Science & Technology

Colon cancer is a heavily studied disease — and for good reason. It is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and its numbers are on the rise, from 500,000 deaths in 1990 to 700,000 in 2010.

Lizeng Gao, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, has won a 2015 International Association for Dental Research Innovation in Oral C

The pistons in your car engine rub up against their cylinder walls thousands of times a minute; without lubrication in the form of motor oil, they and other parts of the engine would quickly wear away, causing engine failure.

The field of metamaterials is all about making structures that have physical properties that aren’t found in nature. Predicting what kinds of structures would have those traits is one challenge; physically fabricating them is quite another, as they often require precise arrangement of constituent materials on the smallest scales.

By Madeleine Stone  @themadstoneRivers drive the evolution of Earth’s surface by eroding and depositing sediment. But for nearly a century, geologists have puzzled over why theoretical models, which use principles of physics to predict patterns of sediment transport in rivers, have rarely matched observations from nature.

Researchers are one step closer to unraveling the extraordinarily complex series of processes that lead to an event crucial to human reproduction: the creation of sperm.

Vijay Kumar has been named dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science, effective July 1.

The design development for the new Pennovation Center has received approval from the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees. This 58,000-square-foot, three-story facility is located in the heart of the Pennovation Works, Penn’s 23-acre site along the southern bank of the Schuylkill River and adjacent to the University campus.

Niemann Pick Disease type C, or NPC, is a disease most people have never heard of, affecting just one person in 150,000. Yet the disease is a devastating one. Frequently diagnosed in children in their elementary school years, sufferers usually die by the time they’re 20.

Three University of Pennsylvania faculty members are among this year’s Sloan Research Fellowship recipients.