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Rewriting the rules of lung repair
Andy vaughan in his lab.

Associate professor of biomedical sciences Andy Vaughan.

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Rewriting the rules of lung repair

Penn Vet’s Andrew Vaughan works to uncover why some lungs rebound and others have lasting damage, and how to change that.

Martin Hackett

2 min. read

Exploring the Declaration through ink and type
A hand preparing letterpress off a small paper with text.

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Exploring the Declaration through ink and type

A typesetting workshop at Penn’s Common Press invited participants to reinterpret lines from the Declaration of Independence as part of the Typography of Independence project and Penn’s America 250 programming.

3 min. read

Raindrop-formed ‘sandballs’ that erode hillsides tenfold
High-speed images of raindrops rolling on a sandy slope, forming peanut-shaped sandballs (top) and donut-shaped sandballs with hollow centers (bottom).

High-speed laboratory images capture two distinct “sandball” shapes formed when raindrops strike dry, sloped sand and roll downhill. (Top) Peanut-shaped sandballs, where grains coat the surface of a liquid core. (Bottom) Donut-shaped sandballs, which densify into rigid, wheel-like structures with a hollow center, enabling far more efficient sediment transport than splash erosion alone.

(Image: Daisuke Noto)

Raindrop-formed ‘sandballs’ that erode hillsides tenfold

Penn geophysicists and colleagues have uncovered Earth-sculpting processes that result from the formation of snowball-like aggregates they call “sandballs.” Their findings provide fundamental insights into erosion and will broaden scientific understandings of landscape change, soil loss, and agriculture.
An innovative AI tool to improve health care delivery in rural India
Fourth-year student Prithvi Parthasarathy standing with arms crossed in the Neural and Behavioral Sciences Building

Fourth-year neuroscience major Prithvi Parthasarathy is dedicated to innovating health care delivery.

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An innovative AI tool to improve health care delivery in rural India

Prithvi Parthasarathy, a fourth-year neuroscience major, designed an AI triage tool to improve hospital efficiency and patient care.

3 min. read

Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality
A person in bed taking earplugs out of a case.

Image: lisanna881 via Getty Images

Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality

Penn Medicine researchers find that earplugs work better in protecting sleep from traffic noise, challenging the widespread use of ambient sound machines and apps marketed as sleep aids.

Eric Horvath

2 min. read

Powering AI from space, at scale

Powering AI from space, at scale

A new design for solar-powered data centers reduces weight, power consumption, and overall complexity, making large-scale deployment more feasible.

Ian Scheffler

2 min. read

Understanding Japan’s snap elections
People walk in front of an election notice board displaying posters of candidates for the Lower House elections on the day of the election campaign kick-off on January 27, 2026 in Kobe, Japan.

Image: Buddhika Weerasinghe / Stringer via Getty Images

Understanding Japan’s snap elections

Perry World House Distinguished Visiting Fellow Mami Mizutori discusses the upcoming elections and their implications for Japanese policy and politics.

From Perry World House

2 min. read

How to incentivize problem solving in groups
Artist rendering of several people conected with string stretch their connections to the limit, testing the strength of unity.

Image: Flavio Coelho via Getty Images

How to incentivize problem solving in groups

Why do some groups get smarter together while others collapse into groupthink? New research from theoretical biologist Joshua Plotkin and collaborators show that collective intelligence doesn’t emerge by rewarding the most accurate individuals but by rewarding those who improve the group’s prediction as a whole.

3 min. read

New report unpacks the crises facing American journalism and offers solutions
A row of newspaper boxes, mostly empty.

Image: RiverNorthPhotography via Getty Images

New report unpacks the crises facing American journalism and offers solutions

A report co-authored by Annenberg School for Communication professor Victor Pickard traces the erosion of the free press in the United States over the past two decades.

From Annenberg School for Communication

2 min. read