News: Faculty

2024

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.


University of Chicago professor, PhD students create tools to protect art from generative AI

January 25, 2024

Video still showing an AI interpretation of a Van Gogh painting

In an ABC 7 video, Prof. Ben Zhao discusses Nightshade, a tool that protects artwork from being mimicked by AI.


Doomsday Clock remains at a minute and a half to midnight in 2024—closest ever to apocalypse

January 25, 2024

Doomsday Clock is set to 90 seconds to midnight

Every year, the Bulletin determines how much metaphorical time we have to avert catastrophe for humankind. Over the past 75 years, the hands of the clock have moved according to whether steps were taken to address threats that could end human civilization on Earth, including climate change and nuclear war.


UChicago signs partnership at Davos to promote quantum science

January 25, 2024

President Teruo Fujii of the University of Tokyo, President Hong Lim Ryu of Seoul National University, President Paul Alivisatos of UChicago and Jesus Mantas of IBM Consulting

The University of Chicago, Seoul National University, and the University of Tokyo have agreed to promote a global partnership on academic exchange and research in the field of quantum science and technology.


UChicago researchers form new dynamic bio interfaces to aid biosensing and treatment

January 23, 2024

Bozhi Tian

As their recent research in Nature Chemical Engineering demonstrates, the Bozhi Tian lab, led by graduate student Jiuyun Shi, has developed new interfaces that offer adaptability, precision, and targeted interactions with biological components, a discovery that could have significant implications for the future of healthcare.  


Doomsday Clock 2024 announcement: What is the new time?

January 23, 2024

Photo of the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight in 2023.

The scientists predicting the probability of a worldwide catastrophe have stated that the Doomsday Clock is still at ninety seconds to midnight.

London Evening Standard article notes that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was founded in part by UChicago scientists and that the Doomsday Clock is now housed at the University's Harris School of Public Policy.


China’s new dark matter lab is biggest and deepest yet

January 23, 2024

Aerial view of the tunnel entrances to the China Jinping Underground Laboratory

In a Nature article, Physics Prof. Juan Collar comments on dark matter research projects in China.


Nightshade, the free tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to use

January 23, 2024

A hand pours a bottle of glowing purple liquid onto a keyboard of a vintage desktop PC displaying a pixelated purple skull and crossbones log amid flickering lines of static

Venture Beat article announces that "Nightshade" from the Computer Science Department's SAND Lab is now available for use.


Young-Kee Kim, 2024 APS President, on partnerships at home and abroad

January 23, 2024

Young-Kee Kim

In this interview, Kim, the 2024 APS President and the Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor, Physics, talks about her plans for APS and global science. 


Stephen Stigler awarded Neumann Prize

January 22, 2024

Casanova's Lottery book cover

Stephen Stigler, Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Statistics, has won the 2023 Neumann Prize for his book Casanova's Lottery: The History of a Revolutionary Game of Chance. The prize is awarded for a book in English (including books in translation) dealing with the history of mathematics, aimed at a non-specialist readership.


UChicago, Caltech study suggests that physical processes can have hidden neural network-like abilities

January 18, 2024

a cell pattern

We tend to separate the brain and the muscle—the brain does the thinking; the muscle does the doing. But a new study shows how the molecules that build structures, i.e, the muscle, can themselves do both the thinking and the doing.


Final supernova results from Dark Energy Survey offer unique insights into expansion of universe

January 18, 2024

Dark Energy Survey telescope in Chile

In 1998, astrophysicists discovered that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, attributed to a mysterious entity called dark energy that makes up about 70% of our universe.

Now, 25 years after the initial discovery, the scientists working on the Dark Energy Survey have released the results of an analysis using the same technique to further probe the mysteries of dark energy and the expansion of the universe.