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A COVID-19 transmission model inspired by gas-phase chemistry is helping the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) forecast COVID-19 deaths across the country. Developed by Yunfeng Shi, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Jeff Ban, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Washington, the model uses fatality data collected by Johns Hopkins University and mobility data collected by Google to predict disease spread based on how much a population is moving within its community.

TROY, N.Y. — If you’ve ever dropped your smartphone on a concrete floor, you know that dreaded feeling as you turn it over to see how badly the screen has cracked — but that stress may soon be a thing of the past. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered a way to make glass less brittle and less likely to break. Their findings, led by Yunfeng Shi, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer, were recently published in Nano Lett.