Experts in the News

Pentoses are essential carbohydrates in the metabolism of modern lifeforms, but their availability during early Earth is unclear since these molecules are unstable. A new study led by the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, reveals a chemical pathway compatible with early Earth conditions and by which C6 aldonates could have acted as a source of pentoses without the need for enzymes. Their findings provide clues about primitive biochemistry and bring us closer to understanding the Origins of Life. Charles Liotta, Regents' Professor Emeritus in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry with a joint appointment in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is a co-author of the study. 

Ever wondered why your dog’s back-and-forth shaking is so effective at getting you soaked? Or how bugs, birds, and lizards can run across water—but we can’t? Or how about why cockroaches are so darn good at navigating in the dark? Those are just a few of the day-to-day mysteries answered in the new book How to Walk on Water and Climb Up Walls: Animal Movement and the Robots of the Future, by David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics. The book answers questions you probably won’t realize you even had, but they’re questions with serious answers that span the worlds of physics, fluid mechanics, and biology. Throughout the book, Hu demonstrates the extraordinary value day-to-day curiosity brings to science.

Carbon nanotubes are a large family of carbon-based hollow cylindrical structures with unique physicochemical properties that have motivated research for diverse applications; some have reached commercialization. Recent actions in the European Union that propose to ban this entire class of materials highlight an unmet need to precisely define carbon nanotubes, to better understand their toxicological risks for human health and the environment throughout their life cycle, and to communicate science-based policy-driving information regarding their taxonomy, safe sourcing, processing, production, manufacturing, handling, use, transportation and disposal. In this Perspective, the authors discuss current information and knowledge gaps regarding these issues and make recommendations to provide research and development, and regulatory clarity, regarding the material properties of different carbon nanotube materials. A co-author of this article is Mijin Kim, assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. 

Climate change is threatening the survival of plants and animals around the globe as temperatures rise and habitats change. Some species have been able to meet the challenge with rapid evolutionary adaptation and other changes in behavior or physiology. Dark-colored dragonflies are getting paler in order to reduce the amount of heat they absorb from the sun. Mustard plants are flowering earlier to take advantage of earlier snowmelt. Lizards are becoming more cold-tolerant to handle the extreme variability of our new climate. However, scientific studies show that climate change is occurring much faster than species are changing. James Stroud, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, co-authored this article. (This article was also covered at The Good Men Project, Beaumont Enterprise, Yahoo! News and CapeTalk 567AM.)

Don't worry; it's not expected to happen for another billion years or so. But when Earth's atmosphere does indeed revert back to one that's rich in methane and low in oxygen, it's going to happen fairly rapidly, according to a 2021 study co-authored by Chris Reinhard, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. This shift will take the planet back to something like the state it was in before what's known as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) around 2.4 billion years ago. What's more, the researchers behind the study say that atmospheric oxygen is unlikely to be a permanent feature of habitable worlds in general, which has implications for our efforts to detect signs of life further out in the Universe.  (This study was also covered at Financial Express, MSN, ScienceAlert, India Today and WION.)

Georgia Tech scientists will soon have another way to search for neutrinos, those hard-to-detect, high-energy particles speeding through the cosmos that hold clues to massive particle accelerators in the universe—if researchers can find them. "The detection of a neutrino source or even a single neutrino at the highest energies is like finding a holy grail," says Nepomuk Otte, professor in the School of Physics. Otte is the principal investigator for the Trinity Demonstrator telescope that was recently built by his group and collaborators, and was designed to detect neutrinos after they get stopped within the Earth.

Oxidation is the process where atoms lose electrons during a chemical reaction. Among the radioactive elements, neptunium and plutonium are much harder to oxidize than uranium. To study these elements, scientists have designed donor ligands — molecules that contribute electron density to metal centers. This allows scientists to stabilize these metals as they become more electron-poor. Accessing and studying the high oxidation states of uranium, neptunium, and plutonium complexes helps scientists understand their chemical reactivities—how easily they form new chemical compounds. These studies can shed light on how radioactive materials may behave in nuclear waste streams and waste storage. This study summary was written by Henry La Pierre, associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of the National Nuclear Security Administration Transuranic Chemistry Center of Excellence. 

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences researchers find dangerous sulfates are formed, and their particles get bigger, within the plumes of pollution belching from coal-fired power plants. Previous studies have found that the particles that float in the haze over the skies of Beijing include sulfate, a major source of outdoor air pollution that damages lungs and aggravates existing asthmatic symptoms, according to the California Air Resources Board. Yuhang Wang, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, and his research team have conducted a study that may have the answer: All the chemical reactions needed to turn sulfur dioxide into sulfur trioxide, and then quickly into sulfate, primarily happen within the smoke plumes causing the pollution.

The American Physical Society (APS) recently honored five MIT community members for their contributions to physics. The recipients include MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics postdoctoral scholar Chao Li, who received his Ph.D. from the School of Physics in 2022. He was awarded the Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Beam Physics Award from the APS.

In a new study, researchers investigated whether 25 rare gene variants known to be associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) play a role in risk for African Americans. While the rare variant associations were recently discovered in individuals of European ancestry, contributing to about 15% of cases, it was unknown if and how those same rare gene variants might affect risk for African Americans. Co-authors of the study are Greg Gibson, Regents Professor, Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Biological Sciences, Director of the Center for Integrative Genomics, and member of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience; and Courtney Astore, Ph.D. Bioinformatics scholar. (This study was also covered in ScienMag.) 

"Get your head out of the clouds." "Why is your mind always a million miles away?" These are some of the statements that might have been thrown at you if you engaged in daydreaming as a child. In fact, letting your mind wander from the task at hand has often been associated with something negative — until science found proof that daydreaming can actually be good for you. This story highlights an oft-quoted 2017 study co-authored by Eric Schumacher, professor in the School of Psychology, that links letting your mind wander with intelligence and creativity.

For the undergraduate students who interned in quantum science laboratories and research groups as part of the second cohort of the Chicago Quantum Exchange’s (CQE) Open Quantum Initiative (OQI) Fellowship Program, this summer was a chance to immerse themselves in a fast-growing field — one that is driving the development of cutting-edge technology by harnessing the properties of nature’s smallest particles. Eight of the 18 fellows contributed to Q-NEXT, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory. One of the fellows is Anais El Akkad in the School of Physics, whose research this summer focused on studying the phenomenon of superradiance in a rare-earth doped crystal, which has potential applications to the development of quantum memories.