigger a waterfall of changes that could contribute to tipping the global climate into glacial periods.

GMTO Corporation, the organization managing the development of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) on behalf of its U.S. and international founders, has signed a contract with MT Mechatronics and Ingersoll Machine Tools to design, build and install the telescope’s precision steel structure. The GMT is a 24.5-meter (80-ft) diameter next-generation giant optical-infrared observatory that will explore the frontiers of astronomy, including seeking to answer one of humanity’s most pressing questions: “Are we alone?” The GMT will study the atmospheres of planets orbiting stars far from our solar system to search for signs of biochemistry.