Research

Scientists Pinpoint Hazards for Engineered Stone Fabrication Shop Workers

admin — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 18:23:41 +0000

Scientists Pinpoint Hazards for Engineered Stone Fabrication Shop Workers admin Mon, 07/28/2025 - 14:23

You've probably seen fabricated stone countertops on an HGTV remodeling show — and you might even have them in your own home.

The durable, affordable, and highly customizable product debuted in Italy in the 1970s and continues to grow in popularity. Between 2010 and 2018, U.S. imports of engineered stone slabs increased by 800%. One report predicted that global demand will increase 5.4% each year, to reach 97 million square meters by 2028.

Sometimes referred to as manufactured stone or quartz (which is, confusingly, also the name of one of its main components), to the untrained eye, the material looks no different from natural stone. One of its biggest advantages is that it can be made to resemble marble, granite, or nearly any other stone.

Beneath the material’s familiar smooth surface, however, lie safety risks for engineered stone workers.

Research conducted by a team of Georgia Tech scientists demonstrates that everyone in a fabrication shop is at risk, not just the workers cutting and fashioning the material.

The group included members of the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s Safety, Health, and Environmental Services (SHES) program: Jenny Houlroyd, Hilarie Warren, Brandon J. Philpot, and Sean Castillo. Together with Jhy-Charm Soo of Georgia Southern University, they recently published their findings in Oxford Academic.

The study divided engineered stone workers into four risk groups and charted their relative exposure to the material’s chief hazard: respirable crystalline silica.

A “Toxic Product”

Engineered stone differs notably from its natural counterpart, both in composition and in danger to worker health.

A stone slab cut from the ground, such as granite or marble, comprises several different minerals and typically has a concentration of 40% or less of mineral crystalline silica — usually quartz, which is the most abundant form of crystalline silica.

Engineered stone, however, can contain more than 90% silica. Slabs are produced when silica is crushed, combined with synthetic resins, and compressed using heat or pressure.

During fabrication, these slabs are cut and shaped by powered hand tools. The resulting dust contains tiny particles of respirable crystalline silica. Once inhaled, some of the particulate may stay in the lungs and cause an inflammatory response.

While crystalline silica is released from both natural and engineered slabs during fabrication, the engineered slabs’ significantly higher percentage of silica poses a much greater risk to human health.

A growing body of research indicates that breathing engineered stone dust leads to lung inflammation and can cause acute silicosis, an untreatable lung disease.

“I would classify engineered stone as a really toxic product,” said Houlroyd, manager of occupational health services at SHES. “When you have something that’s high-risk, you have to prepare for systems to fail and have backup measures.”

Committed to Safety

Over six years, the SHES research group collected air-sampling data, making 17 visits to 11 Georgia stone fabrication shops. The shops had all requested air-sampling services offered by SHES.

“The companies agree that by working with us, they commit to correcting the hazards and reducing exposures, as much as is feasible,” Houlroyd noted.

Because most kitchen and bathroom countertop fabrication shops are small employers, workers often complete a variety of tasks, resulting in a range of exposure factors.

The research team recommended that all manufactured stone fabrication workers wear respirators, such as an N95 mask. For employees who are the most exposed, they recommended a respirator with a powered air-purifying element or supplied air.

But personal protective equipment (PPE) alone does not ensure safe conditions.

“Most of the workers in this industry are relying on respirators as their primary source of protection, and they need a lot more to protect them,” explained Houlroyd. “PPE is the last line of defense, and safety needs to be addressed from all angles.”

Part of that multifaceted strategy includes repeated monitoring of air quality and equipment. It’s also crucial for employers to make sure that exposure risks are understood by all workers — not just employees, but also contract and day laborers, as well as those working for cash.

More Than Just a Job

As members of SHES, the Georgia Tech research team members are first and foremost health and safety consultants, with expertise spanning industrial hygiene, environmental compliance, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations.

For Houlroyd, worker safety is not just a professional calling; it’s also a personal mission.

“My dad got sick with brain cancer from exposure to contaminants on the job, and he died four years ago,” she said.

“Though he didn’t work in the manufactured stone industry, his story is representative of many people who go to work each day to feed their family, are not aware of workplace hazards, and then find themselves sick.”

The public can play a part in worker safety, too.

“Consumers have a choice and can educate themselves about what type of countertop materials they choose to have installed — like how we look at food labels for nutritional information,” said Warren, who oversees the OSHA Training Institute Education Center at Georgia Tech.

“We should be aware of the risk to workers, as well as how the installation process in our homes should be properly managed to prevent dust contamination,” she added.

A Zero-Risk Solution

In 2024, Australia eliminated the risks associated with engineered stone fabrication. Despite having enacted stronger regulations in 2019, the country continued to see a rise in silicosis cases resulting from exposure to respirable crystalline silica.

Australia’s solution? Enacting a ban on the import and fabrication of the material until its safe manufacture can be demonstrated.

In their report, the Georgia Tech group recommends that the U.S. do the same. As Houlroyd put it, “I would love to see our country find a safer substitution and take this dangerous product off the market.”

____________________

Title: “Respirable dust and respirable crystalline silica exposures among workers at stone countertop fabrication shops in Georgia from 2017 through 2023”

Conflict of interest: Jenny Houlroyd has served as an expert witness in silicosis legal cases unrelated to this research. All other authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding: The U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as part of the OSHA 21(d) Consultation Program grant.

DOI: https://academic.oup.com/annweh/advance-article/doi/10.1093/annweh/wxaf014/8116008?utm_source=advanceaccess&utm_campaign=annweh&utm_medium=email

Summary sentence

Engineered stone has been in use for homes since the 1970s but creates serious health hazards for workers who produce them.

Summary

Australia enacted a ban on the import and fabrication of manufactured stone slabs because of health hazard concerns. Researchers from Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern University recommend the U.S. do the same.

Dateline

Mon, 07/28/2025 - 12:00

eve.tolpa@innovate.gatech.edu

Contact

Eve Tolpa
eve.tolpa@innovate.gatech.edu

Associated importer

Keywords

engineered stone

silicosis

Enterprise Innovation Institute

worker safety

Georgia Southern University

Safety Health and Environmental Services

go-researchnews

News room topics

Business and Economic Development

Categories

Business

Economic Development and Policy

Manufacturing

Research

Mercury ID

683317

Source updated

Mon, 07/28/2025 - 14:22

Georgia Tech Celebrates 2025 Ph.D. Graduates in Cybersecurity and Privacy

dgivens8 — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 14:47:40 +0000

Georgia Tech Celebrates 2025 Ph.D. Graduates in Cybersecurity and Privacy dgivens8 Mon, 07/28/2025 - 10:47

The School of Cybersecurity and Privacy at Georgia Tech is proud to recognize the accomplishments of five doctoral students who finished their doctoral programs in Spring 2025. These scholars have advanced critical research in software security, cryptography, and privacy, collectively publishing 34 papers, most of which appear in top-tier venues.

Ammar Askar developed new tools for software security in multi-language systems, including a concolic execution engine powered by large language models. He highlighted DEFCON 2021, which he attended with the Systems Software and Security Lab (SSLab), as a favorite memory.

Zhengxian He persevered through the pandemic to lead a major project with an industry partner, achieving strong research outcomes. He will be joining Amazon and fondly remembers watching sunsets from the CODA building.

Stanislav Peceny focused on secure multiparty computation (MPC), designing high-performance cryptographic protocols that improve efficiency by up to 1000x. He’s known for his creativity in both research and life, naming avocado trees after famous mathematicians and enjoying research discussions on the CODA rooftop.

Qinge Xie impressed faculty with her adaptability across multiple domains. Her advisor praised her independence and technical range, noting her ability to pivot seamlessly between complex research challenges.

Yibin Yang contributed to the advancement of zero-knowledge proofs and MPC, building toolchains that are faster and more usable than existing systems. His work earned a Distinguished Paper Award at ACM CCS 2023, and he also served as an RSAC Security Scholar. Yang enjoyed teaching and engaging with younger students, especially through events like Math Kangaroo.

Faculty mentors included Regents’ Entrepreneur Mustaque Ahamad, Professors Taesoo Kim and Vladimir Kolesnikov, and Assistant Professor Frank Li, who played vital roles in guiding the graduates’ research journeys.

Learn more about the graduates and their mentors on the 2025 Ph.D. graduate microsite.

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Summary

Five Ph.D. students from Georgia Tech’s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy graduated in Spring 2025, contributing significant research in software security, cryptography, and privacy with 34 published papers. Highlights include Ammar Askar’s concolic execution tools, Zhengxian He’s industry collaboration, Stanislav Peceny’s advances in multiparty computation, Qinge Xie’s adaptability across domains, and Yibin Yang’s award-winning work on zero-knowledge proofs. Faculty mentors played key roles in supporting their success.

Dateline

Wed, 05/14/2025 - 12:00

jpopham3@gatech.edu

Contact

JP Popham, Communications Officer II

College of Computing | School of Cybersecurity and Privacy

Keywords

students

graduates

PhD

PhD Students

Research

go-research

go-researchnews

Daily Digest

website

academic excellence

Categories

Alumni

Community

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Research

Student Honors and Achievements

Student Research

Mercury ID

682394

Source updated

Mon, 07/28/2025 - 10:46

Deep Dive Into Shark Ecology Provides Path to Conservation

admin — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 18:22:41 +0000

Deep Dive Into Shark Ecology Provides Path to Conservation admin Thu, 07/24/2025 - 14:22

Few animals captivate people’s imagination like sharks. From the enduring cultural legacy of Jaws, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, to the continued popularity of the Discovery Channel's Shark Week, now in its 37th year, media portrayals of the apex predator can shape public perception, illuminate their role within Earth's ecosystems, and influence conservation efforts.

For Cameron Perry, every week is shark week. The Georgia Tech alumnus earned his Ph.D. in ocean science and engineering in 2024 and now leads the whale shark and manta ray initiatives at Georgia Aquarium.

As a 6-year-old listening to his mother read him Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and imagining the creatures Captain Nemo encountered, Perry had dreams of exploring the oceans for himself. When he saw his first whale shark in Georgia Aquarium's 6.3-million-gallon tank, he set out to learn as much as he could about the gentle giants and help to conserve the endangered species.

Perry's research has taken him around the world to observe whale shark behaviors in St. Helena and the Galapagos Islands, working to understand their migration habits, reproduction, and global ecology. While most people won't encounter sharks daily as he does, Perry sees the aquarium as well as the media as effective tools in showcasing sharks in the proper light.

"They are kind of mysterious and unknown. For many people, they've never encountered sharks in their lifetime, and part of that captivation could lead to fear, but education can turn that fear into wonder and awe. There's a narrative that these animals are mindless eating machines, but the more you learn, you realize that's not the case," he said. “These creatures have existed for 400 million years; they're older than trees, and understanding their role on our planet is important to changing the narrative around sharks."

Perry likens sharks to the white blood cells of the ecosystems in which they live, as they help prevent the spread of disease through the consumption of dead or diseased prey, contribute to population control, and provide balance to the ocean's biodiversity.

Understanding Our Role

While at Georgia Tech, Perry worked alongside Regents’ Chair and Harry and Anna Teasley Chair in Environmental Biology Mark Hay, whose research has highlighted the role that sharks, and other large predators, play in habitat regulation within coral reefs. Hay explains that overfishing and other human activities have decimated shark populations in certain parts of the world, significantly affecting coral reefs and the populations that rely on them.

As the manager of a freshwater beach in Kentucky in 1975, Hay saw firsthand the impact that Jaws had on the beachgoing public at the time — including his lifeguards.

“I had about 25 lifeguards, and I made them swim a mile every day on our buoy line. After we all went to see Jaws, about half of them refused to swim the mile for over a week. They'd look at me and say, 'You can fire me. I'm not going in,' and I'd laugh and say, ‘We're in freshwater. Jaws isn't in there.’"

Hay said that while the movie remains a favorite of his, its depiction of sharks isn't representative of their behavior in the wild, as shark attacks are often accidents, not predatory actions. Like Perry, Hay believes that education can help protect sharks and bring a renewed focus to solving the ongoing issues facing the oceans.

"These ecosystems are degrading, and it's us that's doing it. What I am trying to do in my teaching is to go beyond cataloging the demise and take a more Georgia Tech-type approach by saying, 'If the bridge is broken, we have to be the ones to rebuild it,'" he said.

Hay keeps a saber-toothed tiger fossil on his desk as a constant reminder to himself that "everything I study was shaped by what used to be here," and how understanding nature can help preserve it for the future. Sharks are a captivating species, and both Perry and Hay stress that continued research and a commitment to education are the key to their conservation.

Subtitle

Experts say that more accurate depictions of sharks can help protect them and highlight their role in global ecosystems.

Summary sentence

Experts say that more accurate depictions of sharks can help protect them and highlight their role in global ecosystems.

Summary

Experts say that more accurate depictions of sharks can help protect them and highlight their role in global ecosystems.

Dateline

Thu, 07/24/2025 - 12:00

Steven.gagliano@gatech.edu

Contact

Steven Gagliano – Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

Sharks

Whale Sharks

conservation

College of Sciences

go-researchnews

News room topics

Earth and Environment

Categories

Digital Media and Entertainment

Environment

Life Sciences and Biology

Research

Mercury ID

683257

Source updated

Thu, 07/24/2025 - 14:21

Georgia Tech Study Hopes to Prevent Cislunar Collisions as Moon Missions Increase

admin — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 13:55:41 +0000

Georgia Tech Study Hopes to Prevent Cislunar Collisions as Moon Missions Increase admin Fri, 07/18/2025 - 09:55

As more satellites launch into space, the satellite industry has sounded the alarm about the danger of collisions in low Earth orbit (LEO). What is less understood is what might happen as more missions head to a more targeted destination: the moon.

According to The Planetary Society, more than 30 missions are slated to launch to the moon between 2024 and 2030, backed by the U.S., China, Japan, India, and various private corporations. That compares to over 40 missions to the moon between 1959 and 1979 and a scant three missions between 1980 and 2000.

A multidisciplinary team at Georgia Tech has found that while collision probabilities in orbits around the moon are very low compared to Earth orbit, spacecraft in lunar orbit will likely need to conduct multiple costly collision avoidance maneuvers each year. The Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets published the Georgia Tech collision-avoidance study in March.

“The number of close approaches in lunar orbit is higher than some might expect, given that there are only tens of satellites, rather than the thousands in low Earth orbit,” says paper co-author Mariel Borowitz, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Borowitz and other researchers attribute these risky approaches in part to spacecraft often choosing a limited number of favorable orbits and the difficulty of monitoring the exact location of spacecraft that are more than 200,000 miles away.

“There is significant uncertainty about the exact location of objects around the moon. This, combined with the high cost associated with lunar missions, means that operators often undertake maneuvers even when the probability is very low — up to one in 10 million,” Borowitz explains.

The Georgia Tech research is the first published study showing short- and long-term collision risks in cislunar orbits. Using a series of Monte Carlo simulations, the researchers modeled the probability of various outcomes in a process that cannot be easily predicted because of random variables.

“Our analysis suggests that satellite operators must perform up to four maneuvers annually for each satellite for a fleet of 50 satellites in low lunar orbit (LLO),” said one of the study’s authors, Brian Gunter, associate professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

He noted that with only 10 satellites in LLO, a satellite might still need a yearly maneuver. This is supported by what current cislunar operators have reported.

Favored Orbits

Most close encounters are expected to occur near the moon’s equator, an intersection point between the orbit planes of commonly used “frozen” and low lunar orbits, which are preferred by many operators. Other possible regions of congestion can occur at the Lagrangian points, or regions where the gravitational forces of Earth and the moon balance out. Stable orbits in these regions have names such as Halo and Lyapunov orbits.

“Lagrangian points are an interesting place to put a satellite because it can maintain its orbit for long periods with very little maneuvering and thrusting. Frozen orbits, too. Anywhere outside these special areas, you have to spend a lot of fuel to maintain an orbit,” he said.

Gunter and other researchers worry that if operators aren’t coordinated about how they plan lunar missions, opportunities for collision will increase in these popular orbits.

“The close approaches were much more common than I would have intuitively anticipated,” says lead study author Stef Crum.

The 2024 graduate of Georgia Tech’s aerospace engineering doctoral program notes that, considering the small number of satellites in lunar orbit, the need for multiple maneuvers was “really surprising.”

Crum, who is also co-founder of Reditus Space, a startup he founded in 2024 to provide reusable orbital re-entry services, adds that the cislunar environment is so challenging because “it’s incredibly vast.”

His research also examines ways to improve object monitoring in cislunar space. Maintaining continuous custody of these objects is difficult because a target’s position must be monitored over the entire duration of its trajectory.

“That wasn’t feasible for translunar orbits, given the vast volume of cislunar orbit, which stretches multiple millions of kilometers in three dimensions,” he says.

By estimating a satellite’s orbit using observed data and constraining the presumed location and direction of the satellite, rather than continuous tracking (a process known as continuous custody), Crum greatly simplified the process.

“You no longer need thousands of satellites or a set of enormous satellites to cover all potential trajectories,” he explains. “Instead, one or a few satellites are required, and operators can lose custody for a time as long as the connection is reacquired later.”

Since the team started their study, there has been a lot of interest in the moon and cislunar activity — both NASA and China’s National Space Administration are planning to send humans to the moon. In the last two years, India, Japan, the U.S., China, Russia, and four private companies have attempted missions to the moon.

Why the Moon

Spacefaring nations’ intense interest in exploring the lunar surface comes as no surprise given that the moon offers a variety of resources, including solar power, water, oxygen, and metals like iron, titanium, and uranium. It also contains Helium-3, a potential fuel for nuclear fusion, and rare earth metals vital for modern technology. With the recent discovery of water ice, it could be a plentiful source for rocket fuel that can be created from liquifying oxygen and hydrogen needed to launch deep space missions to destinations like Mars. In February, Georgia Tech announced that researchers have developed new algorithms to help Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander find water ice on the moon.

Commercial space companies like Axiom Space and Redwire Space, as well as space agencies, are actively building lunar infrastructure, from satellite constellations to orbital platforms to support communication, navigation, scientific research, and eventually space tourism.

A key project involves the Lunar Gateway, a joint venture of NASA and international space agencies like ESA, JAXA, and CSA, as well as commercial partners. Humanity’s first space station around the moon will serve as a central hub for human exploration of the moon and is considered a stepping stone for future deep space missions.

Getting Ahead of a Gold Rush to the Moon

All this activity underscores the urgency to get out in front of potential crowding issues — something that hasn’t occurred in LEO, where near-miss collisions, or conjunctions, are frequent. LEO, which is 100 to 1,200 miles above the Earth’s surface, is host to more than 14,000 satellites and 120 million pieces of debris from launches, collisions, and wear and tear, reports Reuters.

“Using the near-Earth environment as an example, the space object population has gone from approximately 6,000 active satellites in the early 2020s to an anticipated 60,000 satellites in the coming decade if the projected number of large satellite constellations currently in the works gets deployed. That poses many challenges in terms of how we can manage that sustainably,” observed Gunter. “If something similar happens in the lunar environment, say if Artemis (NASA’s program to establish the first long-term presence on the moon) is successful and a lunar base is established, and there is discovery of volatiles or water deposits, it could initiate a kind of gold rush effect that might accelerate the number of actors in cislunar space.”

For this reason, Borowitz argues for the need to begin working on coordination, either in the planning of the orbits for future missions or by sharing information about the location of objects operating in lunar orbit. She pointed out that spacecraft outfitted for moon missions are expensive, making a collision highly costly. Also, debris from such a scenario would spread in an unpredictable way, which could be problematic for other objects.

Gunter agreed, noting, “If we’re not careful, we could be putting a lot of things in this same path. We must ensure we build out the cislunar orbital environment in a smart way, where we’re not intentionally putting spacecraft in the same orbital spaces. If we do that, everyone should be able to get what they want and not be in each other’s way.”

Borowitz says some coordination efforts are underway with the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the creation of an action team on lunar activities; however, international diplomacy is a time-consuming process, and it can be a challenge to keep pace with advancements in technology.

She contends that the Georgia Tech study could provide baseline data that “could be helpful for international coordination efforts, helping to ensure that countries better understand potential future risks.”

Gunter and Borowitz say that follow-on research for the team could involve looking into the Lunar Gateway orbit and other special orbits to see how crowded that space will likely get, and then do an end-to-end simulation of these orbits to determine the most effective way to build them out to avoid collision risks. Ultimately, they intend to develop guidelines to help ensure that future space actors headed to the moon can operate safely.

Summary sentence

A Georgia Tech study warns that rising lunar traffic could lead to costly collision avoidance maneuvers, urging better coordination to manage growing risks in cislunar space.

Summary

A Georgia Tech study warns that rising lunar traffic could lead to costly collision avoidance maneuvers, urging better coordination to manage growing risks in cislunar space.

Dateline

Fri, 07/18/2025 - 12:00

Contact

News Contact: Laurie Haigh

Writer: Anne Wainscott-Sargent

Associated importer

Keywords

go-researchnews

News room topics

Earth and Environment

Categories

Aerospace

Policy, Social Sciences, and Liberal Arts

Research

Mercury ID

683175

Source updated

Fri, 07/18/2025 - 09:53

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 18:58:41 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:58

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate scientific breakthroughs.

Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

“Georgia Tech is proud to be one of the nation’s leading sources of the AI talent and technologies that are powering a revolution in our economy,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “It’s fitting we’ve been selected to host this new supercomputer, which will support a new wave of AI-centered innovation across the nation. We’re grateful to the NSF, and we are excited to get to work.”

Designed from the ground up for AI, Nexus will give researchers across the country access to advanced computing tools through a simple, user-friendly interface. It will support work in many fields, including climate science, health, aerospace, and robotics.

“The Nexus system's novel approach combining support for persistent scientific services with more traditional high-performance computing will enable new science and AI workflows that will accelerate the time to scientific discovery,” said Katie Antypas, National Science Foundation director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. “We look forward to adding Nexus to NSF's portfolio of advanced computing capabilities for the research community.”

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases, to understanding how the brain works, to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain plus memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

AI is rapidly changing how science is investigated. Researchers use AI to analyze massive datasets, model complex systems, and test ideas faster than ever before. But these tools require powerful computing resources that — until now — have been inaccessible to many institutions.

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

“This supercomputer will help level the playing field,” said Suresh Marru, principal investigator of the Nexus project and director of Georgia Tech’s new Center for AI in Science and Engineering (ARTISAN). “It’s designed to make powerful AI tools easier to use and available to more researchers in more places.”

Srinivas Aluru, Regents’ Professor and senior associate dean in the College of Computing, said, “With Nexus, Georgia Tech joins the league of academic supercomputing centers. This is the culmination of years of planning, including building the state-of-the-art CODA data center and Nexus’ precursor supercomputer project, HIVE."

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

Georgia Tech is building Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which runs several of the country’s top academic supercomputers. The two institutions will link their systems through a new high-speed network, creating a national research infrastructure.

“Nexus is more than a supercomputer — it’s a symbol of what’s possible when leading institutions work together to advance science,” said Charles Isbell, chancellor of the University of Illinois and former dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. “I'm proud that my two academic homes have partnered on this project that will move science, and society, forward.”

What’s Next

Georgia Tech will begin building Nexus this year, with its expected completion in spring 2026. Once Nexus is finished, researchers can apply for access through an NSF review process. Georgia Tech will manage the system, provide support, and reserve up to 10% of its capacity for its own campus research.

“This is a big step for Georgia Tech and for the scientific community,” said Vivek Sarkar, the John P. Imlay Dean of Computing. “Nexus will help researchers make faster progress on today’s toughest problems — and open the door to discoveries we haven’t even imagined yet.”

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Summary

The National Science Foundation has awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to build a powerful new supercomputer that will use artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific breakthroughs. Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced, AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

National Science Foundation

NSF

Georgia Tech

supercomputer

Nexus

artificial intelligence

scientific breakthroughs

hpc

clean energy

brain research

medicine development

manufacturing innovation

AI infrastructure

scientific discovery

persistent scientific services

quantum materials

climate science

health research

aerospace

robotics

flash storage

data transfer

U.S. researchers

AI workflows

ARTISAN

Coda Data Center

HIVE supercomputer

NCSA

University of Illinois

national collaboration

tech partnerships

research support

AI talent

scientific community

research access

AI tools

AI-centered innovation

go-researchnews

go-ai

News room topics

Campus and Community

Science and Technology

Categories

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Institute and Campus

Research

Mercury ID

683161

Source updated

Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:56

LIGO Detects Most Massive Binary Black Hole to Date

admin — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 18:35:41 +0000

LIGO Detects Most Massive Binary Black Hole to Date admin Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:35

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)’s LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration has detected an extremely unusual binary black hole merger — a phenomenon that occurs when two black holes are pulled into each other's orbit and combine. Announced yesterday in a California Institute of Technology press release, the binary black hole merger, GW231123, is the largest ever detected with gravitational waves.

Before merging, both black holes were spinning exceptionally fast, and their masses fell into a range that should be very rare — or impossible.

“Most models don't predict black holes this big can be made by supernovas, and our data indicates that they were spinning at a rate close to the limit of what’s theoretically possible,” says Margaret Millhouse, a research scientist in the School of Physics who played a key role in the research. “Where could they have come from? It raises interesting questions.”

A binary black hole merger absorbs characteristics from both of the contributors, she adds. “As a result, this is not only the most massive binary black hole ever seen but also the fastest-spinning binary black hole confidently detected with gravitational waves.”

“GW231123 is a record-breaking event,” says School of Physics Professor Laura Cadonati, who has been a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration since 2002. “LIGO has been observing the cosmos for 10 years now. This discovery underscores that there is still so much that this instrument can help us learn.”

A Cosmic View

The findings challenge current theories on how smaller black holes form, says School of Physics Assistant Professor and LIGO collaborator Surabhi Sachdev. Smaller black holes are the result of supernovae: dying and collapsing stars. During that collapse, explosions can tear apart or eject part of the star’s mass — limiting the size of the black hole that forms.

“Black holes from supernovae can weigh up to about 60 times the mass of our Sun,” she says. “The black holes in this merger were likely the mass of hundreds of suns.”

Because of its size, GW231123 also allowed the team to study the merger in unprecedented detail. “LIGO has observed scores of black hole mergers,” says Cadonati. “Of these, GW231123 has provided us with the clearest view of the ‘grand finale’ of a merger thus far. This adds a new clue to solve the puzzle that are black holes, including their origins and properties.”

“While we saw that our expectations matched the data, the extreme nature of this event pushed our models to their limits,” Millhouse adds. “A massive, highly spinning system like this will be of interest to researchers who study how binary black holes form.”

Decoding a Split-Second Signal

Millhouse and School of Physics Postdoctoral Fellow Prathamesh Joshi used Einstein’s equations for general relativity to confirm LIGO’s detections.

To find black holes, LIGO measures distortions in spacetime — ripples that are created when two black holes collide. These patterns in gravitational waves can be used to find the signature signal of black hole collisions.

“In this case, the signal lasted for just one-tenth of a second, but it was very clear,” says Joshi. "Previously, we designed a special study to detect these interesting signals, which accounted for all the unusual properties of such massive systems — and it paid off!”

“To ensure it wasn’t noise, the Georgia Tech team first reconstructed the signal in a model-agnostic way,” Millhouse adds. “We then compared those reconstructions to a model that uses Einstein's equations of general relativity, and both reconstructions looked very similar, which helped confirm that this highly unusual phenomenon was a genuine detection.”

Sachdev says that seeing the signal at both LIGO Observatories — placed in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana — was also critical. “These short signals are very hard to detect, and this signal is so unlike any of the other binary black holes that we've seen before,” she says. “Without both detectors, we would have missed it.”

A Decade of Discovery

While the team has yet to determine how the original black holes formed, one theory is that they may have resulted from mergers themselves. “This could have been a chain of mergers,” Sachdev explains. “This tells us that they could have existed in a very dense environment like a nuclear star cluster or an active galactic nucleus.” Their spins provide another clue as spinning is a characteristic usually seen in black holes resulting from a merge.

The team adds that GW231123 could provide clues on how larger black holes are formed — including the mysterious supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies.

“Gravitational wave science is almost a decade old, and we're still making fundamental discoveries,” says Millhouse. “It’s exciting that LIGO is continuing to detect new phenomena, and this is at the edge of what we've seen thus far. There's still so much we can learn.”

The team expects to update their catalogue of black holes in August 2025, which will provide another window into how this exceptionally heavy black hole might fit into the universe, and what we can continue to learn from it.

Funding: The LIGO Laboratory is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated jointly by Caltech and MIT.

Summary sentence

Before merging, both black holes were spinning exceptionally fast, and their masses fell into a range that should be very rare — or impossible.

Summary

Before merging, both black holes were spinning exceptionally fast, and their masses fell into a range that should be very rare — or impossible. The result of the merge, GW231123, is the largest binary black hole merger ever detected with gravitational waves.

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Written by Selena Langner

Contact: Jess Hunt-Ralston

Associated importer

Keywords

cos-planetary

go-researchnews

News room topics

Science and Technology

Categories

Aerospace

Physics and Physical Sciences

Research

Student and Faculty

Mercury ID

683133

Source updated

Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:35

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

admin — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 15:05:37 +0000

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer admin Tue, 07/15/2025 - 11:05

Called Nexus, the system will be one of the most advanced, AI-focused research tools in the U.S. Nexus will help scientists tackle urgent challenges such as developing new medicines, advancing clean energy, understanding how the brain works, and driving manufacturing innovations.

Nexus Supercomputer — In Simple Terms

Built for the future of science: Nexus is designed to power the most demanding AI research — from curing diseases to understanding how the brain works to engineering quantum materials.

Blazing fast: Nexus can crank out over 400 quadrillion operations per second — the equivalent of everyone in the world continuously performing 50 million calculations every second.

Massive brain + memory: Nexus combines the power of AI and high-performance computing, with 330 trillion bytes of memory to handle complex problems and giant datasets.

Storage: Nexus will feature 10 quadrillion bytes of flash storage, equivalent to about 10 billion reams of paper. Stacked, that’s a column reaching 500,000 km high — enough to stretch from Earth to the Moon and a third of the way back.

Supercharged connections: Nexus will have lightning-fast connections to move data almost instantaneously, so researchers do not waste time waiting.

Open to U.S. researchers: Scientists from any U.S. institution can apply to use Nexus.

Why Now?

This is where Nexus comes in. It will make state-of-the-art AI infrastructure available to scientists all across the country, not just those at top tech hubs.

Like Nexus, HIVE was supported by NSF funding. Both Nexus and the HIVE are supported by a partnership between Georgia Tech’s research and information technology units.

A National Collaboration

Georgia Tech is building Nexus in partnership with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which runs several of the country’s top academic supercomputers. The two institutions will link their systems through a new high-speed network, creating a national research infrastructure.

Tech companies, whose technologies will power the system, will also play a role.

What’s Next

Summary sentence

Summary

Dateline

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 12:00

media@gatech.edu

Contact

Siobhan Rodriguez
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications

Associated importer

Keywords

go-ai

News room topics

Campus and Community

Science and Technology

Categories

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Institute and Campus

Research

Mercury ID

683139

Source updated

Tue, 07/15/2025 - 11:05

‘Biochar’ Can Naturally Clean the Pollution that Rain Washes Off Georgia’s Roads

admin — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 17:12:51 +0000

‘Biochar’ Can Naturally Clean the Pollution that Rain Washes Off Georgia’s Roads admin Thu, 07/10/2025 - 13:12

A charcoal-like material made from leaves and branches that collect on forest floors could be a cheap, sustainable way to keep pollution from washing off roadways and into Georgia’s lakes and rivers.

Engineers at Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern University have found that this biological charcoal, or biochar, can be mixed with soil and used along roadways to catch grimy rainwater and filter it naturally before it pollutes surface water.

Their tests found the biochar effectively cleans contaminants from the rainwater and works just as well in the sandy soils of the coastal plain as in the clays of north Georgia. Their biochar-soil mixture can be easily substituted for expensive material mined from the earth that’s typically used on roads.

Though they focused on Georgia, the researchers said the findings could easily apply across the U.S., providing a simple, natural way to keep road pollutants out of water sources. They published their approach in the Journal of Environmental Management.

Learn about their system on the College of Engineering website.

Summary sentence

A new study shows how the material made from leaves and branches that collect on forest floors can be mixed with local soil to filter out road grime before it reaches waterways.

Summary

A new study shows how the material made from leaves and branches that collect on forest floors can be mixed with local soil to filter out road grime before it reaches waterways.

Dateline

Thu, 07/10/2025 - 12:00

jstewart@gatech.edu

Contact

Joshua Stewart
College of Engineering

Associated importer

Keywords

go-researchnews

go-rbi

News room topics

Earth and Environment

Categories

Engineering

Environment

Research

Mercury ID

683093

Source updated

Thu, 07/10/2025 - 13:12

Georgia Tech Launches National Laboratory Collaboration Data Dashboards

admin — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 19:39:41 +0000

Georgia Tech Launches National Laboratory Collaboration Data Dashboards admin Tue, 07/08/2025 - 15:39

Georgia Tech has released new data dashboards showcasing the impact of its growing partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratories (NLs). The dashboards highlight significant achievements in joint research, funding, and innovation, demonstrating each Georgia Tech-NL partnership’s commitment to addressing critical global challenges.

“This new tool will enable researchers to find existing National lab collaborations and guide administrators to key Georgia Tech national lab projects to be able to provide strategic investments and support,” said Vice President of Interdisciplinary Research Julia Kubanek.

The dashboards offer a comprehensive view of each partnership's contributions and milestones. Key highlights include:

Research Impact: With dozens of joint publications per lab across various disciplines and hundreds of citations worldwide, Georgia Tech’s NL partnerships impact both academia and industry.
Mutual Investment: Along with cross-functional research impact, Georgia Tech’s strategic partnership with NLs mutually benefit both entities monetarily, with millions awarded to Georgia Tech by NLs and reciprocal funding from Georgia Tech to strengthen and foster collaborative opportunities.
Innovation Leadership: Joint patents and NL-cited Georgia Tech patents driving real-world technological advancements are featured, indicating the presence Georgia Tech’s NL collaborations have in emerging intellectual property across the STEM continuum.
Collaborative Research Areas: With mutual interests including advanced computing, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, cybersecurity, and sustainability, the dashboards highlight various areas that are explored within the Georgia Tech-NL collaborations to drive innovation that will mitigate prevalent barriers and, ultimately, impact society for the better.

“Collaboration with national labs is essential to Georgia Tech's mission. It allows our researchers to tackle complex challenges by utilizing the unique resources, physical infrastructure, and human expertise found at these labs,” said School of Physics Professor and Georgia Tech liaison for Oak Ridge National Laboratory Martin Mourigal. “For our students, this collaboration provides a valuable opportunity to learn how science is conducted in mission-driven organizations, to build lasting partnerships that will enhance their future careers, and to develop specialized expertise that sets them apart.”

Georgia Tech and its national laboratory partners continue to make advancements in strategic areas which include advanced manufacturing, microelectronics, and energy solutions. The collaboration dashboards highlight the impact of academic and NL partnerships in driving discovery, innovation, and societal impact.

“This data dashboard represents a great opportunity to facilitate campus-wide collaboration with our national lab partners that will uniquely position us for large funding opportunities,” added George White, senior director for strategic partnerships.

To view the dashboards, click on the links below or visit research.gatech.edu/national-laboratories. The next iteration of the National Lab dashboards will be set to release in July 2025.

For more information about Georgia Tech-NL collaborations, contact Julian James-Burke, Program Manager of National Labs, at julian.jamesburke@gatech.edu.

Summary sentence

The dashboards highlight significant achievements in joint research, funding, and innovation, demonstrating each partnership’s commitment to addressing critical global challenges.

Summary

The dashboards highlight significant achievements in joint research, funding, and innovation, demonstrating each partnership’s commitment to addressing critical global challenges.

Dateline

Tue, 07/08/2025 - 12:00

Contact

Julian James-Burke
Program Manager of National Labs

Associated importer

Keywords

go-researchnews

News room topics

Campus and Community

Categories

Research

Mercury ID

682978

Source updated

Tue, 07/08/2025 - 15:38

These ‘Exploding’ Capsules Could Deliver Insulin Without a Needle

admin — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 13:22:30 +0000

These ‘Exploding’ Capsules Could Deliver Insulin Without a Needle admin Tue, 07/08/2025 - 09:22

Georgia Tech engineers have created a pill that could effectively deliver insulin and other injectable drugs, making medicines for chronic illnesses easier for patients to take, less invasive, and potentially less expensive.

Along with insulin, it also could be used for semaglutide — the popular GLP-1 medication sold as Ozempic and Wegovy — and a host of other top-selling protein-based medications like antibodies and growth hormone that are part of a $400 billion market.

These drugs usually have to be injected because they can’t overcome the protective barriers of the gastrointestinal tract. Georgia Tech’s new capsule uses a small pressurized “explosion” to shoot medicine past those barriers in the small intestine and into the bloodstream. Unlike other designs, it has no complicated moving parts and requires no battery or stored energy.

“This study introduces a new way of drug delivery that is as easy as swallowing a pill and replaces the need for painful injections,” said Mark Prausnitz, who created the pill in his lab with former Ph.D. student Joshua Palacios and other student researchers.

In animal lab tests, they showed their capsule lowered blood sugar levels just like traditional insulin injections. The researchers reported their pill design and study results DATE in the Journal of Controlled Release.

Read about the technology on the College of Engineering website.

Summary sentence

Engineers use sodium bicarb to “self-pressurize” a pill able to deliver drugs that usually require injection directly to the small intestine.

Summary

Engineers use sodium bicarb to “self-pressurize” a pill able to deliver drugs that usually require injection directly to the small intestine.

Dateline

Tue, 07/08/2025 - 12:00

jstewart@gatech.edu

Contact

Joshua Stewart
College of Engineering

Associated importer

Keywords

Mark Prausnitz

go-researchnews

go-bio

News room topics

Health and Medicine

Categories

Biotechnology, Health, Bioengineering, Genetics

Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Research

Mercury ID

682959

Source updated

Tue, 07/08/2025 - 09:21

Research

Scientists Pinpoint Hazards for Engineered Stone Fabrication Shop Workers

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

Georgia Tech Celebrates 2025 Ph.D. Graduates in Cybersecurity and Privacy

Related links

Keywords

Categories

Deep Dive Into Shark Ecology Provides Path to Conservation

Understanding Our Role

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

Georgia Tech Study Hopes to Prevent Cislunar Collisions as Moon Missions Increase

Favored Orbits

Why the Moon

Getting Ahead of a Gold Rush to the Moon

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

LIGO Detects Most Massive Binary Black Hole to Date

A Cosmic View

Decoding a Split-Second Signal

A Decade of Discovery

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

Georgia Tech to Build $20M National AI Supercomputer

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

‘Biochar’ Can Naturally Clean the Pollution that Rain Washes Off Georgia’s Roads

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

Georgia Tech Launches National Laboratory Collaboration Data Dashboards

Keywords

News room topics

Categories

These ‘Exploding’ Capsules Could Deliver Insulin Without a Needle

Keywords

News room topics

Categories