Zachary Handlos, senior academic professional in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, explains how weather patterns can lead to conditions conducive to the types of wildfires currently seen in Florida and Georgia. 

This piece also appeared in The Washington Post and The Conversation.

Atlanta Journal Constitution

Researchers have long known that when two galaxies approach each other and merge, the supermassive black holes at their centers form a pair and are eventually expected to merge as well.  It is precisely these mergers that are considered one of the sources of the gravitational-wave background — a faint “hum” of spacetime detected in recent years. However, the role played by the geometry of the collision in this process has remained an open question. 

Graduate student Sena Ghobadi of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Physics, along with her colleagues, has developed three-dimensional dynamic models of such collisions. 

A similar story appeared in Sky & Telescope. 

Universe Magazine

Assistant Professor Benjamin Freeman and graduate student Shreyas Arashanapalli of the School of Biological Sciences detail their study on the use of birdsong for territorial defense. They highlight that male birds — and many female birds — sing and defend territories. Their examination uncovered that cooperative territorial defense is especially common in birds with long-term social bonds or that live close to the equator.

The Conversation

ATLANTA, GA / ACCESS Newswire / March 30, 2026 / Drawdown Georgia today announced the launch of the Drawdown Georgia Climate Outlook Maps, a new tool designed to help civic, business, and community leaders understand and visualize how Georgia's climate may change between now and 2050-and what those changes could mean for infrastructure, agriculture, public health, and economic development.

Yahoo Finance

In December, The Conversation hosted a webinar on AI’s revolutionary role in drug discovery and development. Science and technology editor Eric Smalley interviewed Jeffrey Skolnick, Regents' Professor and eminent scholar in computational systems biology at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Benjamin P. Brown, assistant professor of pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. Skolnick has developed AI-based approaches to predict protein structure and function that may help with drug discovery and finding off-label uses of existing drugs. Brown’s lab works on creating new computer models that make drug discovery faster and more reliable.

The Conversation

While it often gets written off as being distracted or not paying attention, daydreaming is actually a sign of an active and imaginative mind. In fact, a 2017 study found that daydreamers are generally smarter than their focused peers. “People with efficient brains may have too much brain capacity to stop their minds from wandering,” said Eric Schumacher, the Georgia Tech psychology professor who co-authored the study.

People who daydream frequently have things running through their heads, whether they are thinking through ideas or picturing possible outcomes. Letting the mind wander allows unexpected connections to form. To an outside observer, they may seem checked out of reality. However, other highly intellectual people know that they're truly deeply engaged, just not with what's going on right in front of them.

Your Tango

The successful launch of Artemis II has renewed interest in space exploration, and experts at Georgia Tech say the mission could inspire a new generation while advancing technologies that benefit life on Earth.

“The technologies we create, the money we spend on this, benefit life on earth,” said Jud Ready, executive director of Georgia Tech’s Space Research Institute, who oversees tens of millions of dollars of space research. […]Just like Apollo inspired a generation, the hope is that Artemis can as well. 

Students stopped by a series of telescopes set out by Georgia Tech’s Astronomy Club on Thursday morning, peering at the sun and asking questions.

Most were answered by Paul Sell, who directs Tech’s observatory. “The sun is very active,” he explained to one student. “It goes through 11-year cycles.”

Atlanta News First