World’s first private nuclear reactor, ‘the atomic furnace’ pioneered advancements in agriculture, chemistry, and medicine while employing an innovative safety design The Armour Research Foundation Reactor at Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech) has been officially recognized as a Nuclear Historic Landmark by the American Nuclear Society (ANS), joining an elite group of fewer than 100 sites across the United States to receive this designation. Nicknamed “the atomic furnace,” the world’s first privately owned and operated nuclear reactor marked a significant transition in the…

Findings identify opportunities for new treatments of Parkinson’s and related neurodegenerative disorders A longstanding mystery in Parkinson’s disease research has been why some individuals carrying pathogenic variants that increase their risk of PD go on to develop the disease, while others who also carry such variants do not. The prevailing theory has suggested additional genetic factors may play a role. To address this question, a new study from Northwestern Medicine used modern technology, called CRISPR interference, to systematically examine every…

Mayor improvement for particle research at CERN Scientists working together in the “Antihydrogen Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy” (AEgIS) and other experiments at CERN’s Antimatter Factory, such ALPHA and GBAR, are on a mission to measure the free-fall of antihydrogen under Earth’s gravity with high precision, each using a different technique. AEgIS’s approach involves producing a horizontal beam of antihydrogen and measuring its vertical displacement using a device called a moiré deflectometer that reveals tiny deviations in motion and a detector…

From virtual reality to rehabilitation and communication, haptic technology has revolutionized the way humans interact with the digital world. While early haptic devices focused on single-sensory cues like vibration-based notifications, modern advancements have paved the way for multisensory haptic devices that integrate various forms of touch-based feedback, including vibration, skin stretch, pressure and temperature. Recently, a team of experts, including Rice University’s Marcia O’Malley and Daniel Preston, graduate student Joshua Fleck, alumni Zane Zook ’23 and Janelle Clark ’22 and other collaborators, published…