News: Research

2024

First-ever atomic freeze-frame of liquid water

February 15, 2024

Close up of water spray

Scientists report the first look at electrons moving in real-time in liquid water; findings open up a whole new field of experimental physics.


Initial results from South Pole Telescope SPT-3G camera hint at future insights about our universe

February 14, 2024

South Pole Telescope

New data on the cosmic microwave background released from upgrade with 10 times more detectors.


University of Chicago professor talks human-centered AI, improved decision making at Technology and Social Behavior Colloquium

February 14, 2024

In his talk at the Technology and Social Behavior Ph.D. program’s winter colloquium, UChicago Prof. Chenhao Tan drew connections between human decision making and AI’s predictive process.

Daily Northwestern article highlights a talk on improving decision-making in AI given by Asst. Prof. Chenhao Tan.


Argonne scientists use AI to identify new materials for carbon capture

February 14, 2024

Scientific visualization of the AI-guided assembly of a novel metal organic framework with high carbon dioxide adsorption capacity and synthesizable linkers

Metal-organic framework (MOF) materials can be used in many different applications, from catalysts to energy converters.


The Granulobot

February 14, 2024

Granulobot units

Physicists Baudouin Saintyves and Heinrich Jaeger develop a modular robot with liquid and solid properties.


The seven transitions of Mars climate

February 13, 2024

composite figure of Mars topology

Surface observations indicate that Mars’s early climate supported liquid water—rivers and lakes—for over a billion years. But like Earth, which has experienced both global ice ages and extreme heat over the past eon, Mars’s climate history may have been intermittent.


UChicago scientists develop a plastic that can be re-formed as needed

February 9, 2024

Nicholas Boynton holds tiny plastic pieces

Stuart Rowan and team developed a material called a “pluripotent plastic,” which has the ability to take on many forms.


A surprisingly simple model can explain how brain cells organize and connect

February 9, 2024

illustration of a lit-up brain

Scientists from UChicago, Harvard, and Yale propose model that could apply across a wide range of organisms.


Where do cosmic rays come from?

February 8, 2024

Cosmic rays raining down on earth illustration

Space.com article cites UChicago research finding that over 90% of cosmic rays are hydrogen nuclei, 9% are the atomic nuclei of helium, and 1% are the nuclei of heavy elements like iron.


New research unites quantum engineering and artificial intelligence

February 2, 2024

Junyu Liu

Researchers at Pritzker Molecular Engineering, including CQE IBM postdoctoral scholar Junyu Liu of UChicago CS, and collaborators show in a new paper how incorporating quantum computing into the classical machine learning process can potentially help make machine learning more sustainable and efficient.


NeurIPS 2023 award-winning paper by DSI faculty Bo Li, DecodingTrust, provides a comprehensive framework for assessing trustworthiness of GPT models

February 2, 2024

Bo Li

In a year with a record-breaking number of paper submissions, Bo Li was awarded the NeurIPS Outstanding Paper Award.


NetMicroscope uses AI to improve network monitoring for a better internet experience

February 2, 2024

Nick Feamster

Nick Feamster's NetMicroscope has developed a tool that lets customers monitor their network and extract meaningful data – enabling intervention before any problems become issues for the users.


The colossal caverns for Fermilab’s DUNE experiment have been fully excavated

February 2, 2024

one of DUNE's large caverns, about the height of a seven-story building

Milestone for Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, under construction to search for clues about mysterious particles.


Revealed: HIV’s trick for invading the nucleus of a host’s cell

February 2, 2024

A simulation of the pore of the nucleus of the cell. From left, an overhead view; center, a cutaway view; and at right, with an HIV capsid (shown in blue-green) embedded.

ScienceAlert article features Prof. Gregory Voth's research using computer modeling to aid in understanding how the Human Immunodeficiency Virus – better known as HIV – breaks into the nucleus of a cell, enabling it to replicate and spread.


A shape-shifting plastic with a flexible future

February 2, 2024

From left, Nicholas Boynton, Shrayesh Patel and Stuart Rowan

NYT article features research led by Prof. Stuart Rowan that developed a new type of plastic with properties that can be set with heat and then locked in with rapid cooling, a process known as tempering; unlike classic plastics, the material retains this stiffness when returned to room temperature.