THE DAILY ILLINI
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The Daily Illini is the independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. The newspaper is published by the Illini Media Company. The Daily Illini does not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the views of the University of Illinois administration, faculty or students.
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Editor-in-Chief:
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ISSUE IN THIS
DESIGNERS
Jacob Slabosz
Matt Stepp
Lux Lin
Julia Chung
Cam Crowell
Priya Datt
Morgan Hooker
Sophia Ma
Natalie Mora
Shannon Moser
Tricia Newman
Hadyn Nuttall
05 New UI professor researches implications of microLED technologyneering programs
06 UI professor uncovers new method to treat cancer
09 CU Aero aiming for June 2025 satellite launch in continued space development
10 What makes Foellinger Great Hall so ‘great?’
12 Puzzles
16 Where science meets sci-fi: Exploring UI’s renowned supercomputing power
19 Gravitational waves drive research on neutron stars, structural properties
03 UI DNA sequencing stays updated on developing techsor details new path to CU 10 19 16
UI DNA sequencing stays updated on developing tech
STAFF WRITER
AMARTYA NALLURI nalluri4@dailyillini.com
Although it remains an important technology for studying genomes, DNA sequencing was only initially accomplished in 1977 by Frederick Sanger.
Since its conception, the technology has continued to develop at a rapid rate. Alvaro Hernandez, the director of DNA Services at the Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center, explained this growth began with the initial assembly of the human genome, known as the Human Genome Project.
“Sequencing and assembling the human genome took 10 years, at a cost of over $3 billion,” Hernandez said. “What happens today is that we can do the same thing, but instead of 10 years, we can do it in ve days, and instead of $3 billion, it will cost $3,000.”
DNA is composed of molecules classi ed by di erences in certain structural components called bases.
These bases are adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine. The speci c order and number of these bases determine almost every cellular function within an individual, making sequencing vital to understanding how any organism survives.
DNA sequencing refers to reading out these bases so they can be further analyzed to discover each gene’s purpose. Hunter Cobbley, a graduate student studying
microbiology, explained this remains a invaluable step in research.
“Without DNA sequencing, I think we would be extremely limited in what we could do,” Cobbley said. “DNA sequencing de nitely makes things a lot more efcient.”
Although the method of sequencing developed by Sanger remains a gold standard for safe and ecient sequences, modern genomics needs to view entire genomes, which can be billions of bases in length. Sanger sequencing is better suited for only 300 bases at a time.
The technology used to sequence genetic code has matched this demand, evolving at breakneck speed. The second generation, or next generation, of sequencing allowed for thousands of fragments, called short reads, to be analyzed. They can then be pieced together to recreate a genome.
“Short reads are perfectly ne because all you do is you align them to the reference genome,” Hernandez said. “I would say 90% of the work we do right now is with short reads.”
The latest generation uses longer fragments for easier assembly, and new technologies are actively being developed to increase the accuracy of these genomes.
As a school at the forefront of genomic research, the University requires the latest DNA sequencing machines whenever they are released. Whenever a new machine arrives on campus, the DNA Services Lab sees more requests from innovative researchers ready to explore its possibilities.
“That’s one thing about us — is that we always have the latest instrument,” Hernandez said. “Because if you don’t have it, you go from being the best to being nobody.”
Yet, even with the latest instruments, the DNA Services Lab faces challenges in turning raw samples into raw data.
They receive samples from a wide variety of labs — University and private — and need to process the samples into short reads that can be read by their machines. This includes breaking apart the DNA into fragments and adding adaptors and barcodes that are necessary for
The epMotion 5075 prepares DNA samples via automated liquid handling at the DNA Services Lab in the Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center.
attaching and identifying the DNA after it gets processed.
“Our strength here is that we get all sorts of samples: good samples, degraded samples, samples with a lot of DNA, samples with little DNA,” Hernandez said. “Now, we have to make everything work.”
Even with these challenges, the lab is able to grow because of an important ideal: collaboration. Within its walls, the members of the DNA Services Lab are e cient in processing DNA, which is what allows for fast turnaround in returning data to labs that need it.
Cooperation continues outside of the lab as well — companies that are developing new machines often test their products at the University, and Hernandez and the sequencing facilities learn about upcoming technology they can prepare to buy.
“What we have with the companies is not just some relationship,” Hernandez said. “We have a very strong partnership because their success is our success.”
The technology required to sequence DNA remains complex, so this partnership remains important to the University’s success in genomics. However, researchers have continued to feel its positive impact.
“Sequencing is such a complex process when you’re rst getting into it,” Cobbley said. “Over my time here, things have just become a lot more collaborative.”
SAMUEL RINK THE DAILY ILLINI
New UI professor researches implications of MicroLED technology
SENIOR FEATURE REPORTER
SAM GREGERMAN sg94@dailyillini.com
At the intersection of physics, electrical engineering and materials science sits new University professor Hyunseok Kim. Since joining the faculty in January, Kim has led cutting-edge research in LED nanotechnology.
Kim is in his second semester at the University, where he teaches ECE 444: IC Device Theory & Fabrication.
“The class is about teaching students how to fabricate semiconductor chips,” Kim said. “Throughout the experience, students get a holistic knowledge about both theory and hands-on skills.”
When he’s not lecturing, Kim spends his time in the lab working on microLED technology. His research is funded by a grant he received from Samsung’s Global Research Outreach program.
LED falls under the broader line of optoelectronics — a discipline dealing with lightemitting or light-detecting devices.
“Optoelectronics is a eld where electronics and optics are combined,” Kim said. “TVs (and phones) are a good example because you apply some electric current, and the light turns on.”
Right now, visual technology employs either organic LED or liquid-crystal displays in its products.
OLEDs use organic materials to emit light but degrade easily for a short lifespan. On the other hand, LCDs employ backlights rather
than individual pixels, giving them better lifespans than OLEDs. However, the inability to fully turn the backlight o limits the e cacy of LCDs.
Kim is working to take the most useful parts of both technologies and create a new, more e ective product.
“You can combine the advantages of both if you use inorganic material as a selfemitting material, which is called microLED display,” Kim said.
As both an engineer and applied scientist, Kim focuses on the direction in which the market is trying to move. With the rise in popularity of virtual reality, he believes microLED technology is a good candidate for future related technologies.
“Displays are getting closer and closer to human eyes,” Kim said. “You can imagine that if they’re getting closer, you don’t want some kind of screen door e ect, meaning that you can individually see the pixels.”
Creating displays to accommodate these changes calls for much higher pixel density. Without more advanced displays, the user can see individual pixels, ruining the intended immersive experience.
MicroLED is a new technology and has yet to o er solutions to rising industrial needs. Kim’s research competes with the industry in its e orts to make breakthroughs by providing a completely out-of-the-box perspective.
“So my idea, for example, was that instead of moving (pixels) one by one (and
placing them side by side on display panels), we just move them as a large plane, stack them up (and then fabricate the pixels),” Kim said. “Through that approach, you can get much higher density.”
Kim’s other approach involves what he calls a “selfalignment process,” where he creates millions of stacked RGB pixels and then disperses them for assembly on their own.
“This is how we are not manually placing (the pixels) one by one,” Kim said. “We just pour them, and then they self assemble into the interposer.”
The general goal is to integrate pixels onto display panels by increasing the number of pixels per inch without adding to the amount of time and labor needed.
“What I’m interested in is this new methodology that can enable a new fabrication technology, which, in turn, enables a new form factor in semiconductor devices (and platforms),” Kim said.
Looking forward, Kim hopes to make advances in microLED technology long into the future.
“Speci cally for this
University professor Hyunseok Kim peers into the primary machine in his LED Tech Lab in the Electrical and Computer Engineering building on Oct. 29.
microLED, I think the timeline for maturing this technique will be two or three years,” Kim said. “But I am thinking of a lot of possibilities for using this new technique — selfassembly — for other device platforms. That will continue for hopefully a decade.”
Kim has not only made progress in his eld, but learned valuable lessons about mentorship and working with a team of researchers.
“As an experimentalist, I learned that teamwork is really important, especially when I’m learning to work with my group, (and) my students as well,” Kim said. “Trusting each other, being on the same page and creating a good group culture is really important.”
Kim has only just begun his time at the University, and he looks at a diverse research and teaching career in the future.
“I hope I can grow up and learn new things about how to manage large groups and how to inspire students in a positive way,” Kim said. “From this, I hope to grow my group and expand my collaboration with other excellent faculty members.
RUHI HARYADI THE DAILY ILLINI
UI professor uncovers new method to treat cancer
STAFF WRITER
QAASIM JATOI
qjato2@dailyillini.com
Erik Nelson, physiology professor at the University, is pioneering research that could reshape medicinal therapy against cancer.
His team’s recent work focuses on the NR0B2 protein, which is found on the surface of nuclei in several di erent human cell types. It has shown a potential to alter immune cell behavior in ways that may signi cantly curb tumor growth.
Nelson and his team published two papers detailing their investigation into how NR0B2 can reprogram immune cells within a tumor’s microenvironment to prevent cancer progression and spread. Exploiting this e ect could provide hope for patients whose cancer does not respond to standard therapies such as chemotherapy and radiation.
“NR0B2 was originally classi ed as being very important for regulating cholesterol, especially how the liver handles cholesterol,” Nelson said. “So if you have lots of cholesterol, then your body starts metabolizing that and, ultimately, it turns into bile acids.”
The bile acids produced by the human body as it breaks down cholesterol serve as a feedback signal. This causes an increase in NR0B2,
which ultimately serves as an indicator to halt further cholesterol breakdown.
But Nelson and his team discovered a new role for NR0B2, speci cally in maintaining a balance of T cells — a type of white blood cell that helps humans ght infection and disease.
When NR0B2 is activated in myeloid immune cells, one of the human body’s rst lines of defense against illness and infection, the myeloid immune cells talk to T cells. It directs them to develop into one of two types — e ector T cells or regulatory T cells.
Regulatory T cells, also known as Treg cells, normally have an important function as the brakes on the immune system, according to Nelson. But in cancer, Treg cells favor the growth and spread of tumors. Too many Treg cells lead to poor prognoses and responses to current therapies.
The team is also studying a small compound, DSHN, and a derivative of that compound, DSHN-OMe. These both activate and increase the activity of NR0B2. NR0B2 can then in uence the myeloid immune cells. This leads to a decrease in regulatory T cells and a greater immune response against the tumor.
“We worked with chemists here, led by Paul Hergenrother in chemistry, and they developed a series of derivatives of DSHN using their medicinal chemistry as a background,” Nelson said. “We took those derivatives
and tested them in our lab for better properties and especially their ability to inhibit these regulatory T cells.”
Nelson and his team also screened the DHSN derivatives for toxicity and concluded DHSN-OMe was the most e ective at decreasing levels of Tregs.
“If we’re thinking about getting a drug into humans, we wanted to have low toxicity,” Nelson said. “Ultimately, we came up with a winner, if you will, and that was DHSN-OMe.”
Nelson explained how DHSN-OMe has demonstrated anti-cancer e ects in preclinical models of breast cancer, including human cell cultures. Now, the team wants to transition their laboratory ndings to medicinal treatments — a process known as translation.
“First, we need to better understand (the molecule’s)
pharmacokinetics,” Nelson said. “When we put the drug into an animal, where does it go, and how does the animal handle that? And so we’re starting with mice and, ultimately, we’ll move it into higher vertebrates.”
Nelson said a goal of the project is to enlist the help of the University’s College of Veterinary Medicine for conducting clinical trials in pets and using those results as a stepping stone to transitioning the medication to humans.
Nelson’s research is supported by the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Cancer Center at Illinois and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. His research has additional support from interdisciplinary collaborations that strengthen their studies’ rigor and applicability.
“I am an expert on a
DWAYNE BANKS JR. THE DAILY ILLINI
Two Bio-Rad machines sit on the table in Everitt Laboratory on Nov. 10.
certain number of things,” Nelson said. “But in order to move this ultimately into humans, I need expertise in several di erent areas to help push that.”
Nelson said one of the key motivators for his team’s research comes from the stories shared by cancer survivors and advocates who have experienced the limitations of current therapies.
“We work very closely with a group called the cancer research advocacy group,” Nelson said. “It’s a collective of survivors, people with ongoing treatment for cancer, caregivers, clinicians and researchers.”
The group helped Nelson and his team identify gaps in clinical care, especially in areas like post-clinical support and survivorship issues. By understanding
and acknowledging these shortcomings, Nelson hopes to tailor his lab’s research toward practical applications that could improve the patients’ quality of life.
“That is really motivating for us, hearing their stories and them saying where the shortcomings in clinical care are,” Nelson said. “It’s very inspiring … I think we’re all touched by someone we know that has been diagnosed with cancer and had to live through that, or potentially, we’ve lost close people to it.”
Nelson shared he has found moments of immense reward in his career, particularly when a research project succeeds after years of rigorous trials and testing. He previously helped develop an anticancer therapeutic drug that received FDA approval for use in humans.
“I was really fortunate to be part of an idea while I was a postdoctoral associate at Duke University, where I helped position a drug for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer,” Nelson said. “Now, that drug is FDA approved and actively prolonging people’s lives.”
However, he acknowledged the journey from lab discovery to clinical application is rarely straightforward. Securing funding for innovation remains a struggle, even when the potential for impact is signi cant.
Nelson also o ered guidance for aspiring scientists, describing the variety of research paths available. He said young researchers should carefully consider their career goals and the unique contributions they want to make in academia, industry or government.
“There are di erent ways to pursue research,” Nelson said. “You have to decide where you want to go with your career and what style of research you want to do.”
Nelson said that is not the only way to contribute to scienti c innovation. Young scientists can set up foundations that help manage research and lobby the government to change legislation.
“Do your homework and nd the areas that suit you the best,” Nelson said.
For Nelson and his team, the ultimate goal is to translate his lab’s discoveries into tangible improvements in cancer treatment.
By advancing new therapies that harness the body’s immune system, he said he hopes to provide better options for patients ghting cancer.
CU Aero aiming for June 2025 satellite launch
SPORTS EDITOR BEN FADER bfader2@dailyillini.com
Excitement surrounding the idea of space exploration and travel has increased in recent years due to development from SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk. But far more goes into the recent progress than just one company, and people in Champaign are doing their part.
Champaign-Urbana Aerospace has a collection of professors a liated with the University as well as engineers from the Midwest who are developing new technologies. Its President, David Carroll, used to work at the University but saw an opportunity to do more.
“We started in 1998,” Caroll said. “We spun out of the aerospace engineering department. We’re to the point of making what I think are great space projects.”
CUA got rolling eventually, but nothing was guaranteed when the idea sparked to leave the University.
“The rst year was a complete bust, so it’s a good thing we all kept our day jobs at the University,” Carroll said. “The second year, we started getting contracts, and I went fulltime for the company.”
Once they had some job security and more employees joined full-time, CUA started to develop the company more. Things started slowly, and the team took some steps they weren’t expecting to make.
“Early in the company’s
history — probably the rst 13 years — we did a lot more research and development,” Carroll said. “When I took over as president in 2011, I sort of recognized that we needed to think a little smaller.”
With big aspirations, the company was forced to change direction. But smaller didn’t necessarily mean less impactful. Carroll’s decision shifted the company to making hardware that will be sent into space, and the progress is paying o .
The main hardware in progress right now is a CubeSat. CubeSats aren’t unique to CUA, as they’re one of the more popular forms of satellites. Their small size also makes them a more feasible option for smaller companies, relating back to Carroll’s decision to think smaller.
CUA’s plans, with their CubeSat in particular, will leverage a low-thrust, high-impulse propulsion system that has received interest for potential contracts in the near future.
In simple terms, it’s a cubeshaped satellite that will be launched into Earth’s atmosphere. The one developed by CUA has deployable solar panels to help power the electric system.
After years of work, CUA’s version will launch next summer. Set to go up in June 2025, the satellite will take other technological products manufactured by the company.
On one side, the satellite will have a Fiber-fed Pulsed Plasma Thruster to lower the propulsion cost. The FPPT
uses Te on ber and is part of multiple projects CUA is working on right now. The other side will have Mono lament Vaporization Propulsion, which is a warm gas system that will lower the cost of the trip signi cantly.
With multiple di erent technologies on the satellite, putting this project together is not a one-person job. One thing Carroll is proud of is the diversity across the sta who work on the CubeSat and many other projects.
“They all wear a lot of hats,” Carroll said about his team’s ability to multitask. “Having very good, skilled engineers able to handle the job and juggle the programs is really important.”
One of those engineers is Ryan Fox, who has been with CUA since January 2022. During his time in Champaign, he has worked on a multitude of projects and loves the exibility of the workplace.
“I would say right now we have seven or eight things that somebody could come into my o ce at any given part of the day and say, ‘Hey I’m thinking about this for this project, what do you think?’” Fox said. “A lot of it is really trying to manage time well.”
With so many things to juggle at once, time management and organization are important. While all the tasks of a smaller company force that on the employees, Fox appreciates the environment.
“We each know each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” Fox said. “I can just go right down the hall and ask someone a question, so that kind of exibility lets us do things a little bit quicker.”
Although the company is small, everyone is happy with the work they do. Af-
ter launching the satellite in 2025, Carroll has his eye on another important project — cleaning up the atmosphere. He says it is becoming a major concern for many involved in the industry, and CUA is turning to “active debris removal.”
There are nearly 10,000 pieces of space hardware oating around, and even more will be launched soon. In order to keep newer satellites and astronauts in space stations safe, debris removal is vital. Mastering a spacecraft that has enough power to make multiple trips for debris is the goal, and it needs to happen quickly.
“Some of these pieces of hardware … are either just never going to decay, or they’re going to come down so slowly that they can become a real problem,” Carroll said. “The space station is going around the Earth at about 7.8 kilometers per second. If you’ve got a particle coming the other way at the same velocity, or even just stationary, you’re hitting it at unbelievable speeds. Way faster than a bullet.”
The CUA is trying to avoid Kessler Syndrome, which is when it is no longer safe to launch through Earth’s orbit due to too much space junk hurtling through the atmosphere at dangerous speeds. This would put a dent in many future plans of space travel, so cleaning up sooner rather than later is an important movement.
CUA is working on an FPPT system 40 times larger than the one they are sending up on the CubeSat next summer for this project, and mastering the longevity of the hardware will take time. Nevertheless, progress is being made in Champaign, and CUA is contributing to the space e ort taking the world by storm.
What makes Foellinger Great Hall so ‘great?’
STAFF WRITER
JAHZARA NORRIS
jahzara2@dailyillini.com
SENIOR FEATURE REPORTER
SAM GREGERMAN
sg94@dailyillini.com
Gifted to the University by the Krannert family, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts boasts one of the Midwest’s most acoustically renowned performance halls. Since its construction, Foellinger Great Hall has welcomed many world-famous musicians to its stage. But just what is so “great” about it?
According to the KCPA website, Herman and Ellnora Krannert gifted the University a performing arts center in 1962. They believed the arts to be “one of the most rewarding and enriching experiences people can enjoy — and, in these complex times, a most needed one.”
Foellinger Great Hall was designed by architect Max Abramovitz and acoustician Cyril Harris to create near-perfect acoustics. Everything in the hall, from the ceiling, walls and seats, was meticulously designed to amplify sound.
Rick Scholwin, audio director at the KCPA since 2015, said the University is fortunate to be home to the Foellinger Great Hall.
“Herman and Nora spared no expense,” Scholwin said. “They wanted the best facility
The Foellinger Great Auditorium in the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on S. Goodwin Ave, Oct. 30.
they could possibly have for the arts to be on this campus for the bene t of all.”
The entirety of the KCPA cost about $21 million to build in 1969.
Contributing to the nearperfect acoustics of the hall, the walls were designed with no parallel surfaces for the sound to bounce o of. Each vertical panel de ects outward to allow the sound to continue to travel to the back of the hall.
“The Foellinger Hall has a very simple shell that’s part of the architecture that’s segmented to ex that sound out,” said David Chasco, professor in FAA. “The other technical strategies will be simply to not have walls that are parallel. You have to break up the length of the wall so you can derive mathematical formulas on what length each section of the wall should be.”
Abramovitz and Harris used precise mathematical equations to determine the necessary cut and shape of materials based on the
height, width and length of the hall.
Standing at 76 feet tall and holding 2,000 plus seats, Foellinger Great Hall was built using precise acoustically friendly materials. The oor is made of white oak, and the walls are paneled from oor to ceiling in Indiana butternut veneer.
The Krannerts sent carpenters out to Indiana to handpick the trees to be used for the project. The wood was then sent to New York to be cut before being shipped back to Urbana. The panels were hung with great care to ensure the wood grain was all facing the same direction, enhancing the hall’s sound quality.
Chasco said the key is the pure lack of echo from any point in Foellinger Great Hall. Although seemingly a small detail, the seating was designed with speci c padding and textiles to absorb sound.
“An acoustical engineer is going to be calculating all that information in
order to eliminate any reverberation or acoustical echo,” Chasco said. “There’s the width, the length ratio, the height of the hall, the size of the stage and then the elements of the walls.”
Kimberly Fleming, conductor for the University Hindsley Symphonic Band, said in her experience, the resonance of sound in the hall is unmatched.
“The feeling that I get as a conductor is that our students are able to expressively reach out past their music stands,” Fleming said. “They play something, and they hear it resonate in the hall, and it feels like you truly have a connection with the people in the seats.”
Harris designed the entire hall with near complete symmetry for maximum sound ampli cation. They even built a false door in the back of the stage to mirror the functional one.
“So there is one actual door which leads up to the booths behind the hall, and the other door is fake, just because they wanted to match every (sound) wave that’s be-bopping around, aiming for perfection or as close as you can actually attain it,” Scholwin said.
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ISAAC PINKUS THE DAILY ILLINI
sea 98. AUGC strand that can leave the nucleus 99. George Washington’s bill 100. They got their childhood pony wishes granted 102. Danielle Fishel’s “Boy Meets World” role 106. 2011 corporate drama 108. Mahjong pieces 109. ___kosh, Wisconsin 110. “Now you’re making me angry” 114. Analogous (to) 116. Beginning 117. Soon 118. Not so sharp? 120. Sandwich spot 121. Southernmost inhabited island in Canada (but NOT the southernmost island in Canada) 122. It goes in the coconut (then you drink them both up)
123. William Sa re line, “Don’t ___ double negatives” 124. Ooze 125. It’s out-mightied by the pen 126. Nailed, as a midterm 127. Boxer Mike who was recently defeated by YouTuber Jake Paul
DOWN
1. Someone might wear a sporty one to the ARC 2. UIUC cadets 3. For real 4. Acidic, as wine 5. Stir fry staple 6. Steeper 7. Like the vowels in between? 8. The person who wrote this 9. Home of the Bucs 10. Relax! 11. Ramayana and Mahabharata, for two 12. One half of a chili pepper so nice, they named it twice 13. Treasured collection 14. Adherents to Orthodox Judaism 15. Possible answer to “What’s ur eta?” 16. Stranger who may or may not be acting sus 17. Your rst Wordle guess (are we right?) 18. Weird Al’s take on a Michael Jackson hit 28. Gives o 29. “Mayday! Going down!” 30. Singer Allen who married “Stranger Things’” David Harbour in 2020
35. It may go under your Thanksgiving feast
36. Chill 37. Milk’s favorite cookie
38. Tryst with Austin Powers 43. Kindle purchase 44. Character that tellssssss Mowgli to sssssssleep
45. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Khan
46. Who might know the outcome of a spooky ghost story 47. Des Moines resident 48. Endorsing
50. What your server might say if you ask for more sauce
54. Far-out intl. group project
56. KoFusion delicacy 58. Green Day drummer
Cool 60. Ones bigger than meds. 61. Dr. Seuss character who speaks for the trees 63. Fangirl, say 65. Last word of a fairy tale, maybe 67. Fibbing 68. Palindromic Pokémon 69. Commercial cost 70. Purple-ponytailed Futurama protagonist
71. X or Z, e.g.
72. Purchase type that may follow a free download 73. Grazer that is larger than a caribou, but smaller than a moose 77. Shoemaker’s tool 78. Told the tale of 80. Gazpacho or borscht 81. Like Travis Scott’s vocals, even as he fell o a stage in a viral 2018 video 83. Juniors 84. BRITS 85. Typical stat 88. Supreme Court justice Sotomayor 90. Something ancient 93. ABBA singer ___-Frid Lyngstad 94. Janitor tools used with soapy water
Celebrity ball that in 2024 was frequently compared to the Hunger Games 96. Launch, as a product
Itty bitty 102. Warty critters 103. ___ Wow-Wow 104. What follows franco 105. Nixon’s Vice President Spiro (whose full name has a famously cheeky anagram) 106. Facial expression typical of a storybook villain 107. Sega’s hyper hedgehog 111. Nobel Prize committee
112. Iditarod endpoint
West Nevada city 115. Tuck partner 119. What accompanies hither and thither
Across 1. Lange or Alba, to their friends
5. Squeeky marker
6. Disney princess with an amphibious love interest 8. Chem and bio, for two 9. Expertise of an engineering prof.
Down 1. The "J" of NASA's JPL 2. Be 3. Carl Sagan's domain
4. Having to do with a booming area of aeronautics?
7. Who sets out to Ketchum all?
Where science meets sci-fi:
Exploring UI’s renowned supercomputing power
STAFF WRITER
MICHAEL SWEENEY
ms98@dailyillini.com
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
EDGAR NAVA
edgarjn2@dailyillini.com
The University provides more than half of the resources for the National Science Foundation’s national research cyberinfrastructure ecosystem — a system that allows researchers across the nation to utilize NCSA’s prowess.
This leadership can be attributed to Blue Waters — the former world leader in computing and producer of 13 quadrillion calculations a second — and its successors: Delta, Hydro and soon the most powerful, DeltaAI.
“We hope that any day now, we will be given the o cial approval to go into production (on DeltaAI),” said DeltaAI Assistant Director Brett Bode. “We should be within a couple of weeks at the latest.”
Supercomputing, according to Delta Technical Director Greg Bauer, is a more outdated term for what the National Center for Supercomputing Applications actually does. More accurately and generally put, they participate
in research computing, providing services to students looking for places to run their advanced code.
“Students have always been the dominant user of computational resources for academic projects, which is what mostly we support,” Bode said.
The NCSA packs all of the University’s research computing projects in a 20,000-square-foot room. Projects like Hydro, Delta and DeltaAI take up about half this space, with a massive vacancy where Blue Waters once sat, opening up the rest of the room for future projects.
The NCSA was created by researchers seeking to harness extensive computing to bene t society. A physicist, curious to study the inner workings of the universe, proposed the idea of the NCSA to Hydro and former Blue Waters Director Bill Kramer.
BLUE WATERS
Kramer’s Blue Waters project won its funding in an NSF national competition in 2007.
With a budget of over $520 million, the computer was designed by manufacturer Cray to support thousands of researchers to perform advanced frontier science and engineering research
that would have been unattainable through other resources.
“Blue Waters can be considered a universal instrument; the world’s highest-precision and largest microscope,” Kramer said.
The computer has been used to research atmospheric science and study problems such as climate change, environmental changes and advanced geography. In a notable 2015 study, former President Barack Obama set a national goal of resolution and decision-making to protect the Arctic against climate change in Alaska.
Blue Waters was used to create digital elevation models, or DEMs, of Alaska. DEMs are 3D topographic maps created by the supercomputer that display the elevation of all features on the Earth’s surface.
The maps produced by this project, called ArcticDEM, helped scientists better track ice loss and continue other research in the Arctic. They were created with data provided by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
“What it took was getting sterile satellite data from NGIA, having that ow into the University of Minnesota, and then the data coming down to Blue Waters, all over networks in large amounts of
data, tens and thousands of petabytes,” Kramer said.
The ArcticDEM project transformed research in the Arctic. It aided scientists in researching atmospheric conditions and monitoring ice caps, helping with a broad range of decision-making in the Arctic. The project was nalized in fall 2017.
“It was a really amazing system. But computing systems don’t last forever,” said NCSA Director Bill Gropp.
Blue Waters ended operations on Jan. 1 2022, with some of its projects carrying over to future programs.
HYDRO & THE NEW FRONTIER INITIATIVE
The Hydro system, developed under the New Frontier Initiative, is a computing cluster composed of 70 server nodes. Nodes are units of computers all integrated to networks. Both Hydro and the New Frontiers Initiative specialize in advancing research and development in national security and preparedness by reacting to the responses correlated to the university.
Hydro was constructed with parts from Blue Waters after it was decommissioned. The work done in Blue Waters was moved to an environment with a smaller setting and with fewer parts
of the system. The storage system in Hydro is the same as Blue Waters but will be retiring in December 2024 for a replacement.
“Hydro was a self-funded evolution of Blue Waters so we could provide continuing processing for the people that were using Blue Waters,” said Kramer, who is also the Executive Director of the New Frontiers Initiative.
DELTA AND DELTAAI
A downgrade in performance and size would lead you to believe that Delta was like a quick rebound from a long-term relationship. But, in an industry where minimalism is king, Delta is surely royalty.
“Blue Waters was decommissioned, but the same amount of computing power was basically replaced by Delta at about a tenth the size of the physical infrastructure, space and cost,” Bode said.
While considered a lesser track two compared to Blue Waters’ designation of track one, Delta’s lower
barrier of entry creates more opportunities for students.
“We serve a lot of smallerscale projects that we have something on the order of 700-800 projects on our system, and something like 3000 users,” Bode said. “Which is quite a substantial lot more than a track one will serve.”
These users are typically students, mostly from the University but many from around the nation.
While the University’s computing power is signi cant, it’s more of a stepping stone for academics before they work on production-scale projects at companies.
These projects, however, are increasingly becoming focused on arti cial intelligence. As a reaction, DeltaAI was proposed.
The new system is set to be three times the performance of Delta, twice the performance of Blue Waters and made up of only three racks. Blue Waters had 288 racks.
However, this does not
put Illinois in competition with industry giants like OpenAI and Elon Musk’s Colossus who have tens to hundreds of thousands of GPUs compared to the University’s couple hundred, but that’s nowhere near their goal.
“It’s really great to be able to make these systems available to researchers across the country,” Gropp said. “It’s always a lot of fun to see what people are doing with them. It’s exciting to be able to enable that work.”
A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE
Where the University and the state may compete is in their quantum advancements. With help from the University’s Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center, the Midwest has become a “quantum powerhouse.”
However, integration with NCSA’s own powerhouse is not straightforward.
“Quantum machines are not going to be able to do
everything, so you are going to have this hybrid system,” Gropp said, referencing a dynamic system between classical computing and quantum technology. “We’re going to have to do a lot of experimentation and exploration.”
These machines o er valuable power but have niche applications.
“There are a lot of di erent areas bene ting from quantum computing, but it’s still limited,” Bauer said. He described quantum as a space to o oad more computationally intensive problems, rather than a realistic resource for researchers. However, with the help of IQUIST, the NCSA will soon be home to a quantum and classical computer hybrid, whether novel or not.
“We’ll have something in two years, probably,” Bauer said. “It’s really more of a proof of concept system than it is anything that’s going to be useful for real-world problems.”
ANIKA KHANDAVALLI THE DAILY ILLINI
Gregory Bauer, co-principal investigator on Delta and DeltaAI, and Brett Bode, Deputy Project Director of Delta and DeltaAI, with the Delta computing resource at the National Petascale Computing Facility on Friday.
Gravitational waves leads to research on neutron stars
STAFF WRITER
ASHWIN PADMANABHAN ap66@dailyillini.com
Aneutron star is the dense, collapsed core of a dead star, which stands as the most stable compact matter in the universe.
The idea of their existence has been around since the 1930s, but it wasn’t o cially proven to exist until 1967. Despite humans being aware of their existence for almost 60 years, researchers don’t know very much about the applications of these stars or if they can be properly utilized and harnessed for science.
Nicolas Yunes, professor in physics, alongside a team of researchers, has made some signi cant discoveries regarding neutron stars via properties in gravitational waves in the universe. His research allowed people to understand that neutron stars exhibit properties of friction and viscosity inside their core.
Yunes said his background in gravitational physics naturally led him to study neutron stars. The research his team had conducted was a natural stepping stone from the work previous researchers and members of the Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe had conducted.
Yunes and his team chose the gravitational wave event GW170817 as the subject for their understanding, adding that the discovery of gravitational waves has transformed his knowledge
of neutron stars.
“Gravitational waves give us a glimpse of regions in the universe where gravity is much stronger than on Earth or in the solar system,” Yunes said. “Moreover, gravitational waves allow us to hear how gravity changes dynamically.”
Yunes explained how comprehending the strong gravitational waves that emit from neutron stars allows researchers like himself and his team to understand if Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is still applicable, even in scenarios of extreme gravity.
For context, the Theory of Relativity determined that the laws of physics are the same for all objects moving at the same velocity.
Yunes said that in his research, not all questions were able to be properly answered, but he explains how his thoughts about neutron star viscosity were further explored by knowing the size of the neutron star.
“Neutron stars are incredibly dense, so extracting information about viscosity in such scenarios can tell us about out-ofequilibrium physics,” Yunes said. “In particular, it can give us more information about whether phase transitions exist at low temperatures and very high densities, which is something we cannot extract from experiments here on Earth currently.”
When conducting research of this complexity, it is often di cult to test and analyze these theories without being in the presence
of the neutron star. This makes the utilization of computers to run data and visualization crucial, which Yunes emphasized.
“The rst half of our work required semi-analytical modeling, which did not require computer simulations the way you are probably thinking of them,” Yunes said. “Data analysis, on the other hand, did require large runs on clusters of supercomputers. The data analysis was crucial to determine whether the e ect of viscosity was truly present in the data. We didn’t nd any signatures of viscosity, which thus places an upper limit on how large this can be inside neutron stars.”
The Illinois Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe intersects students, researchers and professors who dedicate time to researching and understanding fundamental aspects and mysterious portions of our known universe.
Although this center is fairly new, founded in 2020, it was a continuation of the already established physics department at the University.
Yunes provided further insight into how his research connects with pioneering nuclear research done at the University and its implications for the future of ICASU.
“I see our work as a natural continuation of the work that was done at Illinois in the past,” Yunes said. “That pioneering work had focused mostly on the equilibrium properties of matter inside neutron stars. We are now building from that work to jump into out-of-equilibrium phenomena, like viscosity.”
Yunes said that his research on gravitational waves has plausible extensions for future projects in the eld.
“The next steps are to understand more clearly what aspects of nuclear physics we are learning about when we place constraints or in the future when we measure the dissipative tidal deformability in neutron star inspirals,” Yunes said. “New advancements in LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA will be essential to get to the sensitivities we need to be able to measure or place better constraints on this quantity.”
PEIYAO WANG THE DAILY ILLINI
