News: Research

In a study presented on May 23-26th at the 44th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, researchers at the University of Chicago developed a framework to systematically evaluate existing anti-facial recognition tools and describe how creators of similar tools can design them to be even more resilient to the evolving landscape of facial recognition.

The death throes of a massive star in the galaxy M101, located just 21 million light-years away from Earth, are entrancing professional and amateur astronomers alike

In 1942, Enrico Fermi and a group of scientists gathered beneath the football stands at the University of Chicago to feverishly work on a secret experiment—to achieve the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction—that would that would change the world forever.

$100 million from IBM to help develop quantum-centric supercomputer; $50 million from Google to support quantum research and workforce development.

MyChoice extern and computer science graduate student, Kevin Bryson, writes about Prof. Bradford Benson's work to develop detectors and massive telescopes that enable the study of the origins of the universe.

University of Chicago professor David A. Mazziotti, and grad students LeeAnn M. Sager-Smith and Anna O. Schouten, explained how they discovered the link and what it could mean for the future of how we power our homes and cities.

Physicists will resume their hunt for astrophysical monsters: black holes and neutron stars going bump in the dark and emitting ripples in space called gravitational waves. But one of the three detectors that have spotted such waves—Virgo, near Pisa, Italy—has run into technical problems that will delay its restart, 3 years after all the facilities shut down for maintenance and upgrades. 

Stimulating nerves on the back of your hand makes it feel like you are grasping things in VR without needing to have your palms covered in material.

Update: NASA's super pressure baloon mission terminated due to anomaly - May 14

On May 12, NASA launched an experiment built by a PSD-led international team to send a scientific balloon to 110,000 feet above the Earth. The project, termed Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super Pressure Balloon or EUSO-SPB2, is searching for messengers from outer space: tiny, highly energetic particles that hit the Earth on their way from elsewhere in the universe.

Photo by NASA/Bill Rodman

A team led by scientists from UChicago and the University of Maryland used the Webb telescope to observe GJ 1214b’s atmosphere by measuring the heat it emits while orbiting its host star. The exoplanet is too hot to be habitable, but likely contains water vapor.

A new way to gauge the universe’s expansion rate has delivered a confusing result that may conflict with previous related measurements.

The National Science Foundation has awarded $52.66 million to upgrade the Simons Observatory, a set of telescopes high in the Chilean desert that looks for traces of light from the earliest epochs of the universe.  Improvements include upgraded receiver, solar panels to power the observatory and data processing pipeline

New Scientist features a mechanical backpack developed by Prof. Pedro Lopes and his colleagues. JumpMod can enhance the sensation of virtual reality by sliding a weight up and down.

U.S. News & World Report released the 2023 rankings for the top science schools for graduate education in the United States. The Physical Sciences Division at the University of Chicago was well-represented in top rankings for graduate programs and specialties.

A University of Chicago study found links at the atomic level between photosynthesis and exciton condensates—a strange state of physics that allows energy to flow frictionlessly through a material. The finding is scientifically intriguing and may suggest new ways to think about designing electronics, the authors said.