Science & Technology

Fish skin is unique in that it lacks keratin, the fibrous protein found in mammalian skin that provides a barrier against the environment. Instead, the epithelial cells of fish skin are in direct contact with the immediate environment: water.

Psittacosaurus (sih-TACK-oh-sore-us) is a genus of short, beak-faced dinosaurs that lived in Asia 120-125 million years ago, roaming China, Mongolia, Siberia, and possibly Thailand. The plant-eaters lived for about 10 million years in an era after Stegosaurus and before Tyrannosaurus rex, at a time when most dinosaurs were small.

[flickr]72157635183569499[/flickr] Photos by Scott Spitzer A stone’s throw from bustling 38th Street, just off Hamilton Walk, lies a carefully curated green oasis, and nearby, a soaring glass-walled structure where plants from the exotic to the mundane are cared for and studied.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated a new mechanism for extracting energy from light, a finding that could improve technologies for generating electricity from solar energy and lead to more efficient optoelectronic devices used in communications.

Two doctoral students from the University of Pennsylvania, Nam Woo Cho of the Perelman School of Medicine and Maryam Yousefi of the School of Veterinary Medicine, have received International Student Research Fellowships from the Howar

Associate Professor of Psychology Robert Kurzban studies how the mind has adapted over time to the challenges of the social world, such as how to make decisions about cooperation, morality and punishment. Kurzban will talk about one trait we associate with these challenges: willpower.

Electronic devices with touchscreens are ubiquitous, and one key piece of technology makes them possible: transparent conductors.

For hundreds of nights during the next five years, the world’s most powerful digital camera will turn skyward, helping a team of physicists and astronomers from around the globe answer fundamental questions about our universe.

An admonishment to eat your greens may take on a whole new meaning if Henry Daniell, who recently joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, has anything to do with it.

The human body has hundreds of different cell types, all with the same basic DNA, and all of which can ultimately be traced back to identical stem cells.