Science & Technology

Mast cells, components of the immune system, are responsible for alleriges and asthma, conditions that debilitate millions. Yet relatively few scientists study them.

The field of metamaterials, an intersection of materials science, physics, nanotechnology and electrical engineering, aims to produce structures with unusual electromagnetic properties. Through the careful combination of multiple materials in a precise periodic arrangement, the resulting metamaterials exhibit properties that otherwise couldn’t exist, such as a negative index of refraction.

A University of Pennsylvania-led project, the Spectroscopic Terahertz Airborne Receiver for Far-InfraRed Exploration, or STARFIRE, has received a $700,000 grant from NASA to investigate a longstanding mystery in cosmology.

A dendritic molecule is one that grows by branching in several directions from its center core. At each branching point, the molecule branches again into a new generation. These molecules can be used for a broad range of biomedical applications, including gene and drug delivery.

Beginning in April, Penn Engineering and the GRASP Laboratory will offer a new series of online courses in robotics as part of edX’s “MicroMasters” program.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are investigating a counterintuitive process called allostery that occurs in proteins by studying an analogous process in a macroscopic mechanical network.

Each year, about 2 million people contract leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of a sand fly. The cutaneous form of the disease results in disfiguring skin ulcers that may take months or years to heal and in rare cases can become metastatic, causing major tissue damage.

Teenagers who self-report feeling drowsy mid-afternoon also tend to exhibit more anti-social behavior such as lying, cheating, stealing and fighting.

Scientists have gotten better at predicting where earthquakes will occur, but they’re still in the dark about when they will strike and how devastating they will be.

If you’ve ever wondered how a vaccine given decades ago can still protect against infection, you have your plasma cells to thank. Plasma cells are long-lived B cells that reside in the bone marrow and churn out antibodies against previously encountered vaccines or pathogens.