A grant to Wayne State University from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is opening new doors for researchers and students to explore the future of autonomous vehicles, machines and drones.

Research by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope collaboration has led to the clearest and most precise images yet of the universe’s infancy, the cosmic microwave background radiation that was visible only 380,000 years after the Big Bang. 

Research by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope collaboration has put the standard model of cosmology through a rigorous new set of tests and show it to be remarkably robust. The new images of the early universe, which show both the intensity and polarization of the earliest light with unprecedented clarity, reveal the formation of ancient, consolidating clouds of hydrogen and helium that later developed into the first galaxies and stars.

Data centers power the digital world, storing and processing the vast amounts of information that keep businesses and web-based services running. According to Wangda Zuo, Penn State professor of architectural engineering in the College of Engineering and associate director for research at the Global Building Network, the operating costs for data centers are rising. He said for data centers, cooling is often the primary expense after IT. Servers generate significant heat, requiring temperature regulation to prevent overheating and malfunctions. 

Iowa State researchers are combining bio-based reactions with electricity-driven reactions as a potential step toward transforming chemical manufacturing to a greener industry that’s less dependent on petroleum-based materials and the need to process them with high energies, temperatures and emissions.

New research from the University of Chicago and University of Missouri shows how physical changes in the skull affected the mechanics of the way birds move and use their beaks to eat and explore their habitats — adaptations that helped them evolve into the extraordinarily diverse winged creatures we see today.

The only iguanas outside the Americas, Fiji iguanas are an enigma. A new genetic analysis shows that they are most closely related to the North American desert iguana, having separated about 34 million years ago, around the same time that the islands emerged from the sea. This suggests that the iguanas rafted 5,000 miles across the Pacific from western North America to reach Fiji — the longest known transoceanic dispersal of any land animal.

It may someday be possible to listen to a favorite podcast or song without disturbing the people around you, even without wearing headphones. In a new advancement in audio engineering, a team of researchers led by Yun Jing, professor of acoustics in the Penn State College of Engineering, has precisely narrowed where sound is perceived by creating localized pockets of sound zones, called audible enclaves. In an enclave, a listener can hear sound, while others standing nearby cannot, even if the people are in an enclosed space, like a vehicle, or standing directly in front of the audio source.

Ancient DNA shows an endangered dove species endemic to Cuba is more genetically distinct than the dodo was before it died out.