Researchers have demonstrated a technique that uses powdered eggshells to produce high-quality magnesium alloys, which have a wide variety of automotive, aerospace and biomedical applications. The eggshells are used as a low-cost, environmentally sustainable alternative to conventional calcium materials, which are manufactured from ore using an energy-intensive process.

Manufacturing modern medicines is a multi-stage process, and each step introduces the opportunity for contamination, which can be both deadly and expensive. Penn State chemical engineering doctoral candidate Shreya Kapila is working to improve the sterilization process by surface-modifying the membranes used to sterile filter pharmaceutical products and remove bioburden. She conducts research in the laboratory of Andrew Zydney, Bayard D. Kunkle Chair and professor of chemical engineering at Penn State.

The Peninsula Innovation District, a collaboration between the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and UT Medical, has received the 2026 Emerging Community of Innovation award from the Association of University Research Parks. Building on the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm, the district is growing into a place where researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry can connect with university expertise and with one another around a shared vision for innovation. The award recognizes the momentum behind that transformation and the district’s potential for continued growth. 

English expats avoided ‘travel money’ hassle, thanks to special treatment from the Pope in the early Middle Ages, new research suggests. The discovery of 20 coins alongside evidence of craftwork in Rome’s English quarter, provides the first material evidence of the Schola Saxonum, and suggests it was a thriving and valued expat community.

National happiness is influenced by complex relationships beyond basic economic factors, according to a study published September 30, 2026 in the open access journal PLOS One by Javier I. Borráz-León of the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology, and Innovation, Mexico City and colleagues, which finds that cats and their parasites are strongly correlated with both positive and negative happiness scores worldwide.