A large audience and a panel of experts at Gravitational Waves event.

From Evading Online Censorship to Galaxy Transformations: Read Our Top Stories of 2019

/ 19 December 2019 /

This year has been a monumental one for the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. From making discoveries that could potentially save the bees to opening a brand new building for computer science, there has been a wealth of exciting news to share. As 2019 comes to a close, take some time to revisit our most-read stories of the year and discover some that you may have missed. 

Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland. Credit: John T. Consoli. Click image to download hi-res version.

10. Astronomers Map ‘Light Echoes’ of Newly Discovered Black Hole - A team led by a UMD postdoctoral fellow revealed the environment around a relatively small black hole in unprecedented detail.

9. UMD Physicist Zohreh Davoudi Receives 2019 Sloan Research Fellowship - Davoudi will use the fellowship to further her research into properties of matter—especially in cases where matter is used in laboratories to detect new particles and interactions not accounted for by the Standard Model.

8. UMD's Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering to Transform Region’s Tech Corridor - This 215,600-square-foot facility now serves as a hub for technology, collaboration and discovery at the heart of UMD’s Discovery District.

7. New Artificial Intelligence System Automatically Evolves to Evade Internet Censorship - UMD computer scientists developed a new tool based on genetic evolution that automatically learned to evade censorship in China, India and Kazakhstan.

6. NOAA Awards $175 Million to UMD for Earth System Studies - The new Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies expands UMD’s role as a national leader in this field.

5. Scientists Develop First Fabric to Automatically Cool or Insulate Depending on Conditions - UMD researchers created a fabric that dynamically regulates heat passing through it.

4. UMD-led Study Captures Six Galaxies Undergoing Sudden, Dramatic Transitions - Zwicky Transient Facility observations revealed surprising transformations from sleepy LINER galaxies to blazing quasars within months.

3. Honey Bee Parasites Feed on Fatty Organs, Not Blood - UMD-led research upended long-standing assumptions about the feeding habits of varroa mites, a primary threat to honey bees worldwide.

2. Researchers Develop First Mathematical Proof for a Key Law of Turbulence in Fluid Mechanics - UMD mathematicians provided a mathematical explanation for a previously uncertain law of physics, revealing when the law applies and when it doesn’t.

1. Seeing How Computers “Think” Helps Humans Stump Machines and Reveals Artificial Intelligence Weaknesses - UMD researchers created 1,213 questions in collaboration with computers to identify flaws in machine-learning language models.

 

###

Media Relations Contact: Chelsea Torres, 301-405-5204, cctorres@umd.edu

University of Maryland
College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences
2300 Symons Hall
College Park, MD 20742
www.cmns.umd.edu
@UMDscience 

About the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences

The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland educates more than 9,000 future scientific leaders in its undergraduate and graduate programs each year. The college’s 10 departments and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research centers foster scientific discovery with annual sponsored research funding exceeding $175 million.

About the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences

The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland educates more than 8,000 future scientific leaders in its undergraduate and graduate programs each year. The college's 10 departments and six interdisciplinary research centers foster scientific discovery with annual sponsored research funding exceeding $250 million.