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Are mushrooms the building material of the future? What can people do to address the opioid epidemic? These and other questions are all explored in the latest season of a podcast recorded and produced at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Originally launched in the fall of 2019, Why Not Change the World? The RPI Podcast brings together leading experts from different disciplines to discuss the interconnected challenges facing humanity around the globe. All episodes are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and other major podcasting platforms.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is donating 5,000 surgical masks to Mount Sinai in New York City and 2,500 masks each to Albany Medical Center and St. Peter’s Health Partners in the Capital Region. These contributions to the fight against COVID-19 have been made possible through the generosity of the parents of international students at the Institute.

Nathan Meltz, a senior lecturer in the Department of the Arts in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was recently awarded an Honorable Mention for his entry in the Four Rivers Print Biennial, a national juried exhibition.

To help people stay as happy, healthy, and productive as possible during the current pandemic, the Strategic Communications and External Relations team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has released “The Rensselaer Guide to Living and Working Well While Social Distancing.”

Using daily updated data, COVIDMinder, a new data visualization tool, examines how and why COVID-19 impacts regions differently by comparing community risks, mediation tools, and outcomes related to COVID-19 by state across the United States, and by county within New York state.

An instrument currently aboard the International Space Station could grow E.coli bacteria in space, opening a new path to bio-manufacturing drugs during long term space flights, according to research published today in Nature Microgravity

From Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg, the stories of prosperous, young innovators drive the American economic narrative. However, the truth is that older business entrepreneurs may be just as well suited to success. And older women are far more successful at launching a business than their younger counterparts.

TROY, N.Y. — There is a growing appreciation within the research community for the ways in which the biomechanics of the tumor environment may contribute to how its cells grow and even spread throughout the body. The closer researchers can get to re-creating those mechanical factors in the lab, the better they will understand tumor cell migration and how to stop cells before they invade other tissue.

Liping Huang, a professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been named a fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) — an honor bestowed on members who have made “outstanding contributions to the ceramic arts or sciences.”

The temptation for businesses to use artificial intelligence and other technology to improve performance, drive down labor costs, and better the bottom line is understandable. But before pursuing automation that could put the jobs of human employees at risk, it is important that business owners take careful stock of their operations.