Masao Sako of the University of Pennsylvania was on vacation with his family when he got the news. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, had made a fifth detection of gravitational waves, which expand and contract space time.

Ali Sundermier October 16, 2017

Have you ever been stuck in a rut, going through the same motions day in and day out? How do you motivate to change your behavior?

Michele W. Berger ・October 13, 2017

Human populations feature a broad palette of skin tones. But until now, few genes have been shown to contribute to normal variation in skin color, and these had primarily been discovered through studies of European populations.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・October 12, 2017

Nearly 200 children sit shoulder-to-shoulder in neat rows on the floor of a refugee settlement classroom, their sunlit faces looking up and toward the front. It’s a familiar scene, a primary school in Kenya with too many students, too few resources, too uncertain a future.

Louisa Shepard ・October 11, 2017

The United States Army Research Laboratory awarded the School of Engineering and Applied Science a five-year, $27 million grant to develop new methods of creating autonomous, intelligent, and resilient teams of robots.

Evan Lerner, Ali Sundermier ・October 11, 2017

As Hurricane Maria formed in the Atlantic, then turned into a powerful storm barreling toward Puerto Rico, Arjun Yodh watched the news closely.

Michele W. Berger ・October 10, 2017

When it comes to taking up room without adding too much weight, the bubble can’t be beat. Because they are mostly air, they’re ultra-lightweight and can expand to fill any given space.

Ali Sundermier October 10, 2017

Infections caused by viruses, such as respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, measles, parainfluenza and Ebola, are typically considered acute. These viruses cause disease quickly and live within a host for a limited time. But in some cases the effects of the infection, and presence of the virus itself, can persist.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・October 6, 2017

No one can travel inside the earth to study what happens there. So scientists must do their best to replicate real-world conditions inside the lab.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・October 2, 2017

The immune system is constantly performing surveillance to detect foreign organisms that might do harm. But pathogens, for their part, have evolved a number of strategies to evade this detection, such as secreting proteins that hinder a host’s ability to mount an immune response.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・September 29, 2017