Wall Street rides an AI-fueled rally that has pushed major indices to new highs that’s driven largely by a handful of dominant tech firms. As enthusiasm around artificial intelligence reshapes markets and concentrates risk, questions are mounting about whether the surge reflects durable growth or the familiar shape of a speculative bubble. Wharton finance crises expert Itay Goldstein explains how bubbles form, why they can be so dangerous, and what today’s AI boom shares—and does not—with past market madness like the one described in “The Big Short.”
(Image: Getty / Spencer Platt)
Is there an AI bubble and what happens if it bursts?
Wharton’s Itay Goldstein discusses financial bubbles, the mechanics of betting against them, and the risks facing the AI boom.
Biologist Mia Levine and colleagues have demonstrated how a pair of essential protein partners undergo rapid evolutionary change to counter fast-evolving parasitic DNA while maintaining core cellular functions. The work presents novel insight into how evolution works at the molecular level.
(Image: Getty images/Joao Paulo Burini)
Evolution at a molecular level
Research led by Mia Levine shows how a vital DNA protection protein complex adapts to new threats without compromising essential functions.
An ‘illuminating’ design sheds light on cholesterol
High levels of cholesterol are linked to heart disease, stroke, and many other health problems. However, this complex and vital fatty, water insoluble molecule—a lipid—is found in every cell of the body and is not all bad news. It also regulates crucial processes that science has yet to map.
Penn researchers will receive two of four grants awarded this year by the Charles E. Kaufman Foundation in support of interdisciplinary collaboration aimed at developing novel approaches to fundamental scientific questions.
A serendipitous find leads to lifesaving discoveries
A Penn-led team has revealed a how hydralazine, one of the world’s oldest blood pressure drugs and a mainstay treatment for preeclampsia, works at the molecular level. In doing so, they made a surprising discovery—it can also halt the growth of aggressive brain tumors.
A massive chunk of ice, a new laser, and new information on sea-level rise
For nearly a decade, Leigh Stearns and collaborators aimed a laser scanner system at Greenland’s Helheim Glacier. Their long-running survey reveals that Helheim’s massive calving events don’t behave the way scientists once thought, reframing how ice loss contributes to sea-level rise.
Professor of city and regional planning Erick Guerra recently published a book exploring the economic and societal impacts of American highways. He explains some of the pitfalls associated with an ever-expansive highway system, arguing that spending more on highways might not be the solution to the country’s transportation issues.
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Why aren’t America’s national roadways working?
Penn urban planner Erick Guerra’s new book, “Overbuilt,” argues that additional spending on building more highways might not be the solution to the country’s transportation issues. In a Q&A, Guerra shares his insights.
Penn engineers and collaborators have developed a transparent, micro-engineered device that houses a living, vascularized model of human lung cancer—a “tumor on a chip”—and show that the diabetes drug vildagliptin helps more CAR T cells break through the tumor’s defenses and attack it effectively.
(Image: Courtesy of Dan Huh)
Tumor-on-a-chip offers insight into cancer-fighting cells in immunotherapy
Penn engineers and collaborators have built a living tumor on a chip to expose how cancers block immune attacks, and how one existing drug could make immunotherapy like CAR T more effective against solid tumors.
Xin Sun prepares samples collected from the Eastern Tropical North Pacific aboard a research vessel. By adding stable isotope tracers to these vials, Sun and her team can track how different microbial groups convert nitrogen compounds into nitrous oxide, revealing how subtle shifts in oxygen and organic matter change the ocean’s chemistry.
(Image: Courtesy of Xin Sun)
Can tiny ocean organisms offer the key to better climate modeling?
In the shadowy layers of the Pacific, microbes decide how much nitrous oxide—a potent greenhouse gas—rises skyward. New research from Penn’s Xin Sun offers an improved understanding of microbial ecology and geochemistry—key to forecasting global emissions in response to natural and man-made climate change.
Collaborative research on the neural basis of chronic pain led by neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley finds that a critical hub in the brainstem, has a built-in “off switch” to stop persistent pain signals from reaching the rest of the brain. Their findings could help clinicians better understand chronic pain. (Pictured) Flurorescence imaging reveals hunger neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus labeled in maroon with nuclei shown in blue.
(Image: J. Nicholas Betley)
A built-in ‘off switch’ to stop persistent pain
J. Nicholas Betley has led collaborative research seeking the neural basis of long-term sustained pain and finds that a critical hub in the brainstem holds a mechanism for stopping pain signals from reaching the rest of the brain. Their findings could help clinicians better understand chronic pain and lead to new, more efficacious treatments.
