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Biology

How to conduct an engaging lab experiment in the time of COVID: Brew beer

How to conduct an engaging lab experiment in the time of COVID: Brew beer

Biology instructors at Penn assembled and mailed hundreds of lab kits to students to aid virtual learning. “It’s important to get students off of their computers and using some of the tools and techniques that are used by scientists,” said Linda Robinson of the School of Arts & Sciences.

Engineers develop laser-controlled, cell-sized robots
A microscopic robot next to a paramecium.

One of the researchers’ robot next to a paramecium. (Image: Penn Engineering)

Engineers develop laser-controlled, cell-sized robots

Researchers at Penn Engineering are creating microscopic robots with semiconductor processing that can be controlled, and made to walk, as small as biological cells.

From Penn Engineering Today

‘Self-eating’ stem cell process may be the key to new regenerative therapies
stem cells in autophagy

A translucently colored embryonic stem (ES) cell and its differentiating derivatives. (Image: Penn Medicine News)

‘Self-eating’ stem cell process may be the key to new regenerative therapies

A Penn study uncovers new roles of chaperone-mediated autophagy in how stem cells repair or regenerate damaged organs.

From Penn Medicine News

Advancing knowledge on archaea
Petri dish with a honeycomb-like growth

Biologists found that the archaeon Haloferax volcanii rapidly forms honeycomb structures in response to changes in its environment. They hope to gain more insights into the microbes through a new initiative, the Archaeal Proteome Project. (Image: Courtesy of the Pohlschroder lab)

Advancing knowledge on archaea

An open-source data platform for researchers studying archaea is paving the way for new insights and educational opportunities.

Katherine Unger Baillie

300-million-year-old fish resembles a sturgeon but took a different evolutionary path
Illustration of a prehistoric fish with a long snout

In a new report, paleontologists Lauren Sallan and Jack Stack re-examine the “enigmatic and strange” prehistoric fish Tanyrhinichthys mcallisteri. (Image: Nobu Tamura)

300-million-year-old fish resembles a sturgeon but took a different evolutionary path

Tanyrhinichthys mcallisteri recasts the notion of what it means to be a “primitive” vertebrate, according to paleontologists Lauren Sallan and Jack Stack.

Katherine Unger Baillie