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Science & Technology
Penn Researchers Grow Liquid Crystal 'Flowers' That Can Be Used as Lenses
A team of material scientists, chemical engineers and physicists from the University of Pennsylvania has made another advance in their effort to use liquid crystals as a medium for assembling structures.
Penn Team Reduces Toxicity Associated With Lou Gehrig’s Disease in Animal Models
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a devastating illness that gradually robs sufferers of muscle strength and eventually causes a lethal, full-body paralysis. The only drug available to treat the disease extends life spans by a meager three months on average.
One Protein, Two Personalities: Penn Team Identifies New Mechanism of Cancer Spread
Cancer involves a breakdown of normal cell behavior. Cell reproduction and movement go haywire, causing tumors to grow and spread through the body.
Researchers at Penn Help Develop a Dynamic Model of Tissue Failure
The idea of growing replacement tissue to repair an organ, or to swap it out for an entirely new one, is rapidly transitioning from science fiction to fact.
Researchers at Penn Show Optimal Framework for Heartbeats
The heart maintains a careful balancing act; too soft and it won’t pump blood, but too hard and it will overtax itself and stop entirely. There is an optimal amount of strain that a beating heart can generate and still beat at its usual rate, once per second.
Penn Study Treats Alzheimer’s by Delivering Protein Across Blood-Brain Barrier
The body is structured to ensure that any invading organisms have a tough time reaching the brain, an organ obviously critical to survival. Known as the blood-brain barrier, cells that line the brain and spinal cord are tightly packed, making it difficult for anything besides very small molecules to cross from the bloodstream into the central nervous system.
Penn’s Center for Tech Transfer Partners With British-based IP Group
The University of Pennsylvania, through its Center for Technology Transfer and its UPstart company formation program, has announced a new partnership with IP Group PLC, developer of intellectual property-based businesses.
Memories Are ‘Geotagged’ With Spatial Information, Penn Researchers Say
Using a video game in which people navigate through a virtual town delivering objects to specific locations, a team of neuroscientists from the University of Pennsylvania and Freiburg University has discovered how brain cells that encode spatial information form “geotags” for specific memories and are activated immediately before those memories are recalled.
Penn Science Café: Squid Camouflage
WHO: Alison Sweeney Assistant Professor of Physics University of Pennsylvania
Researchers at Penn Uncover Mechanism Behind Blood Stem Cells’ Longevity
The blood stem cells that live in bone marrow are at the top of a complex family tree. Such stem cells split and divide down various pathways that ultimately produce red cells, white cells and platelets.
In the News
Scientists struggle to explain ‘really weird’ spike in world temperatures
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that tendencies to exaggerate climate science in favor of “doomist” narratives helps no one except the fossil fuel industry.
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Spring is here very early. That’s not good
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that plant-flowering, tree-leafing, and egg-hatching are all markers associated with spring that are happening sooner.
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Can your personal medical devices be recycled?
A lab at the School of Engineering and Applied Science led the development of a COVID test made from bacterial cellulose, an organic compound.
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Could Florida electric bills go up because of a fuel made from manure?
Danny Cullenward of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design says that federal and California state subsidies have led to a gold rush of companies trying to get into the business of renewable natural gas around the country.
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Pa. environmental, religious and other groups criticize Shapiro plan for ignoring climate change
A study by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design found that Pennsylvania would benefit overall from joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
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Why don’t we just ban fossil fuels?
Joseph Romm of the School of Arts & Sciences says that stronger action against fossil fuels is essential to save the planet.
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Students can soon major in AI at this Ivy League university—it’ll prepare them for ‘jobs that don’t yet exist’
The Raj and Neera Singh Program in Artificial Intelligence at Penn will be the first AI undergraduate engineering major at an Ivy League school, led by George Pappas of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
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We don’t have time for climate misinformation
In a co-written Op-Ed, Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that meaningful decarbonization in the U.S. is in jeopardy of being blocked or slowed if a significant portion of the electorate does not accept the basic scientific facts and implications of climate change.
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Penn to become first Ivy League to offer AI degree, looks to ‘train the leaders’ in emerging field
Penn is the first Ivy League university to offer a degree in artificial intelligence, with remarks from Robert Ghrist of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
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A famous climate scientist is in court, with big stakes for attacks on science
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences is suing a right-wing author and a policy analyst for defamation against the “hockey stick” climate change graph.
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