Science & Technology

Penn Physicists Develop Force Law for Granular Impacts: Sand, Other Granular Matter's Behavior Is Better Defined

PHILADELPHIA -- Sand.  A single grain is tiny, but solid, and shares the physical properties of other solid matter.  But pack or transport millions of grains together - as modern society does with coffee grounds, flour and industrial chemicals - and granular materials act differently, baffling engineers.  They take the shape of their containers and flow freely, like liquids.

Jordan Reese

Penn's Weiss Tech House Announces Student Inventors Headed to PennVention Competition Finals

PHILADELPHIA -- Ten teams of student inventors have been selected to present their prototypes of innovative technologies at the University of Pennsylvania's third annual PennVention competition on April 6 at Penn's Weiss Tech House. Finalists will compete for more than $60,000 in cash and prizes and a chance to launch their products to market.

Jenny Brennan

Energy Working Group at Penn Hosts Mini-Symposium on Sustainable Energy

WHO: Energy Working Group at Penn, a multi-disciplinary group of University of Pennsylvania scientists and engineersGeorge Crabtree, senior scientist and director of the materials science division of the Argonne National Laboratory Joanne Milliken, director of the U.S. Energy Department hydrogen program

Jacquie Posey



In the News


Technical.ly Philly

Celebrate Philly’s winners of the 2024 Technical.ly Awards

Jeffrey Babin of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Wharton School is Technical.ly’s 2024 Educator of the Year. The Pennovation Accelerator, a six-week program hosted at the Pennovation Works, is Technical.ly’s 2024 Program of the Year.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Decoding Trump’s climate priorities—or lack thereof

In an opinion essay, Sanya Carley of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design examines the implications and possibilities of Donald Trump’s energy and climate agenda.

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Rolling Stone

RFK Jr.’s 10 wildest medical theories

Kenneth R. Foster of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says studies haven’t provided clear evidence that exposure to levels of radio frequency energy below accepted limits, such as Wi-Fi, disrupts the blood-brain barrier.

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Scientific American

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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WHYY (Philadelphia)

Climate policy under a second Trump presidency

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences discusses how much a president can do or undo when it comes to environmental policy.

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Interesting Engineering

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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Technical.ly Philly

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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Salon.com

Exxon CEO wants Trump to stay in Paris climate accord

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences voices his concern about the possibility that the U.S. could become a petrostate.

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Associated Press

Amid Earth’s heat records, scientists report another bump upward in annual carbon emissions

Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that total carbon emissions including fossil fuel pollution and land use changes such as deforestation are basically flat because land emissions are declining.

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The Wall Street Journal

How can we remove carbon from the air? Here are a few ideas

Jennifer Wilcox of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design says that the carbon-removal potential of forestation can’t always be reliably measured in terms of how much removal and for how long.

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