Co-senior authors Jeremy Levy of Pitt and Andrew Daley of Oxford, collaborators from the early days of the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute, wrote an explanatory analysis of their group’s chiral-electron findings publishing in Science Advances Friday. In this study that combines  quantum physics, physics, biology, chemistry and organic systems, they developed in essence a programmable platform that could ultimately provide new ways to explore electrons in chiral systems — such as DNA, amino acids, proteins and more.

Several years ago, a cosmic particle detector in Antarctica observed a series of unusual radio signals, according to an international research group that includes scientists from Penn State. The unusual radio pulses were detected by the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment, a range of instruments flown on balloons high above Antarctica that are designed to detect radio waves from cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere — and a new study provides additional context to the signals.

KSU professor Mahmoud Asmar has received a three-year grant worth $799,800 from the U.S. Department of Energy. His work aims to deepen our understanding of how to generate and stabilize topological out-of-equilibrium quantum states.

A collaborative team led by Ravi Radhakrishnan of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Jake Brenner and Jacob Myerson of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has unraveled the mathematics of a 500-million-year-old protein network that acts like the body’s bouncer, “deciding” which foreign materials get degraded by immune cells and which are allowed entry. “This discovery enables us to design therapeutics the way you’d design a car or a spaceship—using the principles of physics to guide how the immune system will respond—rather than relying on trial and error,” says Brenner.

A new cooling technology could significantly improve the energy efficiency of data centers and high-powered electronics while reducing water use associated with cooling. By passively removing heat through evaporation, it offers a promising alternative to traditional cooling systems.

University of São Paulo researchers are developing an aircraft equipped with sensors that can detect and measure the concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane in the environment; the project was presented at FAPESP Week France in Toulouse.