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Penn Engineering students contribute design to futuristic Hyperloop transport
A team of students traveled from the School of Engineering and Applied Science to Texas A&M University to pitch their designs for the Hyperloop, a science-fiction inflected transportation concept that is the brainchild of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a Penn alumnus.
Y-Prize winners want to speed up beer brewing
Drinks are on them: Alexander David, Shashwata Narain, and Siddharth Shah, students in the Wharton School and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, have won the 2016 Y-Prize Competition with a plan to speed up the fermentation stage of beer brewing by three tim
Penn Team Devises Easier Way to Make ‘Bijels,’ a Complex New Form of Liquid Matter
Oil and water famously don't mix, but finely dispersing one in the other produces a liquid mixture with many useful properties. An emulsion consisting of tiny droplets of one of those liquids immersed in the other is the most common form, found in everything from salad dressings, to cosmetics to industrial lubricants.
Penn Science/Lightbulb cafés begin anew for spring semester
Penn’s Science and Lightbulb cafés, where faculty members and the general public get together on Tuesday evenings for spirited discussions about the latest topics in academic research, are returning for the spring semester.
Penn study determines breakaway protein is critical in concussions
Even the mildest form of a traumatic brain injury, better known as a concussion, can cause permanent, irreparable damage. Now, an interdisciplinary team of Penn researchers is improving their mathematical model of how this injury happens on the molecular scale.
Penn Computer Scientists Join NSF ‘DeepSpec’ Expedition to Eliminate Software Bugs
The transformative power of computer software is everywhere, from the smartphone apps that connect the world to the laptop programs that simplify daily tasks at work and home to the software hidden inside physical objects like automobiles and pacemakers that is crucial for their safe operation.
Penn Researchers Use Network Science to Help Pinpoint Source of Seizures
For the third of all epilepsy patients who don’t respond to medication, an alternative is to locate the small cluster of neurons that act as the seed of a seizure’s aberrant electrical activity and surgically remove it. Unfortunately, such surgeries often fail to bring any relief.
Thinner than paper, but super tough
Nanotechnology research aims to unlock the secrets of matter on the atomic scale, where materials can behave much differently than they do in everyday life, becoming stronger despite weighing next to nothing. The trick is enabling these small wonders to interact with macro-scale objects while maintaining those special traits.
Eye-on-a-Chip Represents New Way To Do Disease Research
A clump of cells in a Petri dish may have the same DNA as their counterparts in the body, but most of the similarities end there.
Penn Researchers Make Thinnest Plates That Can Be Picked Up by Hand
Scientists and engineers are engaged in a global race to make new materials that are as thin, light and strong as possible. These properties can be achieved by designing materials at the atomic level, but they are only useful if they can leave the carefully controlled conditions of a lab.