science wire

Scav Hunt 2013 in pictures
Graham Rosby raps between laps in the 'freestyle biathlon,' alternating 25-yard freestyle swims with 30-second freestyle rap verses.

NoBody’s Perfect documentary screening, panel discussion to tackle art, disability, sexuality
How do you show what life is like for people with disabilities without slipping into an overly sentimental narrative about “triumph” and “inspiration” – without, as dire

New PhD program in molecular engineering marks historic first for UChicago
The University of Chicago will offer an engineering PhD for the first time, emphasizing the development of solutions to technological problems of society based on molecular-level science.

UChicago to evaluate effects of increased math tutoring in Chicago Public Schools
Up to 1,000 adolescent boys in 12 Chicago Public Schools will receive individualized, daily math tutoring in their regular school day beginning next fall, as part of a new UChicago-supported program designed to boost school performance and reduce violent crimes.

’Willy Wonka’ program dishes out delicious science
There may have been no fizzy lifting drinks or scrumdiddlyumptious bars at the University of Chicago's “Science on the Screen” showing of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at the

Two faculty members receive Guggenheim Fellowships
This year, two faculty members at the University of Chicago have received John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowships: Philip V. Bohlman, the Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Profes

University signs new five-year contract with CTA
The Chicago Transit Authority will continue to operate four bus lines that serve the University of Chicago campus and surrounding neighborhoods, after the University and the CTA reached a five-year agreement.

New dark matter detector begins search for invisible particles
Scientists heard their first pops last week in an experiment that searches for signs of dark matter in the form of tiny bubbles. They will need to analyze them further in order to discern whether dark matter caused any of the COUPP-60 experiment's first bubbles at the SNOLAB underground science laboratory in Ontario, Canada.

High-flying educators trained at Yerkes Observatory
Constance Gartner first heard about NASA's SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) from her students at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf in Delavan, Wis.

Committee on protest policies to hold open meeting on May 13
The Ad Hoc Committee on Dissent and Protest, convened to examine policies and practices related to protest actions at the University of Chicago, will hold an open meeting at 5 p.m. on Monday, May 13 in the Swift Hall Common Room.

Scholar and activist Angela Davis to speak May 3 at Rockefeller Chapel
Scholar and activist Angela Y. Davis will deliver a lecture titled “Feminism and Abolition: Theories and Practices for the 21st Century” on Friday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel.

Panel explores historic role of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington
A distinguished panel of experts gathered at the University of Chicago recently to reflect on the 30th anniversary of the election of Harold Washington, the city's first African American mayor.

Series of research conferences on urban issues to begin April 25
The University of Chicago Urban Network has scheduled four research conferences beginning April 25 as part of its 2013 Urban Forums series.

Design principles of quantum biology could open path to new solar technology
University of Chicago researchers have created a synthetic compound that mimics the complex quantum dynamics observed in photosynthesis and may enable fundamentally new routes to creating solar energy technologies. Engineering quantum effects into synthetic light-harvesting devices is not only possible, but also easier than anyone expected, the researchers report in the April 18 edition of Science Express .

Pastora San Juan Cafferty, distinguished scholar of Hispanics, 1940-2013
Pastora San Juan Cafferty, one of the nation's leading scholars of race and ethnicity and a specialist on Hispanics, died April 16 in her Near North Side home in Chicago.

Janet Rowley shares prestigious medical prize with cancer treatment pioneers
Janet Davison Rowley, the Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology and Human Genetics, is one of three physician-scientists who will receive the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research for 2013.

Rayid Ghani, Obama campaign chief data scientist, joins UChicago
Rayid Ghani, chief scientist of the highly regarded Obama for America data analytics team, has joined the University of Chicago to explore using data to solve complex social problems.

Gifts to boost University of Chicago as hub for biomedical ’big data’
Two major gifts will build momentum behind the University of Chicago's leadership in biomedical computation by assembling experts in the field and furnishing them with the tools to use “big data” to understand disease and solve today' health-related challenges. These two gifts will fund related projects that are central to a much larger plan at UChicago that includes multiple data-driven discovery programs to improve health and medical care.

Kulkarni named Associate Vice President for Strategic Initiatives
Rénu Kulkarni, founder and executive director of FutureMedia at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will join the University as Associate Vice President for Strategic Initiatives on April 15, 2013.

Chemist Bozhi Tian selected as 2013 Searle Scholar
Bozhi Tian , assistant professor in chemistry, has been named a 2013 Searle Scholar and will receive $300,000 to support his research over the next three years.

Celebrated new wave filmmaker to attend three-day conference on Indian cinema
In 1913, director Dadasaheb (Dhundiraj Govind) Phalke released Raja Harishchandra, India's first feature film.

Roger Ebert, X’70, film critic and longtime Graham School lecturer, 1942-2013
Before Roger Ebert, X'70, became one of the world's most influential film critics, he began doctoral studies in English at the University of Chicago in 1966.

New book questions preferential legal treatment of religious liberty
The Western democratic practice of singling out religious liberty for special treatment under the law is not in sync with the world we live in today, argues University of Chicago Law School professor Brian Leiter in his new book, Why Tolerate Religion?

Childhood asthma tied to combination of genes and wheezing illness
About 90 percent of children with two copies of a common genetic variation and who wheezed when they caught a cold early in life later developed asthma by age 6, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine . These children, all from families with a history of asthma or allergies, were nearly four times as likely to develop the disease as those who lacked the genetic variation and did not wheeze.

Prescription for double-dose algebra proves effective
Martin Gartzman sat in his dentist's waiting room last fall when he read a study in Education Next that nearly brought him to tears.

Jon Huntsman discusses U.S-China relations, domestic politics
Jon Huntsman told a University of Chicago audience that his 30 years of experience working with China on commercial, economic and diplomatic issues have left him worried about the United States' ability to manage the complex relationship.

International technology partnership to focus on water problems
The University of Chicago and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have signed an agreement to begin exploring a research partnership that would create new water production and purification technologies for deployment in regions of the globe where fresh water resources are scarce.

Four UChicago scholars receive early career fellowships from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Four University of Chicago scholars—Dorian Abbot, assistant professor of geophysical sciences, Emir Kamenica, associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Jacob Waldbauer, the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Geophysical Sciences; and Wei Wei, assistant professor of neurobiology—have been named 2013 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows.

Mayor Bloomberg focuses on gun violence, obesity during Paulson Institute event
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came to the University of Chicago recently for a discussion that explored subjects ranging from gun violence to urban development and his efforts to curtail obesity trends.

Watery research theme to flow through new Tokmakoff lab
Once Andrei Tokmakoff gets his new laser laboratory operational later this year, he will use the world's shortest infrared light pulses to pluck molecular bonds like a stringed musical instrument.

Space station to host new cosmic ray telescope
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has awarded $4.4 million to a collaboration of scientists at five United States universities and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center to help build a telescope for deployment on the International Space Station in 2017.

Faculty members recognized for outstanding research with new professorships
Sixteen UChicago faculty members— Clifford Ando , Isaam A. Awad , David Awschalom , Omri Ben-Shahar, Philip G. Berger , Matthew Gentzkow , James K. Liao , Elizabeth McNally ,

Donald Rowley, pioneering immunologist, 1923-2013
Donald Rowley, a pioneer in discovering how the immune system functions and the inventor of the gel electrode, a crucial tool that monitors cardiac activity, died at his home Feb.

Alex Frizzell, fourth-year in the College, 1991-2013
Alex Frizzell was driven to help others, calling upon what she learned as a student of environmental economics, an avid traveler and an aspiring physician.

Vortex loops could untie knotty physics problems
University of Chicago physicists have succeeding in creating a vortex knot—a feat akin to tying a smoke ring into a knot. Linked and knotted vortex loops have existed in theory for more than a century, but creating them in the laboratory had previously eluded scientists. Vortex knots should, in principle, be persistent, stable phenomena.

Neubauer Collegium selects inaugural research projects
Can digital games help reshape urban adolescents' health decisions? How might economic models be challenged by rigorous economic analysis of historical societies? What new insights can we gain about

CCSR report examines effects of closing low-performing Chicago schools
The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research has released a full version of the report, “Turning around Low-Performing Schools in Chicago,” which shows that in about th

University’s sponsored research funding increases 6 percent in 2012
The University of Chicago received $466 million in sponsored research funding and 1,846 awards in fiscal year 2012 (July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2012), an increase of 6 percent from the previous year.

Immigration among Latin American countries fails to improve income
Although immigration to the United States from Latin American countries, particularly Mexico, has captured much public attention, immigrants who move between countries in Latin America have more difficulty than those moving to the United States.

Chicago Booth’s Emir Kamenica named Sloan Research Fellow
Emir Kamenica, associate professor of economics and Robert King Steel Faculty Fellow at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business , has been chosen as a 2013 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow.

Final preparations under way for Center for Care and Discovery’s Feb. 23 opening
After about five years of planning and construction, the single biggest expansion project in University of Chicago Medicine history is headed into the homestretch, as employees prepare to move approximately 200 patients into the new Center for Care and Discovery on Saturday, Feb.

Road closures, parking restrictions in place Feb. 23 for patient move day
Road closures will be in effect Saturday, Feb.

Humans and chimps share genetic strategy in battle against pathogens
A genome-wide analysis searching for evidence of long-lived balancing selection—where the evolutionary process acts not to select the single best adaptation but to maintain genetic variation in a population—has uncovered at least six regions of the genome where humans and chimpanzees share the same combination of genetic variants.

Actor Charles Dutton brings Chicago premiere of one-man show to Logan Center
A chance meeting that brought together three-time Emmy-winner Charles “Roc” Dutton and the Chicago Youth Leadership Academy is now bringing the actor to the University of Chicago.

Higgs boson discussion launches UChicago Discovery Series
The long-sought Higgs boson—the particle that endows all elementary particles in the universe with mass—was elusive no longer when scientists at the CERN physics laboratory in Switzerland, discovered it last summer.

Contempo to celebrate timeless music of Ralph Shapey on March 1
The University of Chicago's new music group, Contempo , will celebrate its founder, the late Ralph Shapey (1921-2002), in a tribute concert at 7:30 pm.

City cites Crime Lab data in funding innovative youth program
The city of Chicago will provide an additional $2 million to expand a violence reduction program that has been shown to be effective in research by the University of Chicago Crime Lab , Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Feb.

Sandor makes major gift to Law School; Coase-Sandor Institute named to honor mentor
Dean Michael Schill announced today that Richard Sandor, Chairman and CEO of Environmental Financial Products LLC, and his wife Ellen are the principal donors to a $10 million endowment in law and economics at the University of Chicago Law School.

Sandors make major gift to Law School; Coase-Sandor Institute named to honor mentor
Dean Michael Schill announced today that Richard Sandor, Chairman and CEO of Environmental Financial Products LLC, and his wife Ellen are the principal donors to a $10 million endowment in law and economics at the University of Chicago Law School.

UChicago professor helps illuminate lost lectures by French philosopher Foucault
More than 30 years ago, French philosopher Michel Foucault gave a landmark series of seven lectures at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

Institute of Politics to dive deep into 2012 election
The University of Chicago's non-partisan Institute of Politics will host a five-week, in-depth examination of the 2012 presidential campaign and election, starting Feb.

Revels to rev up ’Impossible City’ revue at Quadrangle Club on Feb. 1 and 2
Sharp-shooting cowboys, women's rights activists and America's first belly dancers may not be the Quadrangle Club's typical crowd, but all that will change Friday and Saturday as the University of Ch

Revels to rev up ’Impossible City’ revue at Quadrangle Club on Feb. 1 and Feb. 2
Sharp-shooting cowboys, women's rights activists and America's first belly dancers may not be the Quadrangle Club's typical crowd, but all that will change Friday and Saturday as the University of Ch

Richard G. Stern, Prof. Emeritus of English and prolific author, 1928-2013
He published more than 20 books in his lifetime, but Richard Stern insisted he was never a driven writer.

UChicago to host experts for panel on the Higgs boson particle discovery
The University of Chicago will host a panel of experts from UChicago, Argonne National Laboratory and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory on Thursday, Feb. 7, who will elaborate on the discovery of the Higgs boson particle. In their discussion, titled “ Critical Mass: How the Higgs Boson Discovery Swept the World ,” the scientists will explain what caused such a stir around the world and why non-scientists should care.

UEI’s 5Es Survey adopted for statewide assessment of school performance
Schools across Illinois will use University of Chicago research to identify ways they can improve, as part of a new program announced by the Illinois State Board of Education.

Statement on protest at Center for Care and Discovery
The University issued this statement today: Several dozen protesters entered the University of Chicago Medicine's Center for Care and Discovery Sunday afternoon without permission.

Mandel Hall restored to its original beauty with new modern updates
Earlier this month, work concluded on an ambitious restoration project in the 109-year-old Mandel Hall, a beloved music venue for the UChicago community, Hyde Park and surrounding South Side communities.

Walter Baily, influential mathematician, 1930-2013
Walter Baily, a globetrotting University of Chicago mathematician whose research extended the range of algebraic geometry, died Jan.

The Artful Universe? with cosmologist Michael Turner set for Feb. 5
Science Initiative will host a free lecture and discussion on why images of the universe—spacescapes— are so beautiful, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb.

UChicago engages in national gun policy discussion
Leading policymakers and scholars gathered at a University of Chicago Institute of Politics event on Tuesday, Jan.

Divinity School lecture to explore violence in Islamic history
At an upcoming lecture at the Divinity School, University of Exeter scholar Robert Gleave will delve into a complex and often misunderstood area of Islamic studies: the role of violence in Islamic history.

Gov. Quinn joins officials to mark completion of Center for Care and Discovery
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn joined other state and local officials to help dedicate the University of Chicago Medicine's new state-of the-art, 1.2 million-square-foot Center for Care and Discovery on Monday.

MacArthur Foundation grant fuels computational city research
A new Chicago-based research center using advanced computational methods to understand the rapid growth of cities will receive a $500,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Leslie Freeman, scholar of Paleolithic period in Spain, 1935 -- 2012
Leslie Freeman, a leading scholar of Paleolithic Spain, died on Dec. 14 in Portland, Ore. Freeman, Professor Emeritus in Anthropology at the University of Chicago, was 77.

New book connects the human community to its cosmic roots
The 1969 "Woodstock" song by Joni Mitchell, it turns out, was onto something: “ We are stardust / billion-year-old carbon.” University of Chicago evolutionary biologist, Neil Shubin,

Institute of Politics to host leaders for panel on gun violence
The University of Chicago Institute of Politics will hold an event with leading policymakers and scholars on Tuesday, Jan.

Extraordinary properties of ordinary glasses
Technologically valuable ultrastable glasses can be produced in days or hours with properties corresponding to those that have been aged for thousands of years, computational and laboratory studies have confirmed.

Moscow legislators visit Chicago Harris to learn about U.S. governance
Five Russian legislators visited the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy recently to learn about American elections and democratic institutions from Chicago Harris faculty and students.

Renovation of 5757 S. University Ave. enters new phase
Work is underway on the next phase of a project for the adaptive reuse of 5757 S. University Ave., which the University of Chicago is renovating for the building's new role as a destination for economics scholars worldwide.

Elwood Jensen, pioneer in cancer biology research, 1920-2012
Elwood V. Jensen, known worldwide for his pioneering research on how steroid hormones exert their influence through specific receptors in target cells, died from pneumonia on Sunday, Dec.

Noted pollster speaks at Chicago Harris about the changing American electorate
The increasingly diversified electorate of the United States is key to understanding the outcome of the 2012 presidential election, pollster Geoffrey Garin told an audience of public policy students.

Indiana Jones materials to appear on display at Oriental Institute Museum
The contents of a package of Indiana Jones material that mysteriously arrived at the University of Chicago will be on display beginning Thursday, Dec.

New computational center will use data-driven techniques to inform urban policy
Over the next several decades, the population of the world's cities will nearly double, increasing by 2.6 billion people.

Fed presidents discuss economic recovery at Becker Friedman Institute
The presidents of three regional Federal Reserve Banks discussed the Fed's role in America's recovery from the economic recession at a Dec.

Graeme Bell receives international diabetes prize
Graeme Ian Bell, the Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics and an investigator in the Kovler Diabetes Center at the University of Chicago, has been awarded the Ma

Four on faculty elected fellows of American Association for the Advancement of Science
Four University of Chicago faculty members were elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the organization announced on Nov.

Don R. Swanson, information science pioneer, 1924-2012
Don R. Swanson believed laboratories weren't the only source of new scientific discoveries. Swanson, a specialist in the relationship between natural and computer languages, thought electronic databases also held the key to medical knowledge. A trailblazing information scientist, Swanson died Nov.

University of Chicago receives $4.8 million grant to study philanthropy
The University of Chicago has established the Science of Philanthropy Initiative to explore the underpinnings of philanthropy by employing an interdisciplinary approach that includes strategic partnerships with the fundraising community.

Next scientific fashion could be designer nanocrystals
Three University of Chicago chemistry professors hope that their separate research trajectories will converge to create a new way of assembling what they call “designer atoms” into materials with a broad array of potentially useful properties and functions.

University to test emergency alert system Dec. 5
UChicago officials will conduct a scheduled test of cAlert, the emergency notification system, at or around noon on Wednesday, Dec.

National labs, UChicago scientists and scholars engage in ’Playing with Time’
Ubiquitous but elusive, time can be defined and discussed but also measured and manipulated; valued or ignored; constructed and interpreted; even warped and traveled.

Advocate for women in STEM disciplines speaks on today’s barriers to ’breaking into the lab’
For Sue Rosser, the obstacles women in the STEM disciplines face today may be less obvious than they were 40 years ago, but they're as real as ever.