Better crystals of the atomic kind.
Nanocrystals—teensy structures sometimes made of just a few atoms—are the nanoscopic engines powering our world. They’re in computer and smartphone transistors, COVID and pregnancy test sensors, and car exhaust pipes, serving as catalysts to improve chemical reactions. Now, researchers led by associate professor of chemical engineering Matteo Cargnello have discovered a way to build a better, cheaper nanocrystal that could help make clean hydrogen energy viable. Rather than using a single, expensive metal—ruthenium—researchers blended it with four relatively affordable and abundant metals: iron, cobalt, nickel, and copper. The five metals self-organized into uniform, onion-like layers. The result is not only cheaper but four times more powerful, and less likely to degrade at extreme temperatures, than ruthenium-only crystals. The discovery could be especially useful for ammonia decomposition, a key to making hydrogen energy viable. “If we see the same promising results that we’ve been observing in the lab, there is the potential for these materials to be translated directly into industrial application,” said Cargnello.
Not pumped.
Due to fracking and horizontal drilling, the United States is now one of the world’s largest oil exporters, so why are disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz still sending prices soaring? Professor of economics Neale Mahoney, MA ’11, PhD ’11, explains: Oil is priced on a global market, meaning the price of crude in Texas tracks closely with that in Saudi Arabia, regardless of U.S. production. U.S. oil producers have increased exports to fill gaps elsewhere, with benefits flowing to oil companies and producing states—not drivers on their morning commutes. Additionally, oil prices tend to rise like a rocket and fall like a feather. When prices climb, consumers shop around, forcing stations to compete. When prices fall, consumers pay less attention and stations feel less pressure to lower prices. Even when the Strait of Hormuz reopens, Mahoney cautioned, it will take time for oil fields, refineries, and export facilities to come back online and for global oil inventories to be rebuilt. “It may take a number of months once the Strait reopens before gas prices come close to where they were before the war,” he said.
That superstar glow.
Photo: Chuck Painter/Stanford News Service
K-pop royalty BTS played three sold-out shows at Stanford Stadium last week complete with pyrotechnics, a rotating stage, and 150,000 shrieking fans. (You can live the BTS experience vicariously with Sofía Islas, ’28, who wrote a Stanford application essay about the band.) The spring spectacle may have been pure 2026, but Stanford is no stranger to musical legends. Past Farm performers include everyone from Louis Armstrong, shown above in 1965, to the Grateful Dead to Doechii.
Student achievement scores.
Student achievement took a nosedive during the pandemic, but the “learning recession” actually began in 2013, according to a new report co-authored by Stanford researchers. This long-term decline challenges the notion that a return to 2019 pre-pandemic performance levels should be the goal. From the early 1990s to 2013, public elementary and middle school students saw substantial improvements in reading and math skills. Then, the report says, came two key agents of educational erosion: the adoption of social media by young people and the widespread dismantling of test-based accountability systems from the No Child Left Behind era.
Recovery since 2022 has been uneven and has followed a “U-shaped” pattern: The wealthiest and poorest districts are making a comeback while middle-income communities (which lack both targeted federal aid and hefty private resources) lag behind. Still, there is reason to hope. The report identifies 108 “Districts on the Rise”—school systems of all income levels that are outpacing their peers. “Our hope is that people will learn from these states and districts and use them as models for improving our schools,” said Sean Reardon, a professor in the Graduate School of Education and a lead author of the report.
But wait, there’s more…
Five things to know about the Ebola outbreak, including what a global response would require.
On Friday, Kevin Warsh, ’92, was sworn in as the 17th chair of the Federal Reserve.
Jason Collins, ’01, the first openly gay player in any of the four traditional major American men’s sports leagues, has died at 47 of glioblastoma.
In May of 1963, freshman Lowell Wilson ran into a sand-filled dummy during football practice and became paralyzed from the neck down. When he died the following year, he became—and remains—the only Stanford student-athlete to die as a result of an accident on the playing field.
Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are exploding in popularity, but former SEC commissioner and professor emeritus of law Joseph Grundfest, JD ’77, says they’ve led to high-profile instances of insider trading and leaks related to national security events, with little consensus on how to regulate them.
A family in San Luis Obispo, Calif., went through old documents and unearthed a 128-year-old speech commemorating the life of Leland Stanford.
Your Apple Watch knows your step count, but does it know you? A Stanford Medicine app called My Heart Counts uses decades of behavioral research and AI to tailor fitness reminders based on a user’s habits and motivation.
Who owns R2-D2? How sound is Han Solo’s self-defense claim? On May 4, Law School faculty covered these and other urgent galactic legal questions in the mini master class The Law of Star Wars.
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