Author: Kate McAlpine
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‘Principled action’
A retrospective on the impactful U-M career of departing dean Alec D. Gallimore.
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The storied history of a leading space propulsion lab
Alec Gallimore upcycled a lunar rover testing chamber into a world-class electric propulsion center.
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Demystifying vortex rings in nuclear fusion, supernovae
A mathematical model linking these vortices with more pedestrian types, like smoke rings, could help engineers control their behavior in power generation and more.
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Focused ambitions
While hunger for an artificial intelligence that can think like a human remains unsated, AI continues to appear in our lives in smaller ways.
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Quantum entanglement could make accelerometers and dark matter detectors more precise
And yes, they are looking to miniaturize it for smartphone dead reckoning.
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M.A.R.S. Dialogues explore the ethics underpinning aerospace today and a spacefaring future
Students, faculty and staff discuss aerospace culture and challenge narratives that are often assumed to be true.
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For the first time, controlling the degree of twist in nanostructure particles
Being able to decide not only whether a micron-scale particle twists but also how much could open new avenues for machine vision and more.
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Producing extreme ultraviolet laser pulses efficiently through wakesurfing behind electron beams
Simulations suggest this mechanism could provide a tenfold increase in frequency—likely hitting a peak power of 100 trillion watts in XUV
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Plasma thrusters used on satellites could be much more powerful
It was believed that running more propellant through a Hall thruster would wreck its efficiency, but new experiments suggest they might power a crewed mission to Mars.
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Cheap, sustainable hydrogen through solar power
Withstanding high temperatures and the light of 160 suns, a new catalyst is ten times more efficient than previous sun-powered water-splitting devices of its kind.
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A brain game may predict your risk of infection
When a person’s cognitive function is highly variable, they’re likely to be more infectious and have more symptoms after exposure to a respiratory virus.
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Not hidden but modern
U-M’s only Black American woman to graduate with a PhD in computer science and engineering is driving change within the University of Florida and scaling her influence with a podcast.