News: Research

New analysis by astronomy professor Wendy Freedman finds agreement with standard model in ongoing Hubble tension.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to transform plastics, electronics, and transportation, experiment with materials that can 'remember,' and contribute to the most precise look yet at the universe's evolution.

Scientists and engineers at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory are using biomaterials, advanced polymers, and artificial intelligence to engineer new materials that are fully recyclable and biodegradable from the ground up, without sacrificing the useful qualities of traditional plastics and consumer products. At the same time, these new materials can be engineered with specific properties to incorporate them into a new generation of electronics, better batteries, clean energy systems, and more.
This work has the potential to advance technology across the board, while reducing environmental harms and enabling human society to move forward in a more sustainable manner.

Prof. Diana Franklin discusses her research into how computer science curricula are used in school and the "big gaps" in learning with Education Next.

A new imaging and machine learning technique developed at the University of Chicago allows scientists, including biophysics student Devin Harrison, to watch cells break down glucose, potentially leading to new methods for treating a wide array of diseases, including cancer and COVID-19.

As a theorist with a background in physics, Prof. Brent Doiron models the brain, and the network of neurons that compose it, as a complex system where interactions among individual components produce activity in a group or system that can’t be explained by just looking at the components in isolation.

Today’s on-the-ground missions exploring Mars are helping Profs. Edwin Kite and colleagues obtain a more direct and complete understanding of the red planet. Prof. Rocky Kolb comments the US and Chinese space programs should collaborate as well as compete.

In 1942, the Manhattan Project needed to create a chain reaction—a crucial step toward proving that it would be possible to make an atomic bomb. The scientists achieved this sustained nuclear reaction, the first created by humans, on Dec. 2, 1942, in a squash court under the stands of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.

Nicknamed “Chicago Pile-1,” the world’s first nuclear reactor kicked off the Atomic Age and has a complicated legacy, including the rise of both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.

Prof. Dan Hooper discusses what happened after the Big Bang, ‘breaking’ the Standard Model of Physics

The Dark Energy Survey, an international collaboration coordinated through the University of Chicago-affiliated Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, surveyed almost one-eighth of the entire sky over six years, cataloguing hundreds of millions of objects. The new results announced May 27 draw on data from the first three years to create the most precise maps yet of the distribution of galaxies in the universe at relatively recent epochs.

Do you know a high school teacher who wants to bring financial literacy into the classroom? Applications are open to high school educators nationwide for complimentary access to finEDge Financial Education Curriculum from UChicago STEMEd.

Profs. Rich Kron and Chihway Chang of DES comment on “a smoother Universe” that is less dense than previously thought, based on an analysis of the largest ever map of dark matter created using light from 100 million galaxies.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to theorize non-reciprocal interactions, push the frontiers of human computer interaction, and cut nitrogen atoms from molecules, opening up avenues for constructing molecules.

Forbes 30 Under 30 recognized Leslie Jones-Dove, AB’19, and Devshi Mehrotra, AB’19, who met as computer science majors, for their contributions to social impact. The pair took their capstone project for an “Entrepreneurship in Technology" class and built it out into a public defense software called JusticeText.

A research team at the University of Chicago is now exploring the properties of a material found in cells which allows cells to remember and respond to environmental pressure. In a paper published on May 14, 2021 in Soft Matter, they teased out secrets for how it works—and how it could someday form the basis for making useful materials.