News: Research

This past year brought us the launch of NASA's Parker Solar Probe, named after Prof. Emeritus Eugene Parker, the next generation South Pole Telescope, metal-organic nanoflowers to treat cancer, and more. Here is a look back at ten highlights in research and innovation in the PSD.

October marks the 20th anniversary of the Flash Center for Computational Science. The center is the home of FLASH, a community code with applications in fields ranging from astrophysics to engineering and biology.

Researchers at the University of Chicago and University of Kent in the United Kingdom have discovered critical information about the behavior of the influenza A M2 protein, which facilitates the release of infectious particles, called virions, from the infected host cell. This discovery could lead to drugs that inhibit M2, thus blocking the virus from infecting other cells.

A team of researchers at the University of Chicago used broadband 2D IR spectroscopy to reveal proton behavior when acids like HCl dissociate in water. Although general chemistry textbooks typically teach that the proton associates with water as a hydronium ion H3O+, they discovered that the proton is strongly bound between two water molecules and that the structures are predominantly asymmetrical.