News: Research

2024

Advanced Photon Source achieves world-record electron beam emittance measurement

September 7, 2024

Photo of APS facilities

A new set of electron beam measurements puts the upgraded Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the top of the list of the world’s synchrotron X-ray research facilities. The APS is a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne National Laboratory and is one of the most productive X-ray light sources in the world. 


New nanomedicine improves cancer treatment through enhanced chemotherapy drug delivery

September 7, 2024

Icon of a scientifically engineered pill

Researchers at the UChicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center, including chemist Wenbin Lin, developed a nanomedicine that increases the penetration and accumulation of chemotherapy drugs in tumor tissues and effectively kills cancer cells through the activation of the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway.


For these companies, quantum computing isn’t a far-off dream. It’s now.

September 5, 2024

The startup PsiQuantum plans to build the world’s largest quantum computer at the former U.S. Steel South Works site on Chicago's South Side. UChicago professor David Awschalom, who leads the Chicago Quantum Exchange research consortium, comments on the applications of this technology.


Ransomware attacks on schools threaten student data nationwide

September 5, 2024

Image with icons of safety locks

A concerning amount of cyberattacks are targeting education service databases. In response to this challenge, Marshini Chetty, an assistant professor in UChicago's Department of Computer Science, developed a game app called Cybernaut to help young children learn to be cyber-safe.


Decoding content moderation: analyzing policy variations across top online platforms

September 1, 2024

Animated icon of a social media page

UChicago research scientist Arjun Bhagoji and 5th year PhD student Brennan Schaffner collaborate to study content moderation across the top 43 online platforms.


UChicago lands $7.4 million grant to study how cells adapt to surroundings

September 1, 2024

Photo of scientists leading the research project.

A multidisciplinary eight-member team from UChicago and Northwestern will launch the Cellular Adaptation Lab to study how fundamental cellular behaviors are linked to disease and responses to climate change.


Researchers sound alarm over devastating side effect of rising temperatures in Alaskan rivers: ‘We endanger infrastructure’

August 29, 2024

Icon of the state of Alaska region

Researchers from several universities, including the University of Chicago, conducted a study of the land and permafrost along Alaska’s Koyukuk River. The findings revealed that permafrost is not regenerating fast enough to counteract the erosion of the land.


How did the first cells arise? With a little rain, study finds

August 28, 2024

Animated image of rainfall

In a new study, researchers found that rain may have been an essential ingredient for the origin of life. This groundbreaking research was conducted by scientists from UChicago's Chemistry Department and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, including Nobel Prize laureate Jack Szostak.
 


New Webb Telescope data suggests our model of the universe may hold up after all

August 25, 2024

Photo of space

A new UChicago-led analysis measures universe expansion rate and finds the 'Hubble tension' may not exist. 


Atom smashers

August 25, 2024

Photo of a scientist at the Accelerator Building

For decades, UChicago’s historic Accelerator Building has served as a hub for innovative research, accommodating particle accelerators known as atom smashers, as well as facilities for medical services. The center will be demolished this year to make way for a new building for today’s researchers in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Chicago Quantum Exchange.
 


Life from a drop of rain: New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls

August 25, 2024

From left, Nobel Prize laureate Jack Szostak of the Chicago Center for the Origins of Life, UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering postdoctoral researcher Aman Agrawal and UChicago PME Dean Emeritus Matthew Tirrel

A new paper from the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Houston Chemical Engineering Department, and Chicago Center for the Origins of Life suggests rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to all forms of life.


Material world

August 16, 2024

Photo of professor Bozhi Tian

Meet the futuristic new materials developed by UChicago scientists that could soon be all around us. In the Chemistry Department, professor Bozhi Tian and his colleagues devised a soil-like material designed to promote microbial growth. 
 


Breakthrough by UChicago scientists could ease notoriously difficult chemical reaction

August 16, 2024

Animated icon of chemistry experiment

A new study led by researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh introduced new method for altering vinyl systems, important in drug and materials science. 
 


The Webb telescope further deepens the biggest controversy in cosmology

August 16, 2024

Portrait of Professor Freedman

For years, measurements of the universe's expansion rate have been overshooting the prediction. UChicago astrophysicist Wendy Freedman has played a crucial role in the ongoing debate about the Hubble constant, a measure of the universe's expansion rate.


NASA has found oceans of water on Mars—but there’s a problem

August 16, 2024

Animated icon of Mars

As new reports reveal evidence of a large underground reservoir on Mars, suggesting that the planet might still have water, challenges in this research area still remain. In a notable new paper, UChicago scientists propose a new methodology to warm Mars’s atmosphere.