Author: Talia Ogliore

A lunar probe launched by the Chinese space agency recently brought back the first fresh samples of rock and debris from the moon in more than 40 years. Now an international team of scientists, including Bradley Jolliff in Arts & Sciences, has determined the age of these moon rocks at close to 1.97 billion years old.

Richard Loomis, professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, received a three-year $700,000 grant, with a collaborator at Marquette University, from the National Science Foundation to study highly energized molecules’ reaction pathways.

Neuroscientists in Arts & Sciences discovered that the daily release of hormones depends on the coordinated activity of clocks in two parts of the brain, a finding that could have implications for human diseases.

Matthew Kerr, professor of mathematics and statistics in Arts & Sciences, received a $164,784 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project titled “Asymptotic Hodge Theory, Fibered Motives and Algebraic Cycles.”

Sarah Anderson, a postdoctoral research associate in biology in Arts & Sciences, won the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a three-year fellowship valued at about $200,000.

Researchers led by physicist Henric Krawczynski in Arts & Sciences completed initial construction on XL-Calibur, a new balloon-borne telescope designed to measure the polarization of high-energy X-rays from black holes, neutron stars and other exotic celestial objects.

Scientists in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences will continue to archive and distribute digital data related to the study of the surfaces and interiors of terrestrial planetary bodies under a five-year cooperative agreement with NASA.

Research led by Kun Wang in Arts & Sciences suggests a fundamental reason why Mars has no liquid water on its surface today: it may be just too small.

Biologist Rachel Penczykowski in Arts & Sciences sizes up an unlikely natural phenomenon: when parasitism actually causes the number of hosts to increase, an effect known as a hydra effect. Her study of common water fleas and their fungal parasites includes laboratory components and an analysis of 13 fungal epidemics in nature.

Li Yang, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, leads a team that won a four-year $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to help develop new quantum materials called artificial multiferroics.