By Bill Burton, UIC News

Theoretical physicist Dirk Morr ponders unusual condensed matter materials which scientists hope will one day yield a high-temperature superconductor that could be used in an “energy superhighway” to transfer energy in the form of electricity over great distances without any losses.

“Power must be generated near where it’s used,” says Morr, professor of physics. But renewable sources are often remote. Wind power, for example, would be much more feasible if the electricity generated on huge “farms” could be transferred to cities without loss of energy. Unfortunately, the highest-temperature superconductor yet known works only below a chilly minus-160 degrees Fahrenheit.

Continue reading “Searching for energy superhighway superconductor”

By Paul Caine Producer, WTTW’s Chicago Tonight

With President Jimmy Carter’s seemingly miraculous recovery from a metastatic melanoma that had spread to his brain after treatment with a newly approved drug, it’s tempting to hope that medical science is finally winning the battle against this so-called “emperor of all maladies.”

So what is the state of current medical research and treatment for the many varieties of cancer that plague us?

Continue reading “Cancer Experts Talk Transformation in Treatment and Care”

By Janet McMillan, C2ST volunteer and graduate student in chemistry at Northwestern University

Ten years to the night that the New Horizon Mission to Pluto was launched, William S. Higgins, an ambassador for NASA’s Solar System Ambassador Program, shared the wonders of the ground breaking discoveries and mysteries that remain to be uncovered about the dwarf planet and its surrounding objects.

Continue reading “Playback from Pluto”