Science & Technology

Scientists at Northwestern University and University of California, Santa Barbara have created the first synthetic fragment of tau protein that acts like a prion. The “mini prion” folds and stacks into strands (or fibrils) of misfolded tau proteins, which then...

Historically, the vast majority of pharmaceutical drugs have been meticulously designed down to the atomic level. The specific location of each atom within the drug molecule is a critical factor in determining how well it works and how safe it...

Human language allows us to learn new words for things we’ve never witnessed directly. We do this seamlessly, for example, in conversations, using clues from the overall context to infer a new word’s meaning. But how early does this ability become...

Junta Nakai knows exactly how he got here. Here, is his position as the global vice president at Databricks, a San Francisco-based data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) company. The globe’s sixth-largest startup, Databricks, was recently valued at $62 billion. And how...

Researchers from Northwestern University have stumbled upon a previously unobserved function of a protein found in the cell nuclei of all flora and fauna. In addition to exporting materials out of the nucleus, the protein, called Exportin-1 (also called Xpo1...

Life is a highway, but what are the emissions along it? It turns out, that answer could change depending on which dataset one uses. A new study led by Victoria Lang, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary...

Guided by the lived experiences of community partners, Northwestern University scientists have simulated the effects of zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) adoption on future air quality for the greater Chicago area. The results were published today in the journal Frontiers of Earth Science. Motivated by California’s...

An international team of astronomers, including a Northwestern University astrophysicist, has traced a series of mysterious radio pulses to an unprecedented home. Starting a decade ago, astronomers have detected a pulse of radio emission every two hours, coming from the direction...

Harnessing moisture from air, Northwestern University chemists have developed a simple new method for breaking down plastic waste. The non-toxic, environmentally friendly, solvent-free process first uses an inexpensive catalyst to break apart the bonds in polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the most common...

Tiny, cold-blooded animals like flies depend on their environment to regulate body temperature, making them ideal “canaries in the coal mine” for gauging the impact of climate change on the behavior and distribution of animal species. Yet, scientists know relatively...