The same class of chemical additive that makes plastic wrap pliable and vinyl flooring soft could be the key to unlocking the next generation of wearable displays. Researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) have discovered that blending a common plastic softener into light-emitting polymer films makes those films both brighter and more stretchable. The work, led by a UChicago PME undergraduate student in the class of 2025, offers a surprisingly straightforward solution to one of the central challenges in stretchable OLED technology: making light-emitting materials flexible without reducing how efficiently they emit light. 

At least 2.2 million cars on the road today are vulnerable to an attack that allows thieves to lock and unlock doors and immobilize vehicle engines remotely via a Bluetooth connection, computer scientists at the University of California San Diego have found. 

AMHERST, Mass. — Bladder cancer, one of the 10 most common cancers, is notoriously difficult to treat, with up to 80% of patients experiencing a post-treatment recurrence. A common practice is to surgically remove the entire bladder, but this leaves the patient incontinent. Now, a research effort led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst has been awarded a five-year grant providing up to $3.45 million from the National Institutes of Health to develop a new way to prevent the cancer’s recurrence, without removing the organ or aggressive repeated treatments.    

According to United Nations projections, global food demand could increase by around 60 percent by 2050, while only about two percent additional agricultural land is expected to become available. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are therefore exploring new approaches to safeguard food security. A team at the TUM Campus Straubing has developed a process for producing crucial amino acids from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and renewable energy.

Rare earth elements like lanthanum, neodymium, and dysprosium are used to build the electric motor in your car, the LED lights in your house, and the MRI machine at your doctor’s office. But first, they have to be mined and separated from each other. Historically, that purification has been a difficult, costly, process, relying on huge amounts of toxic chemicals. Now, researchers in the lab of Assoc. Prof. Chong Liu at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME), working with colleagues at Northwestern University and Argonne National Lab, have discovered a cleaner method to separate rare earth elements from each other. The new approach relies on a layered form of manganese oxide—a mineral material with the right size layers to allow ions to slip in and out and to differentiate rare earth elements.