News

Explore the discoveries and breakthroughs advancing the life sciences

Find By:

What are viruses anyway, and why do they make us so sick? 5 questions answered

A locust swarm in northeast Kenya. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that the swarms already seen in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia could range farther afield. IMAGE: SVEN TORFINN/FAO

Penn State responds: App aids UN efforts to control Africa's locust infestation

How COVID-19 Is Spread

What are viruses anyway, and why do they make us so sick? 5 questions answered

What are viruses anyway, and why do they make us so sick? 5 questions answered

n illustration of the ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. A novel coronavirus has caused an outbreak of respiratory illness, named COVID-19, which was first detected in Wuhan, China, in 2019. IMAGE: CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL; ALISSA ECKERT, MS; DAN HIGGINS, MAM.

Penn State joins global effort for open access to emerging coronavirus research

Experts weigh in on how coronavirus may, or may not, run rampant in US in coming months

Setting the Record Straight: Panic and Pandemics

Can Coronavirus Be Crushed By Warmer Weather?

Will Arizona's Summer Heat Knock Down COVID-19?

Climate Change Has Driven Serious Declines in World’s Bumblebees

The parasitic plant witchweed, which has bright flowers, has a variety of hosts, including the important cereal crop sorghum. A new study reveals that sorghum plants where witchweed is most prevalent are locally adapted to deal with the parasite by having a mutation in the LGS1 gene. IMAGE: S.M. RUNO, KENYATTA UNIVERSITY

Local genetic adaption helps sorghum crop hide from witchweed

Coronavirus Researchers Are Using High-Tech Methods to Predict Where the Virus Might Go Next

Coronavirus super-spreaders pose urgent threat and need to be tracked

Coronavirus 2020: What is a super spreader; is there one in this outbreak?

Huck Institutes HITS fund

Huck Innovative and Transformational Seed (HITS) fund will support scientific risk-takers

What's the difference between race and ethnicity?

3D Printed bone constructs loaded with stem cells for craniomaxillofacial reconstruction. IMAGE: KERIM MONCAL, OZBOLAT LAB, PENN STATE

$2.8M grant to fund bioprinting for reconstruction of face, mouth, skull tissues

A laser shone on a captured virus identifies atomic and molecular vibrations. IMAGE: TERRONES LAB/PENN STATE

Penn State receives five-year $3.7 million grant to study virus evolution

Bumblebees Are Going Extinct In A Time of Climate Chaos

DNA Damage Linked to Brain Overgrowth in Autism

When cyanobacteria live in low-light conditions, such as beneath a pond surface or under the leaf litter on a forest floor, some are able to switch from using the visible light that is most conducive to their growth and photosynthetic activities to harvesting the weaker, far-red sunlight that filters down to them. IMAGE: SHIREEN DOOLING, BIODESIGN INSTITUTE AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

Scientists solve structure enabling cyanobacteria to thrive in low light

According to a new study, the protein CSI1 and the alternating angle of the many layers that make up a cell’s wall, creating a herringbone pattern (left), are critical for cell growth. The cell wall layers of a mutant plant without the protein CSI1 are all oriented in the same direction (right), and the mutant’s growth is restricted. IMAGE: GU LAB, PENN STATE

Herringbone pattern in plant cell walls critical to cell growth

Jian Yang with a sample of his innovative wound dressing. IMAGE: TYLER HENDERSON

Academia-enterprise partnership aims to help people with diabetes