“Understanding the human factors and ethical implications of autonomous systems is just as crucial as the technical components,” says Mangharam. “This holistic approach aims to produce well-rounded engineers capable of addressing the multifaceted challenges of autonomous vehicle technology. Our goal is to equip them with the tools and mindset to tackle the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.”
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Racing to the future
Rahul Mangharam’s scaled-down, self-driving race cars are revamping engineering education at Penn.
Hugo Ulloa and Daisuke Noto of the School of Arts & Sciences have unearthed findings that address long-standing mysteries in the mechanics of fluids in confined, tight spaces: how their boundaries affect heat as it emanates from one place and dissipates throughout the space. The image above is a lab-scale hydrothermal system modeled utilizing a Hele-Shaw cell of 10 cm tall, 20 cm long and 4 mm gap. The interior of the Hele-Shaw cell is filled with degassed, deionized water heated from the bottom and cooled from above. A green laser sheet crosses the middle plane of the cell to visualize the motions of micro-scale particles seeded on the water, allowing researchers to estimate the fluid velocity and temperature.
(Image: Courtesy of Daisuke Noto)
Does heat travel differently in tight spaces?
New research led by Penn scientists offers insights into fundamental problems in fluid mechanics, findings that pave the way for more efficient heat transfer in myriad systems.
Lipid nanoparticles present one of the most advanced drug delivery platforms to shuttle promising therapeutics such as mRNA but are limited by the time it takes to synthesize cationic lipids, a key component. Now, Michael Mitchell and his team at the School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a faster way to make cationic lipids that are also more versatile, able to carry different kinds of treatments to target specific organs.
(Image: iStock / Dr_Microbe)
Penn pioneers a ‘one-pot platform’ to promptly produce mRNA delivery particles
New lipid platform enables rapid synthesis of molecules that can shuttle therapeutics for a range of diseases with a high degree of organ specificity.
Who, What, Why: Lasya Sreepada on decoding Alzheimer’s disease
The doctoral candidate at the School of Engineering and Applied Science discusses her path to brain research and how it set her on a course to demystifying neurological diseases using data science approaches.
PIK Professor Duncan Watts and colleagues have developed the Media Bias Detector, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze news articles, examining factors like tone, partisan lean, and fact selection.
Text reminders about COVID-19 boosters are as effective as free rides, new study finds
In a new megastudy, Katy Milkman of the Wharton School and collaborators at Penn’s Behavior Change for Good Initiative led research on reminders and free rides to and from pharmacies to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates.
For more than 17 years, PIK Professor Michael Platt and his collaborators have followed a free-ranging colony of rhesus macaques in the Puerto Rican Island of Cayo Santiago who, in 2017, experienced the devastation of Hurricane Maria. The team showed that the macaques who invested in relationships had higher survival rates, findings that can provide insights into human social behavior and health in the face of environmental change.
(Image: Courtesy of Lauren J. Brent)
Hurricane changed ‘rules of the game’ in monkey society
PIK Professor Michael Platt and collaborators from the University of Exeter find Hurricane Maria transformed a monkey society by changing the pros and cons of their interpersonal relations.
Section of seminoma tissue, a type of testicular cancer, showing strong expression of proteins/RNAs (TFAP2C, green; BICD1, red) that are typically present in pre-migratory/migratory primordial germ cells, precursors of sperm.
(Image: Courtesy of Kotaro Sasaki)
Kotaro Sasaki and his team unveil the genetics of testicular cancer
Researchers from Penn Vet develop the first in vitro seminoma model, shedding light on chromosomal anomalies and signaling pathways.
