In the News

The Chandra X-ray Observatory––named after the late Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who was a Chicago astrophysicist and a Nobel laureate––has performed as expected, according to an Associated Press story released Tuesday, Sept. 7. Launched July 23, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured an image of the Cassiopeia A supernova, a star in the Milky Way galaxy that exploded about 300 years ago. The image contains so much detail of the explosion and its surrounding cloud that scientists say they have detected evidence of what may be a black hole near its center.

In the Sept. 4 edition of The New York Times, Sarah Boxer writes about footnotes, quotations and marginalia as viewed by the curious eyes of three scholars. The writings of Michael Camille, the Mary L. Block Professor in Art History, specifically those from his book Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (Harvard University Press, 1992), were excerpted for the piece.

A Friday, Sept. 3 Chicago Tribune story reported the Maroons’ University Athletic Association title of last season and looked to the new season already underway. The story describes the football team’s Catholic League high school graduates as teammates who have played major roles in the Maroons’ successes. The Maroons posted winning seasons in three of the last four years.

The Chicago Tribune published an article Tuesday, Aug. 31, about the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer, or DASI, an array of 13 telescopes that stands 18 feet tall and weighs 18 tons. The instrument, which was recently disassembled on campus in preparation for its shipment to the South Pole, will gather images of the big bang’s afterglow, known as the cosmic microwave background radiation. DASI is a project of University scientists led by John Carlstrom, Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics and Associate Director of the Center for Astrophysical Research. The article quotes Carlstrom and his graduate student Gene Davidson, who will be one of the two-man crew to ensure the instrument operates properly. Davidson also was interviewed live by NBC’s local affiliate, WMAQ-TV, for a segment on the station’s morning show.

Willis Johnson, the John Nuveen Instructor in the Divinity School, was interviewed for a story about Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at Home, or SETI@home, a worldwide project that allows anyone with a computer to analyze the sounds of space. The story was published in the Monday, Aug. 30 Chicago Tribune. Johnson is one of 150 faculty, student and staff members on the University’s SETI@home team. Johnson has donated about 4,000 hours of what would otherwise be idle computer time. Bob Bartlett, Manager of Network Security & Enterprise Network Server Administration at the University, was recently interviewed about this global project on WBBM Radio.

The Wall Street Journal published an article Thursday, Sept. 9, about the Oriental Institute’s new Egyptian Gallery. Emily Teeter, Associate Curator at the Oriental Institute, was interviewed for the piece. The Oriental Institute’s participation in an upcoming citywide festival was reported in an article published in the Chicago Sun-Times. The festival, which is titled Egypt in Chicago: Festival of the Sun, will feature treasures from the Oriental Institute’s permanent collection as well as those from other cultural institutions throughout Chicago.

A story about the work of Homi Bhabha, the Chester D. Tripp Distinguished Service Professor in English Language & Literature, appeared in the September issue of Chicago magazine. Much of the story focuses on Bhabha’s writing, and Chicago magazine writer Steve Rhodes takes Bhabha’s critics to task while praising the scholar for his ingenuity. The story also quotes Bhabha’s admirers, such as Michael Berube, a University of Illinois English professor. Berube said, “If we didn’t have Homi Bhabha, we’d have to invent him.”