Students create exotic state of matter

By Bennett McIntosh IN THE SUMMER OF 2015, Princeton students Joseph Scherrer and Adam Bowman experienced something few undergraduates can claim: they built, from scratch, a laser system capable of coaxing lithium atoms into a Continue Reading →

Atom catcher: With lasers and magnets, Waseem Bakr traps atoms for study under the microscope

By Bennett McIntosh THE COLDEST SPOT on the Princeton campus is a cluster of a few thousand atoms suspended above a table in Waseem Bakr’s laboratory. When trapped in a lattice of intersecting lasers at Continue Reading →

Princeton part of $40 million Simons Observatory

PRINCETON RESEARCHERS will have an integral role in the Simons Observatory, a new astronomy facility in South America recently established with a $38.4 million grant from the Simons Foundation. The observatory will investigate cosmic microwave Continue Reading →

Behind the curtain: Scandal, tragedy, art and politics at the Bolshoi

By Jamie Saxon ON THE NIGHT OF JAN. 17, 2013, a hooded assailant approached Sergey Filin, artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater Ballet, and flung battery acid in his face. The crime made international headlines Continue Reading →

Students explore sustainable building with bamboo

Watch the video LAST FALL, two undergraduates approached Sigrid Adriaenssens, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, about working together on their senior-thesis projects, from different angles. Lu Lu, who is from Chongqing, China, Continue Reading →

F. Duncan Haldane receives Nobel Prize in Physics

F. Duncan Haldane, Princeton’s Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics “for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.” Considered key to finally realizing highly Continue Reading →

ROBERTO CAR receives American Chemistry Society national award

Roberto Car, the Ralph W. *31 Dornte Professor in Chemistry, was recognized for his innovative research by the American Chemical Society (ACS) during a ceremony March 15, 2016. He received the ACS Award in Theoretical Continue Reading →

Princeton Research Day highlights student and early-career work

Watch the video MORE THAN 150 undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers presented their work at the first Princeton Research Day held May 5, 2016. The event highlighted research from the natural sciences, engineering, social Continue Reading →

JANE COX receives the Ruth Morley Design Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women

Jane Cox, senior lecturer in theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts and director of the Program in Theater, was presented with the Ruth Morley Design Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women Continue Reading →

SIMON LEVIN wins National Medal of Science for unraveling ecological complexity

Simon Levin, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, received a National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest scientific honor. Levin was honored at a White House ceremony in early Continue Reading →

PAUL CHIRIK receives Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award

Paul Chirik, the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Chemistry, was among five recipients nationwide of the 2016 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards presented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Chirik was recognized for discovering a Continue Reading →

MARINA RUSTOW, historian of the medieval Middle East, wins MacArthur Fellowship

Marina Rustow, the Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East and professor of Near Eastern studies and history, has been awarded a 2015 MacArthur Fellowship. Rustow is among 24 scientists, artists, Continue Reading →

Big answers from small creatures

A graduate student tracks the spread of viruses from bats to humans in Madagascar By Cara Brook IT IS SPRINGTIME in the Makira-Masoala peninsula of northeastern Madagascar, and the lychee trees are in full fruit. Continue Reading →

Exploring collective interactions of matter and antimatter

STRIP AWAY ELECTRONS FROM THEIR ATOMS and you get a plasma — a collection of negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions. But at high energies around compact cosmic objects such as black holes, quasars Continue Reading →

Researcher probes the secret life of electrons

ELECTRONS DART within and between atoms far too quickly for current imaging techniques to observe their motion. To capture fast-moving objects without a blur, a photographer can use a camera flash to light up a Continue Reading →

In cells, self-destructive behavior suggests strategy for fighting cancer

SOMETIMES, TO SURVIVE, our cells destroy their own ribonucleic acid (RNA), the part of our genetic instruction code that helps turn genes into proteins. Cells do this as part of the first line of defense Continue Reading →

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction

Authors: Arvind Narayanan, Princeton assistant professor of computer science; Joseph Bonneau, postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University; Edward Felten, Princeton Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs; Andrew Miller, assistant professor at the Continue Reading →

Bias in the machine: Internet algorithms reinforce harmful stereotypes

THE ARTIFICIAL-INTELLIGENCE (AI) SYSTEMS that suggest our search terms and otherwise determine what we see online rely on data that can be biased against women and racial and religious groups, according to a study led Continue Reading →

The literature of madness and how it shaped modern psychiatry

IN 1890, THE RUSSIAN PHYSICIAN and writer Anton Chekhov traveled across Siberia to document the lives of prisoners sentenced to a remote penal colony on Sakhalin Island. The visit inspired not only a nonfiction exposé Continue Reading →

CITIES: Resilient • Adaptable • Livable • Smart

Innovations in building materials, design, water systems and power grids are helping to make cities more livable, say researchers in Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science By Bennett McIntosh Cities. They sprawl and tangle, Continue Reading →

Better living through behavioral science

How the psychology of human behavior is helping tackle society’s biggest problems By Wendy Plump SUPPOSE someone approaches you on the street with the following proposition: You can receive either cash on the spot or Continue Reading →

Race for profits

Research on the 1970s urban housing crisis exposes a familiar history By Catherine Zandonella PREDATORY LENDERS. Subprime and no-doc loans. Mortgage-backed securities. Mass foreclosures that disproportionately impacted minority homeowners. Sound like 2008? It was 1972. Continue Reading →

Bright future: Princeton researchers unlock the potential of light to perform previously impossible feats

By Bennett McIntosh One hundred years ago, Italian chemist Giacomo Ciamician predicted a future society that would run on sunlight. In a paper presented in 1912 to an international meeting of chemists in New York Continue Reading →