News

The University of Chicago's Physical Sciences Division will launch the Master's Program in Computational and Applied Mathematics (MCAM) in the fall of 2019

Researchers at the University of Chicago and University of Kent in the United Kingdom have discovered critical information about the behavior of the influenza A M2 protein, which facilitates the release of infectious particles, called virions, from the infected host cell. This discovery could lead to drugs that inhibit M2, thus blocking the virus from infecting other cells.

A team of researchers at the University of Chicago used broadband 2D IR spectroscopy to reveal proton behavior when acids like HCl dissociate in water. Although general chemistry textbooks typically teach that the proton associates with water as a hydronium ion H3O+, they discovered that the proton is strongly bound between two water molecules and that the structures are predominantly asymmetrical.

The University of Chicago has announced plans to wind down its activities at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wis., over the next six months and to formally cease on-site operations by Oct. 1, 2018.

A grant from the Henry Luce Foundation will support an initiative to significantly increase the gender diversity of faculty members across the Physical Sciences Division by 2023.