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The soils beneath the solar fields
Hannah Win takes soil samples at a solar site.

To take soil samples at the solar site, Hannah Winn wields a bulb planter and mixes samples from across locations, looking at variables such that reflect the biological, chemical, and physical properties of the soil.

(Image: Courtesy of AES)

The soils beneath the solar fields

How do solar farms impact soil health? It’s a question that master’s student Hannah Winn is exploring at the central Pennsylvania site where solar energy production is helping Penn progress toward carbon neutrality.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Once a spy satellite, now a telescope with an eye on the cosmos
spy satellite in lab with blue background

(On homepage) Engineers at Ball Aerospace, one of Roman’s industrial partners, installed and aligned the element wheel assembly into the observatory’s Wide Field Instrument. The assembly will help Roman solve some of the most profound mysteries in astrophysics. When light bounces off and is concentrated by the main and secondary mirrors of Roman, it will move through a component called the element wheel. After being focused and filtered, this light will hit a big array of sensors that captures the light to form an image. Depending on their research needs, astronomers can use special science filters to pick out certain types of light for their studies.

(Image: Courtesy of Ball Aerospace)

Once a spy satellite, now a telescope with an eye on the cosmos

Researchers from Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences are part of a collaboration to develop Hubble’s wide-eyed cousin, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
Microrobots: An emerging biomedical trend
Medical concept in the field of nanotechnology, a nanobot studies or kills a virus. 3D rendering.

Image: Courtesy of iStock / K_E_N

  • Q&A

    • Microrobots: An emerging biomedical trend

    In a Q&A with Penn Today, Hyun (Michel) Koo of the School of Dental Medicine and Edward Steager of the School of Engineering and Applied Science discuss the emerging trend of microrobots in healthcare.
    The alchemy behind the diamond: Unearthing baseball’s beloved mud
    Shravan Pradeep places a baseball on microscopy slide.

    Postdoctoral researcher Shravan Pradeep of Penn Engineering is conducting experiments to understand the flow and grip properties of the Major League Baseball’s “magic mud” in order to reverse engineer the mud and offer a mechanistic understanding of its inner workings.

    nocred

    The alchemy behind the diamond: Unearthing baseball’s beloved mud

    Researchers at Penn are working on cracking the code behind Major League Baseball’s “Magic Mud.”
    Center for Engineering Mechanobiology 2.0: Developing ‘mechanointelligence’
    Microscopic view of an individual cell illuminated in bright colors.

    The dynamics governing mechanointelligence vary greatly along time- and length-scales, so detailed models of individual cells and their components are necessary to connect the effects of their physical environments to the downstream effects those forces have on biological processes. (Image: Penn Engineering Today)

    Center for Engineering Mechanobiology 2.0: Developing ‘mechanointelligence’

    The new interdisciplinary Center for Engineering Mechanobiology brings together researchers from the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Perelman School of Medicine together with those from across campus and beyond around the concept of “mechanointelligence.”

    Evan Lerner

    A microscopic worm may shed light on how we perceive gravity
    Micrsoscopic view of Caenorhabditis elegans, a free-living transparent nematode, about 1 mm in length

    Caenorhabditis elegans, a free-living transparent roundworm, about 1 mm in length.

    A microscopic worm may shed light on how we perceive gravity

    C. elegans shares more than half of its genes with humans, allowing genetic studies to give insight into which genes are responsible for similar traits in humans, such as pinpointing molecular pathways responsible for gravitaxis, the ability to move in response to gravity.