On Wednesday, Oct.

By Madeleine Stone @themadstone

Thanks in part to an anonymous $250,000 gift, Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is opening the AddLab, a new facility that will feature a suite of state-of-the-art 3-D printing tools.

Thanks in part to an anonymous $250,000 gift, Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is opening the AddLab, a new facility that will feature a suite of state-of-the-art 3-D printing tools.

Evolution in extreme environments has produced life forms with amazing abilities and traits. Beneath the waves, many creatures sport iridescent structures that rival what materials scientists can make in the laboratory.

Charles Kane, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the University of Pennsylvania ’s School of Arts & Sciences, is one of this year’s Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates.

Earth’s atmosphere is a complicated dance of molecules. The chemical output of plants, animals and human industry rise into the air and pair off in sequences of chemical reactions. Such processes help maintain the atmosphere’s chemical balance; for example, some break down pollutants emitted from the burning of fossil fuels.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced Wednesday that the University of Pennsylvania’s Danielle S. Bassett has been selected as a 2014 MacArthur Fellow.

By Madeleine Stone @themadstone

An interdisciplinary team of University of Pennsylvania researchers has now applied a cutting-edge technique for rapid gene sequencing toward measuring other nanoscopic structures. By passing nanoscale spheres and rods through a tiny hole in a membrane, the team was able to measure the electrical properties of those structures’ surfaces.