News: 2024

CS PhD Student Soumik Ghosh and Assistant Professor Bill Fefferman find that random circuit sampling problems that incorporate non-unital noise do not anticoncentrate, breaking every easiness and hardness result to date.

The University of Chicago has announced the winners of its 2024 “Science as Art” contest, which highlights images of innovative scientific research from the UChicago community.

The contest drew more than 60 entries from undergraduates, graduate students, staff, alumni, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty members, showcasing everything from fossils to fly anatomy. Together, these images display the pursuit of knowledge in a new light, underscoring the beauty of intellectual exploration.

The grand-prize winner is “Peculiar Dynamics” by Computer Science PhD student Sam Everett!

In a CNN article, Geophysical Sciences postdoc Maria Valdes states that as the climate continues to warm, Antarctic rocks are sinking into the ice at an increasing rate, making many meteorites inaccessible to scientists and causing the loss of "precious time capsules that hold clues to the history of our Solar System."

MIT Technology Review article discusses the same study regarding the reduction in air pollution and its connection to global warming. Geophysical Sciences professor David Keith notes that this inadvertent "geoengineering experiment" is now being shut off as the world cleans up its air.

A Science article, which quotes Geophysical Sciences professor Tiffany Shaw, discusses how the reduction in air pollution and aerosols has led to less reflection of sunlight, which could be contributing to faster global warming.

Protein lets calcium ions into cell; finding could open new avenues for therapies.

Congratulations to the nine PSD graduate students who have been awarded 2024 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships! The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

NYT article: Scientists may have discovered a major flaw in their understanding of that mysterious cosmic force. That could be good news for the fate of the universe. Wendy Freedman praises the new survey data as "superb," and Michael Turner says the possible evidence that dark energy is not constant is the best news since cosmic acceleration was established.

Josh Frieman will lead around 50 astronomy students south to Carbondale to be in the path of totality for the upcoming solar eclipse.

An accelerator known as a muon collider could revolutionize particle physics—if it can be built. Physicists, like UChicago's Karri Dipetrillo, are advocating for one to be built at Fermilab.

SAND Lab's Nightshade aims to help artists prevent image generators from easily reproducing their work, but the researchers behind it warn more intellectual property safeguards are needed.

UChicago, Fermilab research uses coaxial “dish” antenna to scan for mysterious particles.

Two UChicago postdocs in Astronomy & Astrophysics have been awarded the prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship. Congrats, Rafael Luque and Lily Zhao, for being selected as Sagan Fellows!

UChicago scholars, including Michael Turner, Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Physics, discuss the significance of the eclipse in science, culture, and religion.

Pouya Mahdi Gholami, a fourth-year PhD student in Computer Science, studies adaptive operation and intelligence on energy-limited edge devices.