News: Research

Finding reveals how starlight drives surprising chemistry, offers new way to study alien atmospheres.
 

An effort led by University of Chicago researchers has provided the sharpest and clearest ever map of mass in the universe.

US researchers have developed a method to convert plant waste into high-quality graphite. This breakthrough offers a potential domestic source for a critical battery component. The new process involves slow cooling of biochar, creating larger graphite crystals. This sustainable alternative could reduce reliance on imported graphite for electronics. Further development is needed to scale up production and lower costs for commercial use.

Award by Berlin-based Falling Walls Foundation honors high-risk, multi-field leap across quantum, biology, and chemistry.

PhD student Rodrigo Pires Ferreira, co-advised by statistics Asst. Prof. Claire Donnat, uses his talents for problem solving to discover new materials for future technologies.

Half a century ago, scientists at the University of Chicago's Enrico Fermi Institute helped invent a new way to study the universe: by treating the Big Bang itself as a laboratory to explore nature at energy scales unreachable on earth. This fall, nine of the researchers who carry that legacy forward will share what those fifty years have uncovered — from the invisible matter holding galaxies together to the gravitational ripples of colliding black holes.

The series of free public talks by UChicago scientists, “The Compton Lectures: 50 Years of Discovery,” run every Saturday from Oct. 3 through Dec. 5 at 11 a.m. in the Kersten Physics Teaching Center.
 

Teams led by University of Chicago and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have received new five-year grants from the National Science Foundation for quantum technology research worth $37.5 million apiece.

In its hunt for dark matter, the XENONnT experiment has detected the rare, feeble glow of neutrinos smacking into electrons.

Breakthrough from a team led by Jacob Covey, associate professor in the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Department of Physics, turns helium-3’s low mass into a quantum resource.

Study led by UChicago researchers uses bending by gravity of the oldest light in the universe to map the intervening structure.

Argonne scientists are hitting the road, bringing AI out of the lab and into libraries, museums and community centers. No jargon. Just great science.

UChicago chemists invent faster, cheaper technique to turn isoxazoles into pyrroles, a building block for medicines.

The University of Chicago’s MS in Applied Data Science program celebrated the culminating work of its graduating students at the Summer 2026 Capstone Showcase on August 15th.

The National Science Foundation is investing over $290 million into eight university-based research institutes as part of its Quantum Leap Challenge program.

Better understanding how a common channel opens and closes may help scientists build better medicines.