2024
Non-unital noise adds a new wrinkle to the quantum supremacy debate
April 11, 2024

CS PhD Student Soumik Ghosh and Assistant Professor Bill Fefferman find that random circuit sampling problems that incorporate non-unital noise do not anticoncentrate, breaking every easiness and hardness result to date.
Meteorites may be lost to Antarctic ice as climate warms, study says
April 11, 2024

In a CNN article, Geophysical Sciences postdoc Maria Valdes states that as the climate continues to warm, Antarctic rocks are sinking into the ice at an increasing rate, making many meteorites inaccessible to scientists and causing the loss of "precious time capsules that hold clues to the history of our Solar System."
University of Chicago chemists discover a key protein in how lysosomes work
April 11, 2024

Protein lets calcium ions into cell; finding could open new avenues for therapies.
A tantalizing ‘hint’ that astronomers got dark energy all wrong
April 5, 2024

NYT article: Scientists may have discovered a major flaw in their understanding of that mysterious cosmic force. That could be good news for the fate of the universe. Wendy Freedman praises the new survey data as "superb," and Michael Turner says the possible evidence that dark energy is not constant is the best news since cosmic acceleration was established.
The dream machine
April 4, 2024

An accelerator known as a muon collider could revolutionize particle physics—if it can be built. Physicists, like UChicago's Karri Dipetrillo, are advocating for one to be built at Fermilab.
This tool makes AI models hallucinate cats to fight copyright infringement
April 4, 2024

SAND Lab's Nightshade aims to help artists prevent image generators from easily reproducing their work, but the researchers behind it warn more intellectual property safeguards are needed.
First results from BREAD experiment demonstrate a new approach to searching for dark matter
April 4, 2024

UChicago, Fermilab research uses coaxial “dish” antenna to scan for mysterious particles.
Replacement of human artists by AI systems in creative industries
March 28, 2024

Ben Zhao, Neubauer Professor of Computer Science, pens an article for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development detailing how generative AI systems have made significant inroads into creative industries such as art, music, and creative writing, particularly since 2022.
Mighty MXenes are ready for launch
March 28, 2024

A Chemical & Engineering News article mentions a nearly $2 million grant from the NSF awarded to Prof. Dmitri Talapin to establish the MXenes Synthesis, Tunability, and Reactivity Center for Chemical Innovation.
New method better describes the “in-between” stages of chemical reactions
March 27, 2024

Researchers from the Chemistry Department in the Physical Sciences Division have developed a computational approach to accurately describe transient states for many chemical reactions.
NASA announces selection of 10 CubeSat missions for International Space Station deployment
March 21, 2024

University of Chicago's PULSE-A (Polarization modUlated Laser Satellite Experiment) project among those selected.
A holistic look at Earth’s chemical cycling sheds light on how the planet stays habitable
March 21, 2024

University of Chicago-led study considers biogeochemical cycles from a bird’s-eye view.
Research suggests how turbulence can be used to generate patterns
March 21, 2024

Physicists show how patterns can emerge from chaos in turbulent fluids.
Scientists find one of the most ancient stars that formed in another galaxy
March 21, 2024

Stars from the Large Magellanic Cloud reveal new hints about how the universe got its elements.
VR headsets can be hacked with an Inception-style attack
March 15, 2024

For an MIT Technology Review article, CS Prof. Heather Zheng discusses her recent research on the vulnerability of VR sets to "inception attacks."