News: Research

A new study explains how faraway planets with helium atmospheres may be very common and why.

New observations of WASP-39b with the James Webb Space Telescope have provided a clearer picture of the exoplanet, showing the presence of sodium, potassium, water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide in the planet's atmosphere.

A new paper from the research group of UChicago CS assistant professor Sanjay Krishnan caps three years of research on how computational geometry can make approximate query processing more efficient.

A new study from six UChicago chemists shows an innovative new system for artificial photosynthesis that is more productive than previous artificial systems by an order of magnitude and could produce ethanol, methane, or other fuels.

What if your ‘90’s Tamagotchi pet wasn’t digital? What if your devices were really alive, at least a little bit, and you had to care for them in order for them to work? These are the questions grad student Jasmine Lu and Assoc. Prof. Pedro Lopes of UChicago Computer Science set out to answer with their Slime Mold Smart Watch.

UChicago computer scientists will lead a $9.2M grant from ARPA for the UpDown System, to speed up graph analytics. The effort will reinvent computer architecture, dramatically increasing efficiency and scalability for graph computing. Prof. Andrew Chien wil head a team including Henry Hoffmann, Yanjing Li, and Michael Maire.

The fifth annual Chicago Quantum Summit, hosted by the Chicago Quantum Exchange, will convene academic, government, and industry leaders in quantum information science and engineering on Nov. 14-15. The public can attend on Zoom.

A new study led by Prof. Fausto Cattaneo, Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics, informs Earth-Moon formation theories. Through analysis of the dynamics of fluids and electrically conducting fluids, the researchers concluded that the Earth must have been magnetized either before the impact of an interplanetary collision or as a result of it. 

UChicago chemist Raymond Moellering is in a group that has created an innovative way to build synthetic molecules that can target these previously “undruggable” transcription factors. The breakthrough holds promise for drugs and treatments as well as tools to better understand cancer biology.

The Summit on AI in Society, organized in October by the Institute on the Formation of Knowledge (IFK), featured several UChicago CS speakers alongside social scientists, artists, policy experts, historians, and philosophers.

Assoc. Prof. Diana Franklin, Dept. of Computer Science, was interviewed by the podcast Entangled Things about K-12 education in quantum, suspension of disbelief, and ways to communicate quantum topics to broader audiences.

Scientists working with UChicago GeoSoilEnviroCARS (GSECARS) beamline used an X-ray beam, laser techniques and high-resolution spectroscopy tools to simulate the extreme conditions at Earth’s core-mantle boundary. They found that unlike rusting at Earth’s surface, carbon comes out of the liquid iron metal alloy and forms diamond.

Former Motorola CEO Chris Galvin invests in and joins the board of ColdQuanta, which acquired Prof. Fred Chong’s UChicago-born quantum startup Super.tech.

Researchers including chemist Wenbin Lin use nanoparticles to deliver a bacterially derived compound that targets the STING pathway to suppress tumor growth and metastasis by disrupting blood vessels and stimulating immune response.

Assoc. Prof. Pedro Lopes, Dept. of Computer Science, and his team have developed a hardware prototype to keep users enveloped in a virtual experience. The small box attached to a VR headset detects distractions like winds or a sudden ray of sunshine hitting one's skin.