Science & Technology

In a South Carolina swamp, researchers uncover secrets of firefly synchrony

Daniel William Strain — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:25:15 +0000

In a South Carolina swamp, researchers uncover secrets of firefly synchrony Daniel William… Thu, 03/12/2026 - 09:25

Daniel Strain

Fireflies twinkle against a backdrop of stars in Congaree National Park. (Credit: Nolan Bonnie)

In the middle of the old-growth forests of Congaree National Park in South Carolina, fireflies put on an other-worldly display every May. Thousands of male insects belonging to the species Photuris frontalis flash together at the same time and follow the exact same pattern—a synchronous light show you can see only in few places in the United States.

Scientists and nature lovers have long been fascinated by how such simple insects can work together in perfect harmony.

Owen Martin hunts for fireflies in Congaree using a red light. (Credit: Owen Martin)

In a new study, engineers from 91��ý have uncovered the mathematical rules fireflies follow to sync up their flashes.

The team’s findings could one day lead to new designs for robots that move in swarms and could help scientists better understand other examples of synchrony in biology—such as neurons firing at the same time in the brain, or cells syncing to the body’s internal clock, also known as circadian rhythm.

“It’s magical,” said Orit Peleg, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and the BioFrontiers Institute at 91��ý. “At certain times of night, fireflies have a single rhythm for the entire group, and they’re very punctual.”

Peleg will present the team’s results Monday, March 16 at the American Physical Society’s 2026 Global Physics Summit in Denver. The researchers published their findings online ahead of peer review.

In the study, the researchers exposed individual male fireflies to a dim LED light—almost like an artificial version of a firefly.

If that light blinked faster than the males, the insects tended to speed up their flashing. If the light blinked slowly, the insects slowed down.

Think of it like an audience member in a crowded concert hall who is trying to join others clapping along to the beat.

“This research opens the door to discovering other examples of synchronization in nature that we haven’t seen yet,” said Owen Martin, the lead author of the research who earned his doctorate in computer science from 91��ý in 2025.

Long-exposure photo of a firefly swarm in Congaree. (Credit: Nolan Bonnie)

Old patterns

The graduate student spent several summers at Congaree over the course of the experiment.

It’s a swampy area where cypress and tupelo trees hundreds of years old tower over the landscape. Martin remembers spending nights watching the twinkling light from fireflies reflect on the water of the park’s Cedar Creek.

Firefly flashes while resting on vegetation. (Credit: Nolan Bonnie)

“It makes me think of what that part of the Earth was like before people were there,” he said. “There is this strong sensation that everything is old.”

To study those ancient rhythms, Martin and Peleg set up a unique experiment: The team gently captured male fireflies one-by-one, then brought them into a tent that was completely shaded from all outside light.

Martin then sat in the pitch black and shined the LED at the males.

He explained that, under natural circumstances, fireflies tend to flash about once or twice every second. The group set its own LED to blink anywhere between once every second to once every 300 milliseconds.

The fireflies kept the beat.

In particular, the insects were most likely to change their own rhythm when the LED blinked almost at the same time as the fireflies, but just a hair off. If the LED blinked right before the firefly, the male often rushed its next flash to catch up to the light. If the LED blinked right after, the firefly waited a little longer to make its next flash.

If the LED was way off from the fireflies’ natural behavior, in contrast, they usually ignored it.

“For a whole season, I spent pretty much every night in the dark watching lights blink at a fixed frequency,” Martin said. “Then, occasionally, I’d get this magical experience where I’d see the firefly just start syncing with the light. I would wonder if I was just seeing things.”

Insect science at APS

Check out these talks from the Peleg lab at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit:

On demand: Model-Based Analysis of Honeybee Communication during Aggregation and Food Distribution

Monday (10:30-11 a.m.): Where Physics Meets Behavior in Animal Groups

Tuesday (4:54-5:06 p.m.): Type-II phase response dynamics facilitate synchronization in Photuris frontalis fireflies

Wednesday (1-1:12 p.m.): The structure of a honeybee swarm

Thursday (12:36-12:48 p.m.): Individual contributions to collective intelligence: spontaneous role specialization in synchronous fireflies

Swarming robots

He wasn’t. Drawing on their observations, Martin and Peleg developed what mathematicians call a “phase-response curve” for the firefly flashes—essentially, a formula that describes how an outside light source drives fireflies to change their own flashing patterns.

The researchers noted that the team still has a lot of work to do to understand Congaree’s magical fireflies.

For a start, males in the wild rarely just see a single other source of light as they did in the team’s experiments. Instead, they’re usually in groups of dozens or more fireflies, all blinking at the same time.

Engineers can also learn a lot from what fireflies do in the wild. Study co-author Kaushik Jayaram, an engineer at Imperial College London, noted that future drones could communicate using visual signals, similar to fireflies.

“Peer-peer optical communication can be lower power and more secure, resulting more efficient swarming and robust aggregations despite requiring line-of-sight, adding a complementary capability to today’s miniature SWAP-constrained drones which largely rely on radio frequency-based approaches,” Jayaram said.

Peleg added that she envisions a future in which fleets of tiny robots work together to complete tasks without any central command.

“If you’re trying to get a lot of robots to push a large object, and they’re pushing at different times, then they’re going to struggle,” she said. “But if they’re all pushing at the same time, they’ll be a lot more successful.”

A new study shows how fireflies speed up or slow down their flashing to sync up with other insects, creating a beautiful and other-wordly light show.

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New 'vacuum ultraviolet' laser may improve nanotechnology, power nuclear clocks

Daniel William Strain — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 20:03:44 +0000

New 'vacuum ultraviolet' laser may improve nanotechnology, power nuclear clocks Daniel William… Wed, 03/11/2026 - 14:03

Daniel Strain

Physicists at 91��ý have demonstrated a new kind of vacuum ultraviolet laser that is 100 to 1,000 times more efficient than existing technologies of its kind.

The researchers say the device could one day allow scientists to observe phenomena currently out of reach for even the most powerful microscopes—such as following fuel molecules in real time as they undergo combustion, spotting incredibly small defects in nanoelectronics and more.

The new laser might also allow for practical, ultraprecise nuclear clocks that rely on an energy transition in the nuclei of thorium atoms. These long sought-after devices could, theoretically, allow researchers to robustly track time with unprecedented precision.

Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn in their lab on campus. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/91��ý)

Graphic of the electromagnetic spectrum and how the wavelengths of various forms of radiation line up with common objects (CC image via Wikimedia Commons)

A specially designed chamber that converts visible light into vacuum ultraviolet light in a new laser. (Credit: Kapteyn-Murnane Group)

The group is led by physicists Henry Kapteyn and Margaret Murnane, fellows of JILA, a joint research institute between 91��ý and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Jeremy Thurston, who earned his doctorate in physics from 91��ý in 2024, spearheaded work on the new laser.

“Scientists have been working toward vacuum ultraviolet lasers for decades,” said Kapteyn, a professor in the Department of Physics. “We think we might have finally found a great route that can be scaled in power, and that is compact in size—two essential requirements for challenging applications.”

The team will present its preliminary findings in sessions on March 17 and March 19 at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit in Denver.

All light comes in very small waves, not unlike the peaks and troughs in the ocean close to shore. The waves in visible light, for example, measure roughly 380 to 750 nanometers from crest to crest. That’s equal to several millionths of an inch.

Scientists have long strived to make better lasers that push those wavelengths shorter and shorter.

For decades, however, scientists have struggled to design lasers that shoot out bright beams of light in a region of the spectrum known as the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV)—where wavelengths reach about 100 to 200 nanometers across, many times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Murnane and Kapteyn’s laser is small enough to fit on top of an ordinary desk, and the researchers hope to make it even smaller and more efficient.

“Shorter wavelengths matter because you can use them to make higher resolution microscopes,” said Murnane, a distinguished professor of physics. “If a chemical reaction is happening, you can see what molecules are there—to see, for example, how they ablate the tiles on a space capsule as it reenters the atmosphere.”

Going deep

Murnane, Kapteyn and their students are no stranger to powerful lasers.

The researchers and their colleagues previously pioneered the design of tabletop X-ray lasers. These machines emit beams of light that oscillate more than a billion billion times per second.

Laser scientists, however, haven’t had much luck breaking into the vacuum ultraviolet, a region in between X-rays and visible light. All kinds of matter, from solids to atoms and organic molecules, interact strongly with vacuum ultraviolet light.

“Basically, everything absorbs light at this range, which is why vacuum ultraviolet is so interesting and why it’s so difficult to engineer,” Kapteyn said.

To get around those challenges, Kapteyn and Murnane’s group started with ordinary beams of red and blue laser light.

The team combined those beams in a special kind of chamber called an “anti-resonant hollow core fiber.”

The fiber is a bit like the fiberoptic cables that move internet data to and from your house. This chamber, however, is made of a single hollow tube circled by seven smaller tubes. (The researchers compare it to the barrel of a revolver).

Laser light passes through the central tube, and, in the process, slams into atoms of xenon gas. Those atoms absorb the light and spit it back out, transforming the visible light into vacuum ultraviolet light.

“To our knowledge, no other approach, either at big or small facilities, has the VUV power levels, tuning ranges and coherence that our new approach has shown,” Murnane said.

That could come in handy. Murnane added that many technologies today are increasingly depending on nanoelectronics, or incredibly small devices. They include the semiconductors in the computer chips in your phone, laptop and more.

The team’s laser could help engineers optimize these devices—spotting tiny defects, for example, that could make them less efficient.

Laser science at APS

Check out these talks from the Kapteyn-Murnane group at American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit:

Monday (9:36-9:48 a.m.): Three-dimensional Visualization of Skyrmion Lattice Texture with Soft X-ray Vector Ptycho-Tomography

Tuesday (10:24-10:36 a.m.): Bright VUV frequency combs for a thorium nuclear clock

Wednesday (8:36-9:12 a.m.): Coherent Diffraction Imaging and Scattering using Tabletop High Harmonic Sources

Wednesday (1:48-2 p.m.): Modeling EUV time domain Brillouin scattering in VO₂ using rigorous coupled wave analysis

Thursday (5:48-6:24 p.m.): Kavli Invited Talk: Building the Quantum Microscopes of the Future: From Star Wars to Quantum Sculpting

Ticking clocks

In their presentation, the researchers will also highlight how that approach could also make robust and portable nuclear-referenced atomic clocks a reality.

Murnane explained that if you hit a cloud of thorium atoms with the laser tuned to just the right wavelength, the atoms will begin to fluctuate in energy—much like flicking the pendulum in a grandfather clock will get it swinging.

Scientists could track that kind of ticking to help people navigate the globe and through space without GPS, or even to search for planets beyond Earth’s solar system.

In a separate effort, researchers led by physicist Jun Ye at JILA and NIST have made major strides in developing such a clock.

Murnane added that thorium atoms “tick” only when exposed to light with a wavelength of exactly 148.3821 nanometers—within the realm of vacuum ultraviolet light.

Currently, scientists generate that light using lasers that often take up entire rooms. Murnane and Kapteyn think they can achieve the exact same feat using their new laser, which would be cheaper and easier to deploy.

The team still has a lot of work to do. The researchers are experimenting with ways to make their vacuum ultraviolet laser many times smaller without making it less efficient—an engineering challenge.

“There are a lot of applications that we would like to use VUV light for, but there haven’t been any lasers that were practical,” Murnane said. “Now, there’s a huge block of the spectrum that’s being opened up where light is super sensitive to exquisite details of atoms, molecules and materials.”

A new kind of laser could pave the way for practical nuclear clocks—devices that measure time with incredible precision by measuring the "ticking" of thorium atoms.

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Scientists harness AI to reveal forces behind glacier surges

Megan M Rogers — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 17:17:02 +0000

Scientists harness AI to reveal forces behind glacier surges Megan M Rogers Fri, 03/06/2026 - 10:17

Glaciers are constantly changing and reshaping the Earth's surface. 91��ý researchers have developed a new machine-learning tool to better understand how Arctic glaciers suddenly surge.

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Startup brings cancer care technology to Lab Venture Challenge

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 21:54:01 +0000

Startup brings cancer care technology to Lab Venture Challenge Megan M Rogers Thu, 02/26/2026 - 14:54

Doctoral student William Frantz is developing microscopic droplets designed to help doctors track radiation therapy in real time. His pitch at the Lab Venture Challenge highlighted how the technology could make cancer treatment more precise and less harmful, particularly for pediatric patients.

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Exploring the ethics of AI: Can we use tools like ChatGPT consciously?

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 22:10:38 +0000

Exploring the ethics of AI: Can we use tools like ChatGPT consciously? Megan M Rogers Tue, 02/24/2026 - 15:10

As tech advancements speed up, how can we best incorporate AI tools at school and work? Read more from Nikolaus Klassen, a business analyst at Google, who teaches Applied AI Ethics at the ATLAS Institute.

As tech advancements speed up, how can we best incorporate AI tools at school and work? Get Nikolaus Klassen's take. He's a business analyst at Google, who teaches Applied AI Ethics at the ATLAS Institute.

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Researchers build ultra-efficient optical sensors shrinking light to a chip

Megan M Rogers — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 19:02:12 +0000

Researchers build ultra-efficient optical sensors shrinking light to a chip Megan M Rogers Mon, 02/23/2026 - 12:02

91��ý researchers have built high-performing optical micro-resonators, opening the door for new sensor technologies. In the future, the technology could be used for compact micro-lasers, advanced chemical and biological sensors and even tools for quantum metrology and networking.

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Researchers learn new lessons from old butterflies

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 13:12:33 +0000

Researchers learn new lessons from old butterflies Megan M Rogers Tue, 02/10/2026 - 06:12

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

Research co-authored by Megan Zabinski and M. Deane Bowers reveals how museum butterfly specimens, some almost a century old, can still offer insight into chemical defense of insects and plants.

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A 'generationally defining moment': 40 years later, NASA alum reflects on Challenger disaster

Amber Carlson — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 17:08:29 +0000

A 'generationally defining moment': 40 years later, NASA alum reflects on Challenger disaster Amber Carlson Mon, 01/26/2026 - 10:08

Amber Carlson

The Challenger space shuttle is transported to the launch pad in December 1985, about a month before the fateful launch. (Credit: NASA)

On Jan. 28, 1986, NASA’s Challenger space shuttle disintegrated 73 seconds after launching from the Kennedy Space Center. All seven crew members aboard, including 91��ý alumnus Ellison Onizuka (AeroEngr ’69), tragically lost their lives.

David Klaus, professor emeritus from 91��ý’s Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, started his career with NASA and was a shuttle launch control engineer at the time (although he did not work the Challenger mission).

91��ý Today spoke with Klaus about his memories of that day, the legacy of the crew and crucial lessons learned from the tragedy.

Where were you on the day of the Challenger incident?

NASA had plans to start launching Air Force payloads off the West Coast at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in July of 1986. I was training to be on the Vandenberg launch team, and I would have been on the Challenger launch console, but I had just gone out to California for some work out there. So I was at the Vandenberg launch site when the Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

We happened to be sitting in the launch control center at Vandenberg. We pretty much saw what everybody else watching TV saw, although we could hear the comms loops. We could hear what was going on.

When did you realize that something was wrong?

All I saw was that infamous image with the solid rocket boosters going off in two directions. I was pretty new in the game at that point, so I didn't have a lot of insight. But I was sort of in disbelief at first. You don't really comprehend what you're seeing. It just doesn't look right. Something looks wrong. Your brain’s trying to process what's going on. But we realized pretty quickly that this was a bad event.

What caused the shuttle to break apart?

The actual root cause of the failure was the O-rings (gaskets) that keep the propellant pressure contained inside the two rockets. It was really cold in Florida that day, and my understanding is that the cold weather made the seals brittle. Because they were brittle, they allowed gas pressure to escape, and the escaping gas pressure is ultimately what caused the destruction of the vehicle.

The Challenger crew members are pictured in November 1985, about two months before the tragedy. Back row, from left: Ellison Onizuka, Sharon McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis and Judy Resnik. Front row, from left: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee and Ron McNair. (Credit: NASA)

What lessons were learned from the Challenger?

For every NASA mission, when something goes wrong or is unexpected, it gets documented as ‘lessons learned’, and you work to make sure it doesn't happen again. You either change operational requirements, or you change the design, or both.

After the Challenger accident, for example, NASA has had tighter weather criteria for launch. And they added heater strips around the O-ring joints on later flights as part of a redesign. So both operational and design changes were made.

It's a high-risk endeavor to start with, putting people into space. And I think it became very apparent at that point. The Challenger was the first in-flight fatal accident that had occurred in NASA's history. In the space domain, there are a lot of unknown unknowns, and those are the ones that can cause the biggest problem. But once they happen, they're not unknown anymore, and now you've got something you can design toward.

How do you view the legacy of the Challenger crew?

The Challenger incident was one of those generationally defining moments. It was a reminder that life is risky. If you're pushing the envelope, you accept the risks, and you do the best you can to mitigate those risks. But you can't ever make them go away. So the crew’s legacy was maybe a heightened awareness of the risk of space flight, but also the importance of continuing to go to space even when catastrophic events do occur.

Looking back 40 years later, what stands out the most about the Challenger?

The technical lessons learned made me start thinking more about risk analysis. It's one thing to design a vehicle that can meet all the needs and do the job, but once you get to that point in the design process, you now go back and start looking at it and saying, ‘What can go wrong? What happens if it goes wrong, and what can we do about it if it does go wrong?’

The human aspect, of course, goes without saying. These were some pretty outstanding individuals, and their lives were tragically cut short. But on the other hand, I don't think they would have stepped aside. Everyone understood that there was risk. The degree of risk might have been debatable, but anytime you're launching people into space—anytime you're walking across the street, for that matter—there's a degree of risk that you accept in your life to do what you want to do.

David Klaus

If you were speaking to young engineers now, what would you want them to understand?

When you're the one designing the rockets or the habitats or any of the infrastructure, pay attention to the details. Don't take shortcuts. Try to think beyond just ‘Here's an answer that's good enough.’

Consider risk analysis from the very beginning of the design. Think about all the things that can go wrong and try to design something that is what we call either fault tolerant or redundant. So, if something breaks, can the system continue working? Or do you have another way that you can provide that function in place of the thing that broke?

Think about what needs to be done and break it down into the functions that have to be accomplished to make that happen. Then brainstorm different ideas—not just one solution, but as many as you can come up with. And then work to find an optimal balance of risk and complexity from that process.

91��ý Today regularly publishes Q&As on news topics through the lens of scholarly expertise and research/creative work. The responses here reflect the knowledge and interpretations of the expert and should not be considered the university position on the issue. All publication content is subject to edits for clarity, brevity and university style guidelines.

A former NASA engineer and retired aerospace engineering professor reflects on lessons learned from the space shuttle tragedy.

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91��ý joins Medtronic in strategic partnership to drive breakthrough health innovations

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 21:06:29 +0000

91��ý joins Medtronic in strategic partnership to drive breakthrough health innovations Megan M Rogers Thu, 01/22/2026 - 14:06

The University of Colorado (CU) and Medtronic, a global leader in health care technology, have entered into a strategic research agreement to accelerate the development of transformative health technologies. CU was selected from a nationwide search for its strength in advancing disruptive innovation.

“This is an incredible collaboration across the breakthrough innovation ecosystem at 91��ý, clinical excellence at CU Anschutz, and enhancements in patient care delivered by Medtronic,” said Bryn Rees, associate vice chancellor for innovation and partnerships at 91��ý. “We are excited to contribute to improving health care through this university-industry alliance."

The long-term partnership will focus on artificial intelligence, robotics and sustainability, aiming to move technologies from lab to bedside faster and deliver real benefits to patients worldwide. The collaboration spans 91��ý, CU Anschutz and CU Denver, leveraging each campus’s unique expertise.

“Together, we will explore new frontiers critical to the future of health care,” said Jim Peichel, chief technology officer at Medtronic.

The alliance launched at a summit on the CU Anschutz campus, where priority research projects were identified. CU Anschutz brings deep clinical research capabilities, while 91��ý contributes cutting-edge innovation and entrepreneurial strength.

Learn more about 91��ý’s innovation initiatives.

91��ý and two other CU campuses have been chosen from a nationwide search to partner with Medtronic—a global leader in health care technology—in a strategic research agreement aimed at accelerating transformative health innovations.

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91��ý physicists automate plasma alignment for next-generation accelerators

Megan M Rogers — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 17:49:14 +0000

91��ý physicists automate plasma alignment for next-generation accelerators Megan M Rogers Fri, 01/16/2026 - 10:49

In a recent study, a team of physicists at 91��ý demonstrated the ability to align a laser-ionized plasma source with the electron beam in an ultra-precise and automated way, paving the way for future developments in making plasma wakefield accelerators a reality.

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Science & Technology

In a South Carolina swamp, researchers uncover secrets of firefly synchrony

Old patterns

Swarming robots

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A 'generationally defining moment': 40 years later, NASA alum reflects on Challenger disaster

Where were you on the day of the Challenger incident?

When did you realize that something was wrong?

What caused the shuttle to break apart?

What lessons were learned from the Challenger?

How do you view the legacy of the Challenger crew?

Looking back 40 years later, what stands out the most about the Challenger?

If you were speaking to young engineers now, what would you want them to understand?

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