The future of technology faces a familiar challenge: rust. When iron-containing metals come into contact with oxygen and moisture, corrosion sets in, compromising the durability and functionality of automotive parts. Although the semiconductor industry does not refer to this process as 'rust', oxidation presents a significant issue for two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor materials. 

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed the first placenta-on-a-chip that can fully model the transport of nutrients across the placental barrier. The flash-drive-sized device contains two layers of human cells that model the interface between mother and fetus. Microfluidic channels on either side of those layers allow researchers to study how molecules are transported through, or are blocked by, that interface.

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania has constructed the first whole-brain map of electrical connectivity in the brain based on data from nearly 300 neurosurgical patients with electrodes implanted directly on the brain. The researchers found that low-frequency rhythms of brain activity, when brain waves move up and down slowly, primarily drive communication between the frontal, temporal and medial temporal lobes, key brain...

Alison Sweeney of the University of Pennsylvania has been studying giant clams since she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara. These large mollusks, which anchor themselves to coral reefs in the tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans, can grow to up to three-feet long and weigh hundreds of pounds. But their size isn't the only thing that makes them unique.

Improving on a previous attempt, scientists have developed a new strategy that could potentially be used to reengineer a patient's own immune system cells to fight HIV. The approach, described in PLOS Pathogens, shows benefit in human cell cultures and in mice. White blood cells known as T cells play an important role in the immune system's response to HIV infection, especially if a patient stops taking antiretroviral medications that n...

The base pairs found in DNA are key to its ability to store protein-coding information, but they also give the molecule useful structural properties. Getting two complementary strands of DNA to zip up into a double helix can serve as the basis of intricate physical mechanisms that can push and pull molecular-scale devices. Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed nanoscale "muscles" that work on this principle.

Individual cells within a tumor are not all the same. This may sound like a modern medical truism, but it wasn't very long ago that oncologists assumed that taking a single biopsy from a patient's tumor would be an accurate reflection of the physiological and genetic make-up of the entire mass. Researchers have come to realise that cancer is a disease driven by the same "survival of the fitter" forces that Darwin proposed drove the evolution...

A team of University of Pennsylvania researchers has developed a computer model that will aid in the design of nanocarriers, microscopic structures used to guide drugs to their targets in the body. The model better accounts for how the surfaces of different types of cells undulate due to thermal fluctuations, informing features of the nanocarriers that will help them stick to cells long enough to deliver their payloads.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed the first placenta-on-a-chip that can fully model the transport of nutrients across the placental barrier. The flash-drive-sized device contains two layers of human cells that model the interface between mother and fetus. Microfluidic channels on either side of those layers allow researchers to study how molecules are transported through, or are blocked by, that interface.

The transistor is the most fundamental building block of electronics, used to build circuits capable of amplifying electrical signals or switching them between the 0s and 1s at the heart of digital computation. Transistor fabrication is a highly complex process, however, requiring high-temperature, high-vacuum equipment. Now, University of Pennsylvania engineers have shown a new approach for making these devices: sequentially depositing their com...

Splitting water into its hydrogen and oxygen parts may sound like science fiction, but it's the end goal of chemists and chemical engineers like Christopher Murray of the University of Pennsylvania and Matteo Cargnello of Stanford University. They work in a field called photocatalysis, which, at its most basic, uses light to speed up chemical reactions. They've come a step closer to such a feat by tailoring the structure of a material called tita...

A li-ion battery that self heats if the temperature is below 32ºF has multiple applications, but may have the most impact on relieving winter 'range anxiety' for electric vehicle owners, according to a team of researchers from Penn State and EC Power, State College.

Computer scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have developed an algorithmic framework for conducting targeted surveillance of individuals within social networks while protecting the privacy of “untargeted” digital bystanders. As they explain in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the tools could facilitate counterterrorism efforts and infectious disease tracking while being “probably...