EyeDAR, a low-power millimeter-wave radar sensor roughly the size of an orange, could provide radar-equipped self-driving cars with critical inputs about surrounding traffic, extending and enhancing their sensing accuracy.

New research published in Joule from the Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA), University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME), Argonne National Laboratory and Thermo Fisher Scientific discovered that the very act of microscoping damages both lithium and sodium battery samples more severely than previously thought, highlighting a need for a standard framework for how labs image these important materials. The research shows how both transferring samples to electron microscopes and the microscopes themselves can damage reactive samples. The research also overturns a longstanding assumption in battery research, showing that samples of pure lithium do not need to be preserved at cryogenic temperatures to be imaged. 

A new accounting of nitrogen pollution in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin reveals a significant decline in recent decades, suggesting positive momentum for water quality goals in local watersheds and the Gulf. Surprisingly, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign-led study doesn’t credit the change to reduced fertilizer application, but instead to cleaner air and more efficient nitrogen uptake by modern corn hybrids.