As part of their senior design project in May, a team of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics undergrads—Elizabeth Beattie, Nick McGill, Nick Parrotta, and Niko Vladimirov—made Titan Arm, a device that looks like it was ripped from a science fiction movie and augments a user's strength by up to 40 pounds.

The instructions for building all of the body’s proteins are contained in a person’s DNA, a string of chemicals that, if unwound and strung end to end, would form a sentence 3 billion letters long.

For solar panels, wringing every drop of energy from as many photons as possible is imperative.  This goal has sent chemistry, materials science and electronic engineering researchers on a quest to boost the energy-absorption efficiency of photovoltaic devices, but existing techniques are now running up against limits set by the laws of physics.  

Recent revelations about the frequency and long-term impact of concussions have shaken professional football to its core. The NFL has embarked on awareness campaigns and a series of rule changes to deal with the crisis, but questions remain about whether the game is fundamentally unsafe to play at any speed—or any age.  

An interdisciplinary team of University of Pennsylvania researchers has already developed a technique for controlling liquid crystals by means of physical templates and elastic energy, rather than the electromagnetic fields that manipulate them in televisions and computer monitors. They envision using this technique to direct the assembly of other materials, such as nanoparticles.  

Some people are deeply religious and others not at all. Evolutionary psychologists are interested in determining the functions of religiosity in social life that lead to this diversity.

Two camps within evolutionary psychology have conflicting hypotheses on what has led to people’s diversity when it comes to how religious they are. One camp believes religion’s essence is in promoting behaviors related to cooperation, while another believes that the attraction of religion has to do with sex and reproduction.

The Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council today released a comprehensive report on sports-related concussions in youth, detailing factors associated with increased rates of the brain injury, the effectiveness of protective devices and new screening, diagnosis, treatment and management techniques, as well as the long-term consequences of concussions.

Centuries of economic theory have been based on one simple premise: when given a choice between two items, people make the rational decision and select the one they value more. But as with many simple premises, this one has a flaw in that it is demonstrably untrue.

Doctors need blood plasma to measure the viral load of a person living with HIV. Separating this yellowish liquid from whole blood is usually done with a centrifuge, in which a tube of blood is rapidly spun so that its red blood cells collect at the bottom and its plasma can be poured off the top.