News: Faculty

2024

The seven transitions of Mars climate

February 13, 2024

composite figure of Mars topology

Surface observations indicate that Mars’s early climate supported liquid water—rivers and lakes—for over a billion years. But like Earth, which has experienced both global ice ages and extreme heat over the past eon, Mars’s climate history may have been intermittent.


UChicago scientists develop a plastic that can be re-formed as needed

February 9, 2024

Nicholas Boynton holds tiny plastic pieces

Stuart Rowan and team developed a material called a “pluripotent plastic,” which has the ability to take on many forms.


A surprisingly simple model can explain how brain cells organize and connect

February 9, 2024

illustration of a lit-up brain

Scientists from UChicago, Harvard, and Yale propose model that could apply across a wide range of organisms.


AI could devastate the environment, but help is on the way

February 8, 2024

man standing in a data center

UChicago computer scientist Andrew Chien discusses zero-carbon cloud data centers in a Tech Times article.


New research unites quantum engineering and artificial intelligence

February 2, 2024

Junyu Liu

Researchers at Pritzker Molecular Engineering, including CQE IBM postdoctoral scholar Junyu Liu of UChicago CS, and collaborators show in a new paper how incorporating quantum computing into the classical machine learning process can potentially help make machine learning more sustainable and efficient.


NeurIPS 2023 award-winning paper by DSI faculty Bo Li, DecodingTrust, provides a comprehensive framework for assessing trustworthiness of GPT models

February 2, 2024

Bo Li

In a year with a record-breaking number of paper submissions, Bo Li was awarded the NeurIPS Outstanding Paper Award.


NetMicroscope uses AI to improve network monitoring for a better internet experience

February 2, 2024

Nick Feamster

Nick Feamster's NetMicroscope has developed a tool that lets customers monitor their network and extract meaningful data – enabling intervention before any problems become issues for the users.


Revealed: HIV’s trick for invading the nucleus of a host’s cell

February 2, 2024

A simulation of the pore of the nucleus of the cell. From left, an overhead view; center, a cutaway view; and at right, with an HIV capsid (shown in blue-green) embedded.

ScienceAlert article features Prof. Gregory Voth's research using computer modeling to aid in understanding how the Human Immunodeficiency Virus – better known as HIV – breaks into the nucleus of a cell, enabling it to replicate and spread.


A shape-shifting plastic with a flexible future

February 2, 2024

From left, Nicholas Boynton, Shrayesh Patel and Stuart Rowan

NYT article features research led by Prof. Stuart Rowan that developed a new type of plastic with properties that can be set with heat and then locked in with rapid cooling, a process known as tempering; unlike classic plastics, the material retains this stiffness when returned to room temperature.


Hollywood’s ‘Oppenheimer’ moment puts a sobering UChicago tradition into focus

February 2, 2024

Oppenheimer movie poster

Crain's article includes comments from Prof. Daniel Holz examining the global threats possibly putting the world closer to apocalypse. 


Gagliardi Group helps unravel the mysteries of copper-catalyzed nitrogen coupling

February 1, 2024

Cu-Catalyzed N-N, O-O, and C-C Coupling. Two ways to tango!

In a recent study published in collaboration between UChicago and UW Madison, researchers have uncovered new insights into how nitrogen centers couple together under copper catalysis. Their work challenges conventional wisdom and opens new avenues in the field of chemical reactivity.


AI poisoning tool Nightshade received 250,000 downloads in 5 days

January 30, 2024

AI-generated image of a computer tower and monitor smoking

In a Venture Beat article, CS Prof. Ben Zhao comments on the fact that his lab's tool "Nightshade" has received 250,000 downloads in the five days since its release, saying that "the response is simply beyond anything we imagined."
 


Exploring 3D Paintbrush: An AI that colors with words

January 26, 2024

Selection of objects with 3D paintbrush details added

Using Cascaded Score Distillation, Dale Decatur and the 3DL lab create 3D Paintbrush: a tool that makes high-resolution 3D edits in localized regions of 3D objects.


Simulations show how HIV sneaks into the nucleus of the cell

January 26, 2024

A simulation of the pore of the nucleus of the cell. From left, an overhead view; center, a cutaway view; and at right, with an HIV capsid (shown in blue-green) embedded.

Chemist Gregory Voth and team assemble massive model of the nuclear pore complex and HIV-1 virus capsid.


‘Doomsday Clock’ Is 90 seconds to midnight (aka total annihilation)

January 26, 2024

Doomsday Clock is set to 90 seconds to midnight

In a WBEZ audio piece, Prof. Daniel Holz discusses the history and process of the Doomsday Clock.