Science & Technology

Mark G. Allen has been named the inaugural scientific director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology. 

Daniel J. Mindiola has been named the fourth Presidential Term Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, effective Aug. 1.  Mindiola will be Presidential Term Professor of Chemistry in the School of Arts and Sciences.

When a strain of bacteria invades a human body, the immune system responds by generating antibodies to neutralize the threat.

The first-known definitive case of a benign bone tumor has been discovered in the rib of a young Neandertal who lived about 120,000 years ago in what is now present-day Croatia. The bone fragment, which comes from the famous archaeological cave site of Krapina, contains by far the earliest bone tumor ever identified in the archaeological record.

The quintessential piece of origami might be a decorative paper crane, but in the hands of an interdisciplinary University of Pennsylvania research team, it could lead to a drug-delivery device, an emergency shelter, or even a space station.

France is renowned the world over as a leader in the crafts of viticulture and winemaking—but the beginnings of French viniculture have been largely unknown, until now.

Cartilage injuries are difficult to repair. Current surgical options generally involve taking a piece from another part of the injured joint and patching over the damaged area, but this approach involves damaging healthy cartilage, and a person’s cartilage may still deteriorate with age.

A team of Penn engineers has used a pattern of nanoscopic grooves on a tiny strip of gold to turn infrared light into mechanical action, a technique that could lead to more sensitive night-vision cameras and additional compact chemical-analysis techniques.

Rakesh Vohra has been named the University of Pennsylvania’s 15th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, effective Aug. 1. The announcement was made today by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price.  

Since the time of Linnaeus and even before, biologists and naturalists have been keen to organize living things into distinct groups. Now the modern technology of rapid DNA sequencing has revolutionized that categorizing task, providing a window into the relationships among species about which little was once known.