Research Press Release Archive

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A multi-page list of all research press releases since 1997

The Zombie-Ant Fungus Is Under Attack, Research Reveals: 2 May 2012 — A parasite that fights the zombie-ant fungus has yielded some of its secrets to an international research team led by David Hughes of Penn State University. The research reveals, for the first time, how an entire ant colony is able to survive infestations by the zombie-ant fungus, which invades an ant's brain and causes it to march to its death at a mass grave near the ant colony, where the fungus spores erupt out of the ant's head.
24 New Species of Lizards Discovered on Caribbean Islands are Close to Extinction: 30 April 2012 — In a single new scientific publication, 24 new species of lizards known as skinks, all from islands in the Caribbean, have been discovered and scientifically named. According to Blair Hedges, a professor of biology at Penn State University and the leader of the research team, half of the newly added skink species already may be extinct or close to extinction, and all of the others on the Caribbean islands are threatened with extinction.
Biological Battle: PSU Researchers Work to Catch up With Drug Resistance: 29 April 2012 — This article, written by Penn State biologist and entomologist Andrew Read, originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times (CDT) on 29 April 2012. It was the first article in the bimonthly "Focus on Research" column, which highlights different research projects being conducted at Penn State.
Record-Breaking Radio Waves from Ultra-Cool Star: 20 April 2012 — Penn State University astronomers using the world's largest radio telescope, at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have discovered flaring radio emissions from an ultra-cool star, not much warmer than the planet Jupiter, shattering the previous record for the lowest stellar temperature at which radio waves were detected.
Oil-Spill Clean-up May be Made Easier by Carbon-Nanotube Technology: 13 April 2012 — For the first time, researchers at Penn State University and Rice University have created solid, spongy blocks of carbon nanotubes that have an astounding ability to clean up oil spills in water. Separating oil from seawater is just one of a range of potential applications for the new material formed using carbon and a dash of boron. The international team, which includes Mauricio Terrones, a professor of physics and of materials science and engineering at Penn State, has published the results of its research in Nature's online journal Scientific Reports.
When Dark Energy Turned On: 30 March 2012 — The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) today announced the most accurate measurements yet of the distances to galaxies in the faraway universe, giving an unprecedented look at the time when the universe first began to expand at an ever-increasing rate. The results, announced today at a press conference in Manchester, England, are the culmination of more than two years of work by the team of scientists and engineers, including a Penn State astronomer, behind the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), one of the SDSS-III's four component surveys.
New Research Reveals Deep-Ocean Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion: 22 March 2012 — Compelling evidence of the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on deep-sea corals will be published online in the Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week beginning 26 March 2012. The diverse team of researchers, led by Penn State University Professor of Biology Charles Fisher, used a wide range of underwater vehicles, including the research submarine Alvin, to investigate the corals. They also used comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography to determine precisely the source of the petroleum hydrocarbons they found.
Barriers to the Use of Fingerprint Evidence in Court Unlocked by Statistical Model: 8 February 2012 — Fingerprints that are potential key pieces of evidence in court currently are not being considered due to shortcomings in the way this evidence is reported, according to a report by a Penn State Assistant Professor of Forensic Science and Statistics Cedric Neumann, published today in Significance, the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society and the American Statistical Association. Neumann has devised a statistical model to enable the weight of fingerprint evidence to be expressed in quantitative terms, paving the way for its full inclusion in the criminal-identification process.
Materials for First Optical Fibers with High-Speed Electronic Function are Developed: 5 February 2012 — For the first time, a group of chemists, physicists, and engineers has developed crystalline materials that allow an optical fiber to have integrated, high-speed electronic functions. The potential applications of such optical fibers include improved telecommunications and other hybrid optical and electronic technologies, improved laser technology, and more-accurate remote-sensing devices. The research was initiated by Rongrui He, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemistry at Penn State University. The international team, led by John Badding, a professor of chemistry at Penn State, will publish its findings in the journal Nature Photonics.
Important Gene-Regulation Proteins Pinpointed by New Method: 18 January 2012 — A novel technique has been developed and demonstrated at Penn State University to map the proteins that read and regulate chromosomes -- the string-like structures inside cells that carry genes. The specific order in which these proteins attach DNA-containing nucleosomes along the chromosome determines whether a brain cell, a liver cell, or a cancer cell is formed.
New Map of the Universe Reveals Its History for the Past Six-Billion Years: 12 January 2012 — The scientists of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), including astronomers at Penn State, have produced a new map of the universe that is in full color, covers more than one quarter of the entire sky, and is full of so much detail that you would need five-hundred-thousand high-definition TVs to view it all. The map consists of more than one-trillion pixels measured by meticulously scanning the sky with a special-purpose telescope located in New Mexico. This week, at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas, the SDSS scientists announced results of four separate studies of this new map that, taken together, provide a history of the universe over the last six-billion years.
Study Reveals Milky Way Stars That Wander but Are Not Lost: 11 January 2012 — New evidence that will help to answer long-standing questions about the history of stars in the disk of our galaxy is being released this week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society by a team that includes a Penn State astronomer.
New Astronomy Tool Peers Through the Heart of the Milky Way: 10 January 2012 — A powerful new tool for probing the structure of our galaxy has been developed by astronomers associated with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, including two Penn State University astronomers. The new tool is an infrared spectrograph for the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). It is the newest instrument deployed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III).
Decades-Old Conclusion about Energy-Making Pathway of Cyanobacteria is Corrected: 15 December 2011 — Research that is expected to help scientists discover new ways of genetically engineering bacteria to manufacture biofuels will be published in the journal Science on 16 December 2011 by a Penn State team led by Donald Bryant, the Ernest C. Pollard Professor of Biotechnology. The research overturns a generally accepted 44-year-old assumption about how certain kinds of bacteria make energy and synthesize cell materials. "Now that we understand better how cyanobacteria make energy, it might be possible to genetically engineer a cyanobacterial strain to synthesize 1,3-butanediol -- an organic compound that is the precursor for making not just biofuels but also plastics," Bryant said.
氢化非晶硅首次被制成电子光纤: 13 December 2011 — 来自美国和英国的科学家组成的研究小组发明了一项新的化学技术，这种技术能将非晶体状态的硅沉积到很长并且超细的光纤孔里。这种技术首次利用高压化学技术把这种特别的半导体硅制成成熟的薄膜和导线，能帮助科学家制成更柔软更高效的光纤。这项研究的国际小组带头人乔治·巴丁（John Badding）是宾州州立大学一名化学系的教授，相关的研究结果已于今年3月14日发表在《美国化学学会杂志》（Journal of the American Chemical Society）上。
First Electronic Optical Fibers with Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon are Developed: 13 December 2011 — A new chemical technique for depositing a non-crystalline form of silicon into the long, ultra-thin pores of optical fibers has been developed by an international team of scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom. The technique, which is the first of its kind to use high-pressure chemistry for making well-developed films and wires of this particular kind of silicon semiconductor, will help scientists to make more-efficient and more-flexible optical fibers.
Satellite Images of Nighttime Lights Help Track Disease Outbreaks: 10 December 2011 — Satellite images of nighttime lights, which normally are used to detect where clusters of people live, also can help keep tabs on diseases in developing nations, according to new research. An international research team that includes Matthew Ferrari, an assistant professor of biology at Penn State University, found that the new technique accurately indicates fluctuations in population density -- and thus the corresponding risk of epidemic that can elude current methods of monitoring outbreaks.
Evidence Is Found that Our Milky Way Galaxy is Destroying Its Dwarf-Galaxy Neighbors: 2 December 2011 — Our Milky Way Galaxy continues to devour its small neighboring dwarf galaxies, reports a research team that includes a Penn State astronomer. The scientists have found evidence of the stellar snacking spread out across the sky. "Our study gives further striking evidence that we live in a galaxy that is constantly changing its structure via cannibalism of its smaller neighbors," said Donald Schneider, Distinguished Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and a coauthor of the paper describing the discovery.
Penn State University's Eberly College of Science and Its Forensic Science Program Establish Partnership with the University of Split in Croatia: 1 December 2011 — The Eberly College of Science at Penn State University, in conjunction with its Forensic Science Program, has established a partnership program with the University of Split in Croatia to expand educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students and to encourage relationships between the faculties of the two universities. The new partnership will facilitate student exchange programs; faculty exchanges; joint research projects; educational programs in forensic science and other scientific disciplines; faculty development; and the exchange of scientific materials, publications, and information.
Peculiar Cosmic Explosion on Christmas 2010 Continues to Intrigue Astronomers: 30 November 2011 — Why a peculiar cosmic explosion occurred on Christmas Day 2010 remains an intriguing question without a clear answer. The cause of the explosion, a gamma-ray burst that first was detected by NASA's Swift observatory, either was a novel type of supernova located billions of light-years from Earth or an unusual collision much closer to home inside our own galaxy, report astronomers in papers that will be published in the 1 December 2011 issue of Nature.