UT San Antonio astronomy professor awarded for advancements in planetary science
Grant and Award Announcement
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 12-Nov-2025 05:11 ET (12-Nov-2025 10:11 GMT/UTC)
Xinting Yu, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Texas at San Antonio, is one of two recipients of the 2025 Harold C. Urey Prize.
The national award from the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences recognizes early-career scientists shaping the future of space research.
Yu was honored for her research in planetary and exoplanetary science — the study of planets in our solar system and beyond. Her work focuses on how planetary surfaces and atmospheres interact and evolve.
Researchers from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Southern University of Science and Technology have developed a novel deep learning neural network, Electrode Net. By introducing signed distance fields and three-dimensional convolutional neural networks, this method can significantly accelerate electrode design while maintaining high accuracy. It is widely applicable to fuel cells, water electrolyzers, flow batteries, etc.
The first ab initio calculation of the rarest electromagnetic transition in atomic nuclei, the hexacontatetrapole E6 transition in 53Fe, has been performed. Using the valence-space in-medium similarity renormalization group (VS-IMSRG) methods with realistic nuclear force and bare nucleon charges, the study has successfully explained both the excitation energies and electromagnetic decay rates of the unique T1/2 = 2.54-minutes Jπ = 19/2- isomer at 3.0 MeV. This study provides unprecedented insights into nuclear structure under extreme conditions and validates ab initio approaches for describing the high-multipole electromagnetic transitions in atomic nuclei. The research demonstrates that the formation of 19/2- isomer arises from the pure 0f7/2 orbital configuration.
The study, published in PLoS Computational Biology, shows that the balance between two types of inhibition regulates how brain rhythms communicate, enabling flexible and efficient information routing. The research was carried out by the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems (IFISC UIB-CSIC), the Institute for Neurosciences (IN CSIC-UMH), and Aix-Marseille University (France).
Tropical cyclones (or hurricanes) are intense storms often featuring high winds, heavy rain and the potential for a lot of damage. Despite the wealth of information on cyclone impacts themselves, there has not been much learned about the impacts cyclones have on oceanic stability and recovery. The Bay of Bengal (BoB) is a hotspot for such activity, leading researchers to look into how the pre-monsoon and post-monsoon seasons might shape the frequency and tenacity of tropical cyclones in this area. A team of researchers compared pre-monsoon and post-monsoon tropical cyclones of the same categories using the same key markers to find significant differences in oceanic conditions between the two seasons. The information found highlights the importance of seasonality in cyclone intensity and the ocean’s response pertaining not only to the Bay of Bengal but also to areas with similar conditions.