News: 2026

Undergraduate-built experiment collects particles 23 miles above Earth aboard a NASA high-altitude balloon.

After a long hiatus, a problem that was likely inspired by juggling has finally been resolved by a group of young mathematicians.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced the 2026 Golden Goose Awards, celebrating federally funded basic research that initially seemed trivial but yielded major societal benefits. This year's honorees include discoveries leading to histotripsy, a non-invasive cancer treatment using ultrasound, and the "Black Marble" satellite data, which maps power outages and aids disaster recovery by observing holiday lighting from space. Another award recognizes work on the physics of everyday phenomena like coffee spills, impacting inkjet printing and manufacturing. The awards originated to counter past ridicule of basic science, highlighting how unexpected discoveries, often from obscure beginnings, are crucial for health, safety, and technological advancement, underscoring the importance of sustained federal investment in scientific research.

"We think early Earth might have looked a lot like a lava world."

Vincenzo Vitelli’s work focuses on a new way of thinking of collections of “agents” — such as robots — as a form of material.

OpenAI recently alerted the city of Chicago that it's technology probed an online city database. University of Chicago Professor Hank Hoffman joins ChicagoLIVE to breakdown what this means and how concerned Chicagoans should be.

Dancing robots, mutant Legos and rocks that rock mark the fifth annual UChicago STEM community outreach event.

An assistant professor in the Department of Statistics and the Data Science Institute, Mateo Díaz has been named the inaugural Faraco Family Assistant Professor.

As a 2004 graduate of the University of Chicago’s Master of Science in Financial Mathematics program, Faraco recalls how his small FinMath cohort became its own sort of family, spending the majority of their days together in Eckhart Hall.

For people looking to refresh their homes, generative AI offers an enticing possibility: Upload a photograph of a room and, within seconds, see what it might look like with a different color palette, new furniture or an entirely new style.

Ultra-sensitive detector designed by UChicago team to search for dark matter captures elusive low-energy neutrino particles from the sun.

Scientists want to create cells from scratch, to unveil life’s origins or provide specialized functions. Are they close?

UChicago researchers built a $20 wrist cuff that jams nearby microphones within three feet using ultrasonic signals.

Astronomers looking at Vera C. Rubin Observatory test data have discovered 'Aquarius IV', believed to be a brand new satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located 350,000 light-years away.

When an employee of a major artificial intelligence company recently estimated there is a 10% chance the technology could wipe out humanity within the next decade, Daniel Holz wasn’t surprised.