Using nature’s miracle bugs to help feed the world
It takes massive energy to make nitrogen fertilizer – temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit at extremely high pressure. Now, researchers at Stanford have developed a way to leverage nature’s own processes to produce plant-ready nitrogen at room temperature.
Nate Persily: How to restore faith in America’s elections
Our recent election focused attention on the mechanics of democracy as never before. An expert in election law sizes things up and suggests ways to regain trust in the institution.
Stanford opens a ‘smart city’ research center in Korea
The new center will provide a testbed to help academic and corporate researchers develop and deploy a new generation of physical structures and electronic technologies as prototypes for the urban environments of the 21st Century.
To make particles flow more efficiently, put an obstacle in their way
Microfluidic chips speed up biological and chemical experiments. Researchers made them more efficient by using cleverly designed “traffic circles” to direct the flow of fluids.
Ullman shares the prize with long-time collaborator Alfred Aho of Columbia University. They are recognized for their influential work on compilers and algorithms, including their co-authorship of widely popular textbooks on these topics.
New initiative aims to keep 5G networks reliable and secure
The transition to 5G will affect every device connected to the internet, including drones. A team of scholars is working to protect the technology from vulnerabilities.
James Swartz has spent a dozen years refining an underappreciated biotech technique into a radical new vaccine approach that could quickly protect billion of people from the next COVID-19-level pandemic.
Three Stanford faculty elected to the National Academy of Engineering
Stanford School of Engineering faculty members Anne Kiremidjian and Kunle Olukotun and School of Medicine faculty member Joshua Makower have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, which is one of the highest professional distinctions accorded engineers.
John Hennessy honored for innovation and teaching in CPU design
Hennessy and long-time collaborator David Patterson win the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for inventing a simpler, standardized way to design fast and efficient CPUs, and for sharing the technique in a textbook that’s still used to train chip engineers around the world.
A study of how 98 million Americans move around each day suggests that most infections occur at “superspreader” sites that put people in contact for long periods, and details how mobility patterns help drive higher infection rates among minority and low-income populations.
