News

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how a nimble and innovative manufacturing sector can address some of humanity’s most pressing and emergent needs —  from the production of masks and face shields to the biomanufacturing of therapeutics. Beginning on Monday, November 2, high school students from across the region will have an opportunity to explore some of the wide-ranging potentials of manufacturing during the 9th Annual National Manufacturing Day celebration at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

A small energy harvesting device that can transform subtle mechanical vibrations into electrical energy could be used to power wireless sensors and actuators for use in anything from temperature and occupancy monitoring in smart environments, to biosensing within the human body.

The workings of the human brain — from decision-making and dealing with stress to analyzing and improving certain cognitive functions — are the focus of a new episode of Why Not Change the World? The RPI Podcast.

Armed with evidence that a specific site on heparan sulfate — known as the 3-O-sulfate group — is critical to the transfer of harmful tau proteins in the brain, a research program funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Aging is scrutinizing the interactions between heparan sulfate and tau, determining how misfolded tau spreads in the brain, and developing strategies to block it.

TROY, N.Y. — The harsh conditions that equipment, satellites, and spacecraft are subject to in space pose significant challenges. Electronic systems must be protected from extreme heat and cold, while storage containers holding liquid propellants must be shielded from solar radiation.

A cross-disciplinary team of faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have launched the Alzheimer’s Prevention Project and created a website designed to encourage citizens to engage in activities that scientific research has identified will reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

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.

The latest episode of Why Not Change the World? The RPI Podcast features excerpts from three lectures that were part of the Engineering the Anthropocene speaker series held at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Adam Fellows, a second-year student of Economics in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was recently honored with a national service award from Hormel Foods.

Astrophysicists announced today that announced that the merger of a dwarf galaxy and the Milky Way produced a series of telltale shell-like formations of stars in the vicinity of the Virgo constellation, the first such “shell structures” to be found in the Milky Way.