Earth and Mineral Sciences

College of Earth and Mineral Sciences

Researchers have made a surprising discovery in sediment core samples from lakes in the East African Rwenzori Mountains: A 2012 wildfire that ravaged 16 square miles of the forest and alpine landscapes at more than 13,000 feet above sea level was unprecedented in at least the last 12,000 years.

Rwenzori Mountains’ first major fire in 12,000 years marked new era for climate | Penn State University

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Researchers have made a surprising discovery in sediment core samples from lakes in the East African Rwenzori Mountains: A 2012 wildfire that ravaged 16 square miles of the forest and alpine landscapes at more than 13,000 feet above sea level was unprecedented in at least the last 12,000 years.

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Research

Rwenzori Mountains’ first major fire in 12,000 years marked new era for climate

Eberly College of Science

Researchers at Penn State have&nbsp;developed a new class of 3D-printed bioelectronics made of soft, stretchy materials, as well as an adhesive component that helps the device painlessly stick to biological tissue. The team reported that their new design, which they call CaroFlex and tested in a rodent model, relieved hypertension while causing much less damage to surrounding tissue.

Stretchy implants could stick to arteries to treat high blood pressure | Penn State University

Researchers at Penn State have developed a new class of 3D-printed bioelectronics made of soft, stretchy materials, as well as an adhesive component that helps the device painlessly stick to biological tissue. The team reported that their new design, which they call CaroFlex and tested in a rodent model, relieved hypertension while causing much less damage to surrounding tissue.

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Stretchy implants could stick to arteries to treat high blood pressure

Agricultural Sciences

College of Agricultural Sciences

Penn State’s Beescape tool is gaining a new feature that allows users to download county-specific lists of pollinator-attractive plants, offering a more localized approach to improving pollinator habitats across Pennsylvania.

New Beescape updates include county-level plant recommendations for pollinators | Penn State University

Penn State’s Beescape tool is gaining a new feature that allows users to download county-specific lists of pollinator-attractive plants, offering a more localized approach to improving pollinator habitats across Pennsylvania.

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New Beescape updates include county-level plant recommendations for pollinators

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Adopting, advancing and adapting to AI

$11.75 million gift to benefit Palmer Museum and Office of Undergraduate Education 

Jonathan Wolf honored as Penn State’s 2026 Philanthropist of the Year

Atmosphere of Saturn-sized planet with Earth-like temperature contains methane

Penn State announces tenure-line faculty promotions, effective July 1, 2026

Penn State announces non-tenure-line faculty promotions, effective July 1, 2026

$1.3M NSF grant to expand statewide cyberinfrastructure for researchers

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More research news

A new study led by researchers at Penn State explored why some bumble bee larvae become workers and others become queens, despite coming from the same eggs.

Worker bumble bees help determine which baby bee will become queen | Penn State University

A new study led by researchers at Penn State explored why some bumble bee larvae become workers and others become queens, despite coming from the same eggs.

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Worker bumble bees help determine which baby bee will become queen

Health and Human Development

College of Health and Human Development

Diet&nbsp;is the most effective way to reduce the&nbsp;risk of heart disease, according to Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences, who contributed to the new dietary recommendations from the American Heart Association.

Q&A: What is in the new American Heart Association dietary recommendations? | Penn State University

Diet is the most effective way to reduce the risk of heart disease, according to Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences, who contributed to the new dietary recommendations from the American Heart Association.

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Q&A: What is in the new American Heart Association dietary recommendations?

A team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has been awarded a five-year, $3.2 million grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health to explore the regulatory mechanisms in the brain that produce a biological fear memory and an exaggerated fear response, such as that which occurs in individuals with&nbsp;post-traumatic stress disorder.

$3M NIH grant to support research on memory and exaggerated fear responses | Penn State University

A team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has been awarded a five-year, $3.2 million grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health to explore the regulatory mechanisms in the brain that produce a biological fear memory and an exaggerated fear response, such as that which occurs in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder.

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$3M NIH grant to support research on memory and exaggerated fear responses

Featured Research

A new study, led by a team from Penn State College of Medicine, found that when teenagers go to sleep and when they wake up may be the driving force behind what teenagers eat and how much they move. Teens who went to sleep later and woke up later were more likely to consume more calories, snack more and be less physically active — especially when in school compared to on break from school.

Study: Teens' sleep patterns affect their diet, exercise

A thick layer of haze around the ultra-low-density planet Kepler-51d likely obscures not only the strange planet’s composition, but also its origin, according to a new study. A team led by Penn State researchers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to take a deeper look at the “super-puff” planet that defies planetary formation models.

'Cotton candy’ planet hides its secrets beneath a massive layer of haze

Lightning formation and the conditions triggering it have long been shrouded in a cloud of mystery, but new research led by Penn State scientists is lifting the fog. Using mathematical calculations, the researchers discovered that lightning-like discharge doesn’t require a storm cloud — it could be made inside everyday material on a lab bench.

Researchers make mini-lightning in a block of plastic

Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi shared her thoughts in a new blog in Forbes highlighting the importance of valuing people in the age of AI — and how universities like Penn State are preparing students for the workplaces of the future.

Why People Are The Smartest AI Investment—And What It Means For Universities

Tardigrades, commonly known as water bears, may be better suited by a new name: Tardiguardians of the Galaxy. Unlike the fictional ragtag team of unenthusiastic heroes, the microscopic animals are providing real insight into how humans could adapt extraterrestrial resources to support space exploration, as well as whether such resources could help protect against the Earthly contaminants that humans might shed. This is according to an international study co-led by Penn State Altoona Professor of Microbiology Corien Bakermans.

‘Water bears’ reveal potential for adapting, protecting Martian resources

Thunderstorms often illuminate the night sky with flashes of lightning. They also seem to make treetops glow and sparkle — although the phenomenon is pretty much invisible to the naked eye. In a study led by Penn State published Feb. 12 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, scientists provide the first direct observations of the weak electrical discharges around trees in nature.

Scientists capture first-ever ultraviolet 'sparkles' from treetops

Penn State researchers have developed a new high-temperature polymer capacitor that can store four times more energy than conventional designs while operating at temperatures up to 482 degrees Fahrenheit. The advance could improve power systems in electric vehicles, data centers, aerospace systems and other high-heat environments where today’s capacitors quickly fail.

New plastic material could solve energy storage challenge, researchers report

A new study offers a look at how the building blocks of life might have originated in the cosmos. Penn State scientists suggest that the amino acids found on the asteroid Bennu did not require warm, liquid water to form, as previously assumed. The team analyzed tiny samples, consisting of roughly 4.6-billion-year-old rocks, delivered by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to Earth in 2023.

Radioactive space can host building blocks of life, asteroid samples reveal

Researchers at Penn State say they’ve developed a new hydrogel material inspired by octopus skin that can encode images directly into its structure. The imprinted images then disappear and reappear when the skin is exposed to subtle changes in temperature or a surrounding solvent. The result is a “4D” synthetic smart skin capable of revealing hidden images and shifting surface patterns.

Study: Octopus-inspired material could lead to better camouflage tech

How a new father behaves toward his baby can change family dynamics in a way that affects the child’s heart and metabolic health years later, according to a new study by researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development.

Early dad's involvement linked to lasting child health, study finds

About half of older men suffer from sleep problems, back pain or both, according to Soomi Lee, associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State. Lee recently led a study to investigate whether one precedes the other and found that back problems can predict sleep problems years later in men over 65 years old.

Study: Back pain might predict future sleep problems among men

Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi was featured in a CEO Magazine interview highlighting her belief in the transformative power of higher education and her efforts to expand access, advance ethical innovation, and strengthen the university’s educational, research, and economic impact.

President of PSU is redefining the power of education to transform lives

A new study led by researchers at Penn State found melanoma case rates tracking higher in counties with higher areas of cultivated land, where the use of chemical herbicides and pesticides can be higher.

Penn State study finds higher incidence of skin cancers in Pa.’s Farm Belt

In a significant advancement for materials science, scientists have successfully created niobium sulfide metallic nanotubes with stable, predictable properties for the first time. An international team, including Penn State researchers, achieved the long-sought feat using an unexpected ingredient—common table salt. According to researchers, the discovery could pave the way for faster electronics, efficient superconducting wires, and future quantum technologies.

Study: Common salt helps create nanomaterial for high-speed electronics

Researchers at Penn State have proposed a novel design for a lithium-ion (Li) battery. It could address the long-standing performance and stability issues of standard Li batteries in extreme temperatures. The design, dubbed the All-Climate Battery (ACB), was developed to fix a core flaw in standard Li batteries.

‘All-Climate Battery’ developed at Penn State could keep EVs running in extreme heat, cold

The discovery of a possible “super-Earth” less than 20 light-years from our own planet is offering scientists new hope in the hunt for other worlds that could harbor life, according to an international team including researchers from Penn State. They dubbed the exoplanet, named GJ 251 c, a “super-Earth” as data suggest it is almost four times as massive as the Earth and likely to be rocky planet.