University of Pennsylvania

New research has now zeroed in on the finer details of how weight gain and obesity can be a driver of sleep apnea, revealing that a reduction of fat in the tongue appears key to lessening the severity of its symptoms.

Radiation therapy is currently our best shot at treating cancer, but healthy cells often become unfortunate collateral damage. New research shows how the treatment can be made safer by reducing the time involved from weeks to seconds.

New research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has shown nicotine-free e-cigarette vapor can have an immediate harmful effect on the body's vascular function.

​Despite the fact that dry eye disease (DED) is a relatively common condition, there are relatively few drugs approved for its treatment. This is because the testing of such medications on actual human eyes would be quite risky. With that in mind, scientists have developed a blinking eye-on-a-chip.

The FDA has granted accelerated approval to a new cancer drug called selinexor. This pill has been found to be successful in treating multiple myeloma in patients that hadn’t had success with other treatments. But at this very early stage the drug comes with some major caveats.

The promise of reusable sticky things, from Post-it Notes to Blu Tack, has never quite been fulfilled. They're just never quite as sticky the second time around, or the third. But now, a team of engineers thinks it has an answer, inspired by one of nature's great stickers, the humble, slimy snail.

An army of tiny robots scuttling about inside your mouth cleaning your teeth. It's a disquieting thought, and yet it might be one of the most effective ways to deal with the sticky bacterial biofilms that coat our choppers – as well as water pipes, catheters and other tough-to-clean items.

In extreme cases the flu virus can actually reshape the structure of the lungs. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a major part of that restructuring that until now had gone unnoticed – “taste bud cells” seem to grow in the lungs after a severe case of the flu.

​We've seen numerous nano-devices designed for tasks such as delivering medication within the body, and they move in a variety of ways. One of the latest is a tiny four-legged robot, that could actually walk to its target.

A new technique has been used to turn ordinary metals into "metallic wood" with a greatly improved strength-to-weight ratio. By manipulating materials at the atomic scale, scientists claim to have created a sheet of nickel that is as strong as titanium​, but up to five times lighter.

​As the shock-absorbing cartilage discs between our vertebrae degenerate due to aging, accidents or overuse, severe back pain can result. While some scientists have developed purely synthetic replacement discs, a recent test on goats indicates that bioengineered discs may be a better way to go.

A research team led by Cornell University has demonstrated a bunch of modular robots that move together as one, but break apart and reform as a different shape that's better suited to the assigned task or to navigate obstacles.