Science & Technology

Even in healthy individuals, the skin plays host to a menagerie of bacteria, fungi and viruses. Growing scientific evidence suggests that this lively community, collectively known as the skin microbiome, serves an important role in healing, allergies, inflammatory responses and protection from infection.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University and Goucher College, have discovered a new topological material which may enable fault-tolerant quantum computing.

A collaboration between biologists and materials scientists at the University of Pennsylvania is yielding new insights into the wings of the “skipper butterfly” in the Costa Rican rainforest. What they learn could lead to technological advancements in systems ranging from power-efficient computer displays to sensors to energy efficient buildings, windows and vehicles.

The team’s robot is designed to drill through soil on Mars, extract ice and clay, and then melt the ice and filter it into drinkable water.

Though most tooth decay can be blamed on bacteria, such as Streptococcus mutans, the fungus Candida albicans may be a joint culprit in an alarmingly common form of severe tooth decay affecting toddlers known as early childhood caries.

A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania is gaining new insight into the smart materials used in ultrasound technology. While forming the most thorough model to date of how these materials work, they have found striking similarities with the behavior of water.

Certain pediatric leukemias share a common underlying cause with treatment-related secondary leukemias. Both diseases involve translocations in the KMT2A gene, in which a portion of this gene is swapped out with DNA from a “partner” gene on a separate chromosome.

Anyone following forecasting polls leading up to the 2016 election likely believed Hillary Clinton would become the 45th president of the United States. Although this opinion was the consensus among most political-opinion leaders and media, something clearly went wrong with these prediction tools.

The U.S.

The ability to assess surroundings and move through the world is a skill shared by many animals, including humans, yet the brain mechanisms that make it possible are poorly understood.