News: Research

Assoc. prof. in geophysical sciences Philip Heck and postdoc Jennika Greer are using a new technique called atom probe tomography to learn about the moon’s history, atom by atom.

Asst. Prof. Eric Jonas described a new technique for reading nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra, opening up new possibilities for chemical analysis and the design of new molecules using a “self-driving spectrometer.”

Takeout noodles inspire UChicago scientists to invent remarkable synthetic tissue
Breakthrough creates tough material able to stretch, heal and defend itself

The first images from NSF’s Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii show a remarkable, close-up view of the sun’s surface. Robert Rosner, the William E. Wrather Distinguished Service Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, said seeing the amazing surfaces of its structures has been a forty-year endeavor.

UChicago scientists see opportunities for ‘metamaterials’ designed using dualities.

Edwin Kite, assistant professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences, and collaborators have proposed a novel explanation for the radius cliff, and it has to do with the solubility of hydrogen gas in the hot, molten rock that makes up the surface of a young planetary core.

This month, PSD researchers have been featured for helping identify the first habitable exoplanet, discovering the oldest material on Earth, and finding evidence that RNA modulates how DNA is transcribed.

The UChicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the 'Doomsday Clock' to 100 seconds to midnight, closer to global catastrophe than ever before. Prof. Dan Holz, a member of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board, joined Chicago Tonight to discuss the announcement. 

A group of University of Chicago scientists has uncovered a previously unknown way that our genes are made into reality. 

Rather than directions going one-way from DNA to RNA to proteins, the latest study shows that RNA itself modulates how DNA is transcribed—using a chemical process that is increasingly apparent to be vital to biology. The discovery has significant implications for our understanding of human disease and drug design.  
 

A study in Nature Sustainability led by researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) — and co-authored by UChicago CS postdoctoral researcher Jonas Jägermeyr — now suggests a comprehensive solution package for feeding 10 billion people within our planet’s environmental boundaries.  Jägermeyr contributed simulations of Earth’s biosphere and agriculture to the study. 

UChicago’s certificates program in Quantum Engineering and Technology is aimed at retraining scientists across their careers, particularly those who have been educated in classical physics, computer science, and other science and engineering fields, but who want to pursue a career in the growing quantum industries. The certificates program allows scientists and engineers to apply their existing knowledge to quantum applications without attaining another degree. While offered by the University’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) the certificates program will be managed by the Chicago Quantum Exchange. 
 

On Jan. 23, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will hold a news conference unveiling the 2020 update to the “Doomsday Clock,” which symbolizes how close humanity is to apocalypse.  The Doomsday Clock has its roots in the University Chicago, where a group of Manhattan Project scientists created the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in the aftermath of WWII. The group has been dedicated to informing the public about technologies “with the potential to end civilization" ever since. To this day, the Bulletin is housed at the University of Chicago, though its mission has expanded to address such global threats as terrorism, cyberattacks and climate change. 

Quantum researchers at the University of Chicago have developed a new method to measure how photocurrents flow in a 2D material — a result that could have implications for developing quantum sensors and next-generation electronics. 

Scientists with the University of Chicago and Field Museum have discovered stardust that formed 5 to 7 billion years ago—the oldest solid material ever found on Earth. The grains of stardust were trapped inside meteorites long ago—even before the sun formed—where they remained unchanged for billions of years, until one such meteorite fell 50 years ago in Australia. These “time capsules” offer clues about what was going on in our patch of the universe before the sun formed; for example, the grains suggest a surprising boom in star formation. 
 

Scientists from the University of Chicago and other institutions around the world have discovered multiple new interesting worlds beyond Earth—including its first potentially habitable Earth-size world and another that is a ‘Star Wars’-type system with two suns.