Natural Sciences

Researchers observe first real-time quantum jump in sound

In an experiment, Stanford physicists demonstrated that tiny units of sound can suddenly change energy states, making a quantum jump. This is a long-anticipated breakthrough with the potential to advance a range of technologies.

Portrait of the three researchers surrounded by instrumentation.

A metal piece of equipment with a round open chamber in the center

Physics advance could improve how AI remembers and learns

Portrait of Laura Dassama in the Stanford arcade.

Laura Dassama wins Shaw Award

An acorn worm resting in the palm of a researcher's hand

Worm’s radical transformation shows metamorphosis can change the functions of cells

Portrait of Sharon Long

Sharon Long wins International Prize for Biology

Portrait of Hans Andersen

Hans Andersen, pioneer in the study of liquids and other materials, has died at 84

A beach scene with waves that have a glowing luminescent blue edge

New pathway found to make luminescence

A stream with clouded water on the left and clear on the right

Pollution linked to fish hybrids in Mexican river

Infrared, visible, and ultraviolet image of the area around the Jellyfish Nebula

Researchers uncover evidence for sibling supernovas

Mountain lions have major ecological impact in small preserve

Portrait of Emmanuel Candès

Emmanuel Candès wins Shaw Prize in math

Ornithology class brings students face to face with ‘neodinosaurs’

Research reveals mechanisms for plant cell resilience to stress

Portrait of Zhi-Xun Shen

Zhi-Xun Shen elected to Royal Society

Cover of Rare-Earth-Doped Fiber Lasers and Amplifiers

Rare-Earth-Doped Fiber Lasers and Amplifiers by Michel Digonnet, Applied Physics

Portrait of Laura Dassama in the Stanford arcade.

Laura Dassama wins ACS Early Career Award

photo of a lush green tropical forest

Global plant diversity evolved mostly from staying in place, not dispersing

Stanford science reveals genetically distinct ‘ghost elephants’

An image of an oak tree at Jasper Ridge

A tiny succession battle under an oak tree reveals ecological patterns

A portrait of Grant Rotskoff in the Stanford arcade

Grant Rotskoff named Camille Dreyfus Teacher–Scholar

A portrait of Otis Chodosh

Stanford mathematician Otis Chodosh wins New Horizons Prize

an illustration of a black hole

Jonathan Luk tackles the mathematics of black holes

Portrait of Laura Dassama in the Stanford arcade.

Laura Dassama honored with Protein Science Young Investigator Award

Collage of current SSF cohort

Stanford Science Fellows 2026 cohort announced

Paul R. Ehrlich standing in front of trees

Biologist and environmentalist Paul Ehrlich has died

Go behind the science with Rodolfo Dirzo

Photo of Nina and Jeff Wine

A life-changing shift from neuroscience to cystic fibrosis research

Photo of Tony Heinz

Tony Heinz wins 2026 Optica award

Photo of Carolyn Bertozzi

Carolyn Bertozzi named Royal Society of Chemistry Honorary Fellow

An illustration of a family tree

Mathematical model calculates probability of shared ancestors for African Americans

Jon Simon with the cavity array microscope

Light-based platform sets the stage for quantum supercomputers

Close up of an optical amplifier chip, similar to the one detailed in the new study, that is being developed in the lab of Stanford physicist Amir Safavi-Naeini. A red laser light shines from an optical fiber on the left to help with aligning the fiber to the chip.

New chip-sized optical amplifier can intensify light 100 times

Photo of Fang Liu

Fang Liu wins Scialog awards

Portrait of Barnabas Daru

Barnabas Daru receives International Biogeography Society award

‘To advance science, it’s important to blur the boundaries between the disciplines’

Portrait of Hunter Fraser

Neurodiversity could be an essential consequence of human evolution

Portrait of Todd Smith

Todd Smith, pioneer in the field of free-electron lasers, dies at 85

Portrait of Carolyn Bertozzi

Advance could expand immune therapy as a cancer treatment

Portrait of Benjamin Good in the Stanford arcade

Benjamin Good wins APS Early Career Award

Portrait of Jonathan Luk

Jonathan Luk receives American Mathematical Society award

Portrait of Jeff Wine

Jeff Wine receives honor from Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Portrait of Fang Liu holding a 3D model of the Moire Lattice

Light causes atomic layers to do the twist

Portrait of Surya Ganguli

Surya Ganguli named AI2050 Senior Fellow

Portrait of Judith Frydman

Judith Frydman awarded European Research Council Synergy Grant

Portrait of Christopher Barnes

Christopher O. Barnes named HHMI Freeman Hrabowski Scholar

Collage of book cover and Ravi Vakil.

The Rising Sea by Ravi Vakil, Mathematics

Photo of Brian Lantz

Brian Lantz named American Physical Society Fellow

Portrait of Bianxiao Cui in Stanford arcades

Bianxiao Cui receives NIH High-Risk, High-Reward grant

A snow leopard crouches on a rocky mountainside

Snow leopards’ low genetic diversity puts future at risk

Unraveling the mystery of Jackson Pollock’s blue

Student stands in front of the interactive screen in the Rumsey Map Center

New undergraduate study options combine data science with humanities and arts

Portrait of Philip Bucksbaum

Philip Bucksbaum receives NSF/UKRI quantum chemistry award

A close-up photograph of a fruit fly resting on a green stem

Classic recessive-or-dominant gene dynamics may not be so simple

Portrait of Richard Schoen

Richard Schoen wins World Laureates Association Prize

Biology students explore hot-button science topics in the news

Neural networks and artificial intelligence conceptual abstract background.

Three reasons why universities are crucial for understanding AI

A collage of three California poppies

Plant samples preserved in museums may hold key to greener future

Study pinpoints key mechanism of brain aging

Healthy carbohydrates across a table from unhealthy, processed foods

Energy supplied by gut microbiome depends on diet

Illustration of red cancer cells in a blue background

Novel cancer-killing mechanism opens path to new treatments

Portrait of Mark Schnitzer

New tech for imaging brain waves could advance disease research, AI

A student lifts a rock in a tide pool to see what is beneath

Oceanic humanities project envisions new wave in education

Illustration of the neural network inside a brain

Foundational research on brain development may help prevent degeneration

A view of gamma ray radiation present in the Milky Way

Stanford-led team shares honor for ‘revolutionizing’ the study of the universe’s high-energy phenomena

Peter Michelson receives European Physical Society award

Decline in apex scavengers raises human disease risk

Picture of the side gate of Stanford's Main Quad with no people

Seven faculty members awarded 2024-25 H&S dean's teaching awards

Collage of Noah A. Rosenberg and the cover of his Mathematical Properties book

Mathematical Properties of Population-Genetic Statistics by Noah A. Rosenberg, Biology

Photo collage of Susan Clark and Grant Rotskoff.

Susan Clark, Grant Rotskoff win NSF CAREER awards

Illustration of microbes inside an intestine

Gut physics provides insights on your insides

Collage of Jeongwan Haah, Si Ying Lee, and Lauren Tompkins

Stanford researchers honored with 2025 Breakthrough prizes

A young woman holds out her arm for a gloved medical professional to swab it for a sweat test.

Course offers personal perspectives on cystic fibrosis

Illustration of a human heart

Researchers identify gene linked to development of a critical coronary artery

Collage of the 2025 cohort of Stanford Science Fellows on a green background

Stanford Science Fellows 2025 cohort is largest ever

Portrait of Gretchen Daily

Gretchen Daily named American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow

An ocean wave crashes against a rock

‘Microlightning’ in water droplets may have sparked life on Earth

A black frog with yellow and blue patterning

Meet the frogs helping scientists answer fundamental questions in neuroscience and physiology

Illustration of the COVID-19 virus

New antibodies show potential to neutralize virus that causes COVID-19

Life science researcher Peter Nilsson adjusts one of the new confocal microscopes in the imaging center at Hopkins Marine Station. An image of a juvenile sea star (Patiria miniata) is displayed on the screen behind him.

High-tech imaging center opens at Hopkins Marine Station

Trithep Devakul named 2025 Sloan Research Fellow

Portrait of Barnabas Daru

Barnabas Daru named 2025 Sloan Research Fellow

Kabir Peay elected to the American Academy of Microbiology

Image of Leonard Susskind

Leonard Susskind wins 2025 Galileo Medal

Photo of Harold Hwang wearing a dark blazer over a light-blue collared shirt

Stanford physicist aims to create materials for next-generation superconductors

Photo of Steven Block

Steven Block wins 2025 Benjamin Franklin Medal

Researchers Johannes Scharwies and José Dinneny stand in front of corn plants grown to study root responses to moisture at the Stanford Greenhouse Facility.

New study could lead to development of more drought-resistant corn

Four H&S scientists named 2025 PECASE winners

Photo of Peter Sturrock

Peter Sturrock, influential applied physics professor, has died

Image of Liqun Luo

Liqun Luo wins National Academy of Sciences neuroscience award

A female and a male scientist wearing gloves, safety glasses, and blue lab coats work with large pipettes at a lab table

Double duty: Powerful anticancer compound might also be the key to eradicating HIV

Collage of Vedika Khemani and Arun Chandrasekhar

Early-career Stanford researchers honored for their cutting-edge studies in physics and social economics

Image of Susan Clark

Susan Clark receives American Astronomical Society prize

Portrait of Benjamin Good

Benjamin Good receives inaugural biological physics prize

Photo of Richard Zare in a yellow-button down shirt and yellow tie

New device produces critical fertilizer ingredient from thin air, cutting carbon emissions

Portrait of Steven Chu

Steven Chu receives inaugural lifetime achievement award

Fractional Chern insulator visualization

Exotic quantum state of matter visualized for the first time

A mosaic of the images of 378 satellites across 101 Milky Way-like systems that the SAGA team has surveyed. The satellite images are sorted by their luminosity from left to right.

The Milky Way represents an outlier among similar galaxies, universe survey data shows

Portrait of Marcus Feldman

Q&A: Marcus Feldman on evolving evolution

Vedika Khemani wins 2024 Infosys Prize in Physical Sciences

Russell Poldrack

Russell Poldrack receives 2024 KFJ Award

Photo of Jeongwan Haah

Jeongwan Haah receives 2025 Quantum Computing Award

Photo of Steve Kivelson

Steven Kivelson receives 2025 American Physical Society prize

Collage of Risa Wechsler and Susan Clark

Risa Wechsler and Susan Clark and KIPAC team awarded $5M to study the Milky Way

Photo of Jorge Ramos

Jorge Ramos named California Academy of Sciences fellow

Portrait of Marcus Feldman with cover of Evolution Evolving

Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity by Marcus Feldman, Biology

Image of Steven Chu

Steven Chu elected inaugural fellow of Asian American Academy of Science and Engineering

Photo of John I. Brauman

John I. Brauman, award-winning chemist known for his warmth, humor and generosity, dies at 86

Photo of Memorial Court

H&S welcomes 19 new faculty members

Portrait of Christopher Barnes

Christopher O. Barnes receives Biophysical Society early career award

Can captive tigers be part of the effort to save wild populations?

Image of hand on top of alarm clock

Sleep experts share strategies to minimize jet lag’s effects on college athlete performance and health

Mosaic scrub savanna woodland on the highlands of Chappal Hendu in Gashaka Gumti-National Park in West Africa.

Study uncovers unique patterns of native vascular plant diversity

Tony Heinz receives national award from the American Chemical Society

Image of Monika Schleier-Smith

Monika Schleier-Smith named 2024 Moore Foundation Experimental Physics Investigator

Kristy Red-Horse on finding a place to shine

Illustration showing the chemical structure of the peptide oxytocin

New mass spectrometry method could advance multiple fields

Marcus Feldman receives lifetime achievement award from the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution

Image of Steven Chu

Steven Chu awarded 2024 AIP Karl Compton Medal

Image of Grant Rotskoff

Grant Rotskoff wins 2024 Scialog Collaborative Innovation Award

A ‘liquid battery’ advance

Image of Paul Wender

Paul Wender wins Royal Society of Chemistry prize

Statistician Dennis Sun stands in front of sandstone pillars and wall

The versatility of statistics and data science across majors

Andrei Linde awarded 2024 Isaac Pomeranchuk Prize

Image of Renata Kallosh

Renata Kallosh to receive 2024 Oskar Klein medal

Headshots of seven people

Seven faculty members awarded 2023-24 H&S dean's teaching awards

A new way to see viruses in action

Image of UFM1 E3 ligase

Enzyme discovery helps unravel decades-old ribosome mystery

Ben Feldman and Ben Foutty

A ‘magic’ angle between layers in a stacked nanoscale system offers intriguing material properties

Stanford faculty named AAAS Fellows

How low humidity could be a boon for viruses

Image of Steven Boxer

Steven Boxer receives 2024 Ellis R. Lippincott Award

Yakov Eliashberg stands near the entrance to Stanford University

Yakov Eliashberg receives 2024 Frontiers of Knowledge Award

Low-power, high-precision measurement tool could boost tech

Patient mindset training helps care teams

Learning from children’s drawings

Rodolfo Dirzo stands in a field site in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Rodolfo Dirzo receives 2024 Frontiers of Knowledge Award

Biodiversity crisis in protected forests

Earthworm invasion

Researchers take new ‘mixed reality’ headsets for a spin

Images of Giorgio Gratta and Jason Hogan

Two Stanford physicists win grants for ‘tabletop’ experiments with big implications

Photo of Martha Cyert wearing a light-blue sweater

Martha Cyert named a fellow of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Series of eight frames showing microscope images of cells growing bigger

Stanford study reveals mechanisms behind how growing cells maintain their mojo by scaling up biosynthesis

Small yellow fish with gray markings and a sword-like extension of its tail fin

New study reveals genes that ‘don’t play well together’ in swordtail fish hybrids, driving the development of distinct species

A photo of a group of books

2023: A year of books written by H&S faculty

Photo of Deborah M. Gordon wearing a blue blouse and smiling slightly and an image of her book The Ecology of Collective Behavior

The Ecology of Collective Behavior by Deborah M. Gordon, Biology

Image of a wooden chess board

Study reveals how cultural factors influence chess move choice

How mice choose to eat or to drink

Photo of the span of sandstone arches that constitute the arcade in front of Building 1 facing Stanford's Main Quad

H&S welcomes 21 new faculty members

Photo of the three co-creators of the medical humanities minor: Tanya Luhrmann wearing glasses and a blue blouse; Audrey Shafer wearing glasses and a black blazer over a dark purple shirt; and Lara Wittman wearing a black blouse with a pink silk scarf draped over her shoulders

Stanford introduces medical humanities minor

Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will by Robert M. Sapolsky, Biology

Study reveals location of starfish’s head

Photo of Surya Ganguli wearing a light-blue collared shirt

Surya Ganguli named to 2023 Schmidt Science Polymaths Program cohort

Photo of Harold Hwang wearing a dark blazer over a light-blue collared shirt

Physicist Harold Hwang wins McGroddy Prize for New Materials

Steven Boxer wearing a blue polo shirt, Zhe Ji wearing a black collared shirt and a tan tie, and Chu Zheng wearing glasses and a navy-blue collared shirt.

Stanford study shows how modifying enzymes’ electric fields boosts their speed

An artistic representation of how measurements can fundamentally change the structure of quantum information in space-time. In this illustration, rectangles represent qubits in a quantum system where the colors purple, orange, turquoise, and dark blue with glowing lines and half-dial symbols represent quantum information phases and various quantum properties.

Quantum measurements induce new phases of entanglement

Kristy Red-Horse wearing a light-blue blouse and standing with arms crossed under one of the arcades along Stanford's Main Quad

Kristy Red-Horse elected to the National Academy of Medicine

Headshots of Brian Conrad and Rafe Mazzeo. Conrad is in front of a blackboard with math figures on it. Mazzeo is front of the sandstone columns along Stanford's Main Quad.

Q&A: Math faculty discuss restructuring intro courses and supporting student success

Steven Banik wearing a gray collared shirt and standing in Stanford's Main Quad

Steven Banik named 2023 Moore Inventor Fellow

Hemamala Karunadasa wearing a navy-blue blouse with a white geometric pattern and Kurt Lindquist wearing a button-down purple plaid shirt

Striking rare gold: Stanford researchers unveil new material infused with gold in an exotic chemical state

Tadashi Fukami wearing a light-blue collard shirt standing under the arcades along Stanford's Main Quad

Biologist Tadashi Fukami named new faculty director of Jasper Ridge

Human-driven mass extinction is eliminating entire genera

Farming for food and biodiversity

Physicists Stephen Shenker with white hair and wearing glasses and a polo shirt and Leonard Susskind with a short white beard, wearing a crew-neck blue shirt and standing in front of a blackboard full of equations

Stephen Shenker and Leonard Susskind awarded 2023 Dirac Medal

Image of Roger Blandford in his office.

Stanford-led collaboration to explore electrodynamics of neutron stars and black holes receives $8M in funding from Simons Foundation

Study finds silica particles chemically react

Bioengineered tool unmasks cancer cells

Tze Leung Lai wearing a light-blue collared shirt, royal blue and red tie, and dark coat standing under one of the arcades along Stanford University's Main Quad

Tze Leung Lai, professor of statistics with an interdisciplinary approach, dies at 77

New genealogy method helps fill gaps in African American ancestry

Persi Diaconis wearing a gray collared shirt next to the cover of his book The Mathematics of Shuffling Cards, which is green with 5 playing cards in the spade suit fanned across the middle

The Mathematics of Shuffling Cards co-authored by Persi Diaconis, Statistics and Mathematics