science and tech
So far, yet so close
northwestern magazine
It’s not an exaggeration to say that sending humans to Mars would be one of the greatest feats of human ingenuity ever.
going beyond the exascale
symmetry magazine
Quantum computers could enable physicists to tackle questions even the most powerful computers cannot handle.
How new atomic clocks could help in search for dark matter — and beyond
FERMI NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY
In the search for dark matter — the mysterious, invisible substance that makes up more than 80% of matter in our universe — scientists and engineers are turning to a new ultra-sensitive tool: the optical atomic clock.
REPAIR, REGROW, REGENERATE
NORTHWESTERN MAGAZINE
It is somewhat miraculous, the wonders that nature can work. Axolotl salamanders, for example, can regrow their spinal cord, heart and limbs. Many crab species can regrow claws. And a chopped-up panther worm can completely regenerate from each segment.
How a ‘doctor for batteries’ is creating innovative technology to tackle climate change
university of chicago news
Shirley Meng has her sights set on creating new technologies that support a sustainable future.
For first time, researchers send entangled qubit states through a communication channel
Pritzker school of Molecular Engineering
In a breakthrough for quantum computing, University of Chicago researchers have sent entangled qubit states through a communication cable linking one quantum network node to a second node.
Computational scientist collaborates with Sandia National Lab to Improve LAMMPS
Research Computing Center
Developing new drugs. Understanding the mechanisms of disease. Studying proteins critical to neuron signaling. All of these crucial areas of study have increasingly relied on a powerful tool: molecular dynamics simulations of biological systems.
Solutions for troubled waters
Northwestern magazine
Lake Michigan is often thought of as the crown jewel of Northwestern. As large as an inland sea, its waters are ever-shifting: They can sit as still as glass on a calm spring day, or crash onto the painted rocks during summer thunderstorms, or collect into ice sculptures along the Clark Street Beach in subzero winters. But this immense body of fresh water has been under threat since the early 20th century.
Study shows how some neurons compensate for death of their neighbors
University of Chicago Medicine
Our brains are complicated webs of billions of neurons, constantly transmitting information across synapses, and this communication underlies our every thought and movement. But what happens to the circuit when a neuron dies? Can other neurons around it pick up the slack to maintain the same level of function?
Reprogramming the genome
northwestern engineering magazine
Imagine taking a DNA molecule — the source of genetic instructions for all living things — and making it a million times larger. The result would be about the width of a spaghetti noodle, but the length would travel from New York City to Dallas. Now imagine taking that noodle and stuffing it into a small living room. That illustrates the highly-packed, dense structure of what is called chromatin, the three-dimensional organization of the genome which regulates patterns of gene expression.
Rising Stars of multi-messenger astronomy
symmetry magazine
A year after detecting a neutron star collision, scientists are excited for the future of multi-messenger astronomy and astrophysics.
New bio-inspired dynamic materials transform themselves
northwestern engineering
Highly dynamic synthetic superstructures self-assemble, change stiffness of soft materials, then revert, while providing new clues on the brain, spinal cord injuries, and neurological disease.
Do hidden influences give neutrinos their tiny mass?
SYMMETRY MAGAZINE
The quest to understand the small mass of neutrinos is also a quest to discover new particles.
ancient hominins had small brains like apes, but longer childhoods like humans
University of Chicago Biological Sciences
By using precise technology to scan eight fossil skulls, researchers resolved a longstanding question of whether this species had prolonged childhood, a period of time unique to humans that allows us to learn and grow.
Health/Medicine
Maximizing Health and Wellness Through Microbiome Research
Medicine on the Midway
Among scientists and physicians, the microbiome’s importance is increasingly hard to overstate. It’s often called the next frontier of health and even the “second brain” within our bodies.
Care for pregnant patients with congenital heart disease
University of Chicago Medicine
Now 90% percent of infants born with a heart defect survive into adulthood. This means more and more adults with heart defects are becoming pregnant.
Keeping the BEat
Northwestern Medicine Magazine
Over the past 100 years, physicians and investigators have developed therapies to treat AFib, often through blood thinners (which can reduce clots), or through interventions like ablation, which destroys tissue in the heart that may be causing this irregularity. But as our lifespans grow longer, AFib has become more common.
New Testing System Predicts Septic Shock Outcomes
PritZker SChool of Molecular Engineering
Sepsis—which happens when the body has an extreme response to a bacterial or viral infection, causing a chain reaction that can lead to organ failure and death—has few strategies for treatment. That’s what Savas Tay found a few years ago, when his mother died from sepsis.
Want your kids to eat more? Offer them less.
Kellogg Insight
Michal Maimaran and Yuval Salant were having a family dinner at a sushi restaurant when their three children decided they did not want to eat the maki rolls on the table. Instead, they wanted to eat just the tiny slivers of avocado inside the rolls. Maimaran and Salant got curious. Did they want the avocado in the restaurant simply because there was a limited amount of it?
Redefining wearable technology
Northwestern medicine magazine
Our bodies are storytellers. Every heartbeat, joint creak and electric signal of a neuron tells a story of what is going right — and wrong — within the vast, complex system that gives us life. While we now have the wearable technology to translate some of these stories — think Fitbits or health trackers on our smartphones — for bioelectronics pioneer John A. Rogers and his colleagues, those devices only scratch the surface of what we can discern from the body in real time.
What young athletes should eat before and after the game
University of chicago medicine
For young athletes, planning is key to eating the right nutritious foods at the right times.
New vaccine delivery system for malaria
University of chicago
Researchers have developed an innovative new system for delivering a vaccine for malaria, commonly spread by mosquitoes.
Exploring food allergy origins and treatments
Feinberg breakthroughs
Food allergies are a growing problem, affecting 8 percent of children and 10 percent of adults. Despite the prevalence, the field still has many open questions regarding disease origin and potential treatment.
tracking parasitic worms to better understand disease
pritzker school of molecular engineering
Tiny parasitic roundworms called filarial nematodes are responsible for many diseases in developing countries, including river blindness, loa loa infection, and elephantiasis, a severe swelling of limbs that affects millions of people each year.
Business
Why Younger Workers Just Can’t Get Ahead
Kellogg Insight
In wealthy countries, the wage gap between older and younger workers is growing. A crowded promotion pathway could be to blame.
Are You Willing to Stretch the Truth While Negotiating?
kellogg insight
Imagine you’re a real estate agent, selling a house with a leaky roof. Do you reveal that fact to potential buyers? The answer may differ depending on your gender.
so, you sold your startup?
northwestern engineering magazine
Your startup is successfully up and running. Is now the time to sell? The voice of experience speaks.
Growing Entrepreneurs
IIT Magazine
How to tell stories. How to think. How to connect with people. When young alumni entrepreneurs look back at their time at Illinois Tech, these lessons are what they remember and value most about their time at the university.
Can Cutting CEO Pay Help a Faltering Company Rebound?
Kellogg Insight
When a company is underperforming, many boards take a seemingly sensible action: cut the CEO’s pay. Such a move, the thinking goes, will encourage the CEO to improve the company’s performance in order to restore his or her full pay. But pay cuts can backfire.
Startup QDIR uses quantum dots for infrared detectors
Chicago quantum exchange
Infrared imaging can enhance our senses by “seeing” through hazy weather, opaque plastic containers, and old paintings, and by identifying chemicals by their signature. But infrared detectors are expensive and complicated to manufacture, and the process often produces low yields. New startup QDIR is working to commercialize a new, low-cost way to create these detectors: with quantum dots.
Whiz! Bang! Boom! Energetic Ads Hold Viewers’ Attention
Kellogg Insight
Louder, busier commercials are the new norm. And they seem to be working.
Profiles
Rising leaders of the quantum prairie
Chicago quantum Exchange
Why startup founders, researchers, and students say the Midwest is the premier hub for quantum—and how UChicago is playing a big role.
The persevering physicist
symmetry magazine
To both understand the universe and improve equity, inclusion and diversity in physics, Brian Beckford looks to one word: respect.
no small plans
northwestern medicine magazine
Susan Quaggin knew from the age of 15 that she wanted to be a physician, but it wasn’t until her first rotation as an intern at the University of Toronto that she found her calling in kidney research.
Environmental Equity
Prospect Magazine of Elmhurst University
Nicholas Schroek ‘02 has spent his career facing off with polluters and protecting those whom pollution hurts the most.
A matter of interpretation
symmetry magazine
In 1949 physicist Richard Feynman published the first of what would become known as Feynman diagrams, simple cartoons that described the interactions of particles. It was this sort of visual thinking that, half a century later, drew Giordon Stark into physics. It made sense; growing up, he had become an expert in interpreting the visual. He started practicing so early in life that it wasn’t until he was 3 years old that his parents realized he was deaf.
agile advocate
northwestern engineering magazine
Growing up in Norway, Jorgen Hesselberg was always curious about other people’s stories. After high school, he came to the United States, fully intending to return home after college to become a journalist. But when he met the woman who would become his wife, his life took one of many turns that would take him down new paths he could not foresee—paths that would ultimately lead him to understand the importance of adaptability.
Get to know ten early-career theorists
Symmetry magazine
Junior faculty in theoretical physics talk about what keeps them up at night, their favorite places to think and how they explain their jobs to nonscientists.
changing the culture
IIT magazine
Susan Blessing has been driven not only by the need to find and understand the basic building blocks of matter, but also by a mission to recruit more women into science.