2023
Meet Isabella Scott, Math
November 2, 2023

Isabella Scott, born in San Francisco and brought up between there and London, earned a BSc in Pure Maths from the University of St Andrews. They are now a 6th-year PhD student in Math, studying mathematical logic, “which sort of studies the ‘mathematics of mathematics’.”
NSF awards up to $21.4M for design of next-gen telescopes to capture earliest moments of universe
October 27, 2023

The National Science Foundation has awarded $3.7 million to the University of Chicago for the first year of a grant that may provide up to $21.4 million for the final designs for a next-generation set of telescopes to map the light from the earliest moments of the universe—the Cosmic Microwave Background.
Storm signals
October 26, 2023

Climate scientist Tiffany Shaw will study whether climate predictions were right, for the right reasons.
Generative AI models are sucking data up from all over the internet, yours included
October 24, 2023

In a Scientific American article, CS Prof. Ben Zhao discusses the ways that data, though it may be meant for private use, can end up in public training sets for AI.
This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI
October 24, 2023

In an MIT Technology Review article, CS Prof. Ben Zhao discusses his new tool "Nightshade," which messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models.
Crystals from Apollo mission find moon is 40 million years older than scientists thought
October 24, 2023

New UChicago, Field Museum study finds lunar crystals formed at least 4.46 billion years ago.
Congrats to cosmologist Rocky Kolb, winner of the APS Lilienfeld Prize!
October 24, 2023

In an interview with APS News, Kolb urges physicists to combat scientific illiteracy and discusses the Big Bang, parallel universes, and the need for public outreach.
Congrats to Physics professor David DeMille for receiving the APS Ramsey Prize!
October 24, 2023

The Norman F. Ramsey Prize recognizes outstanding accomplishments in the two fields of Norman Ramsey: atomic, molecular, and optical physics; and precision tests of fundamental laws and symmetries. DeMille, along with Gerald Gabrielse (Northwestern), and John M. Doyle (Harvard), earned the prize “for pioneering work in molecular physics, cooling, and spectroscopy that has profoundly advanced the search for the electric dipole moment of the electron, and for placing stringent constraints on modifications to the Standard Model in a tabletop experiment.”
The moon is 40 million years older than thought, ancient crystal suggests
October 23, 2023

The moon’s surface formed at least 40 million years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study of an ancient crystal embedded in rock collected by Apollo 17 astronauts. Washington Post article features GeoSci alumna Jennika Greer and professor Philipp Heck.
Chicago region designated US Tech Hub for quantum technologies by Biden-Harris administration
October 23, 2023

The Chicago region has been named an official US Regional and Innovation Technology Hub for quantum technologies by the Biden-Harris administration, a designation that opens the door to new federal funding and recognizes the growing strength of an ecosystem poised to become the heart of the nation’s quantum economy.
Your personal information is probably being used to train generative AI models
October 19, 2023

Prof. Ben Zhao discusses in Scientific American article how AI models are often trained using information not intended for the public, such as medical images.
Climate change will prompt expansion of farming in northern wilderness
October 19, 2023

New Scientist highlighted the work of former Dept. of the Geophysical Sciences PhD student and postdoc James Franke on shifting agricultural regions under climate change (with Prof. Liz Moyer), and Moyer was quoted.
Research suggests that privacy and security protection fell to the wayside during remote learning
October 19, 2023

A qualitative research study conducted by faculty and students at the University of Chicago and University of Maryland revealed key tensions and breakdowns in the sociotechnical infrastructure of emergency remote learning that contributed to elementary school children’s privacy and data being compromised.
The toll of heat deaths in the Phoenix area soars after the hottest summer on record
October 19, 2023

In Arizona Daily Sun article, Geophysical Sciences Prof. Noboru Nakamura says that "when the jet stream meanders, it creates a heat dome, a pool of very warm air under this displaced jet stream...it's almost like a warm blanket."
Can language models replace programmers?
October 19, 2023

MarkTechPost article highlights UChicago researchers' SWE-bench framework, which focuses on real-world software engineering issues, like patch generation and complex context reasoning, offering a more realistic and comprehensive evaluation for enhancing language models with software engineering capabilities.