11/15
School of Engineering & Applied Science
The future of technology
As new technologies emerge, they bring with them new ethical challenges. The topic of the future of technology was front and center on day three of the Penn Teach-in.
Building futures through LEGOs
In the FIRST LEGO League tournament, middle school teams mentored by Penn Engineering students worked to design and build robots related to the theme of water.
Flu of 1918 and Today
The year 2018 marks a century since a devastating influenza pandemic claimed the lives of an estimated 50 to 100 million worldwide. Experts at the University of Pennsylvania are on hand to comment on the historic toll of the 1918 flu as well as on current scientific and medical research aimed at curbing the impact of a future pandemic.
Penn engineers test drug transfer using placenta-on-a-chip
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science have demonstrated the feasibility of their “organ-on-a-chip” platform in studying how drugs are transported across the human placental barrier.
Penn engineering research gives optical switches the ‘contrast’ of electronic transistors
Current computer systems represent bits of information — the 1’s and 0’s of binary code — with electricity. Circuit elements, such as transistors, operate on these electric signals, producing outputs that are dependent on their inputs.
Penn Engineers Make First Full Network Model of the Musculoskeletal System
Network science examines how the actions of a system’s individual parts affect the behavior of the system as a whole. Some commonly studied networks include computer chip components and social media users, but University of Pennsylvania engineers are now applying network science to a much older system: the human body.
Penn senior takes up worldwide challenge of climate-change refugees
A political science major and student fellow at Penn's Perry World House is working with a team of student fellows to construct a website showing how cities deal with an influx of climate change refugees.
Penn Engineers: Bone Marrow Transplant Stem Cells Can 'Swim' Upstream
When a cancer patient receives a bone marrow transplant, time is of the essence. Healthy stem cells, which can restart the production of blood cells and immune system components after a patient’s own are compromised, need to make their way from the circulatory system into the bones as quickly as possible.
Penn Researchers Develop an Injectable Gel that Helps Heart Muscle Regenerate after a Heart Attack
In mammals, including humans, the cells that contract the heart muscle and enable it to beat do not regenerate after injury. After a heart attack, there is a dramatic loss of these heart muscle cells and those that survive cannot effectively replicate.
Penn Researchers Establish Universal Signature Fundamental to How Glassy Materials Fail
Dropping a smartphone on its glass screen, which is made of atoms jammed together with no discernible order, could result in it shattering. Unlike metals and other crystalline materials, glass and many other disordered solids cannot be deformed significantly before failing and, because of their lack of crystalline order, it is difficult to predict which atoms would change during failure.
In the News
Grumpy voters want better stories. Not statistics
In a Q&A, PIK Professor Duncan Watts says that U.S. voters ignored Democratic policy in favor of Republican storytelling.
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A sneak peek inside Penn Engineering’s new $137.5M mass timber building
Amy Gutmann Hall aims to be Philadelphia’s next big hub for AI and innovation while setting a new standard for architectural sustainability.
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Superhuman vision lets robots see through walls, smoke with new LiDAR-like eyes
Mingmin Zhao of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and colleagues are using radio signals to allow robots to “see” beyond traditional sensor limits.
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New building at University of Pennsylvania aims to become hub for AI research
Amy Gutmann Hall, set to open in early 2025, is dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence and data science.
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First look: Inside Penn’s new Amy Gutmann Hall, the region's largest mass timber building
Amy Gutmann Hall will be a catalyst for groundbreaking artificial intelligence research and collaboration across disciplines, with remarks from Dean Vijay Kumar of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
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