Science and Technology

Brown researchers develop new ligase for biomedical use

October 11, 2016

The new heat-stable RNA ligase could be useful for a variety of applications including in vitro diagnostics and sequencing.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Machine learning technique helps identify cancer cell types

October 11, 2016

The new technique could be useful in early testing of cancer drugs and in understanding drug resistance.

Read Article

Science and Technology

New grant to aid design of data-sharing platform

October 6, 2016

Brown researchers will share nearly $1 million from the National Science Foundation for a project to help encourage big data research.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Brown’s J. Michael Kosterlitz wins Nobel Prize in Physics

October 4, 2016

Professor of physics awarded "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.”

Read Article

Science and Technology

Environmental change drove diversity in Lake Malawi cichlids

October 3, 2016

Researchers show that periods of deep, clear water in Lake Malawi over the past 800,000 years coincide with bursts of species diversification.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Startup@Brown connects students with startups

September 30, 2016

The second annual Startup@Brown conference, to be held this weekend, offers entrepreneurial students a sneak peak at the startup world.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Ancient global cooling gave rise to modern ecosystems

September 26, 2016

Sea surface temperatures dipped dramatically during a period from 7 million to 5.4 million years ago, a time of massive global ecological change.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Pluto’s ‘heart’ sheds light on a possible buried ocean

September 23, 2016

A giant asteroid impact in the dwarf planet’s past offers new insights into the possibility of an ocean beneath its surface.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Experiment looks back to when the universe’s lights came on

September 20, 2016

A Brown University physicist is part of an international experiment, newly funded by the National Science Foundation, to learn more about the first stars and galaxies.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Simulation posits why legendary leapers have different ‘spring’ stiffness

September 15, 2016

New research on grasshoppers and bullfrogs offers a conclusion about jumping: When an animal has less time to store energy for a jump, it needs a less stiff tendon than one that can take its time.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Researchers make better sense of incoherent light

September 14, 2016

A technique called plasmonic interferometry helps to detect spatial coherence in ‘incoherent’ light.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Driven to discover, graduate student wins awards and strives to achieve

September 13, 2016

William Jordan filled his childhood with books, but college was more of a goal than a given — now he’s a doctoral student who hopes his example will make that path more apparent for others than it was for him.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Study results advance ‘transposon theory of aging’

September 12, 2016

A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides substantial new evidence that health becomes endangered when aging cells lose control of rogue elements of DNA called transposons.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Brown to lead $9.7M grant to advance theory of aging

September 6, 2016

A new multi-university research effort will seek to determine whether rogue elements of DNA promote or even cause aging and whether interventions against them could help people live longer and more healthfully.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Mitosis study finds potential cancer target

August 30, 2016

By drilling down to the atomic level of how specific proteins interact during cell division, or mitosis, a team of scientists has found a unique new target for attacking cancer.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Profiles in Summer Research: Sophia Gluskin-Braun

August 26, 2016

With a passion for problem-solving, the engineering concentrator is focused on the fundamentals of light and playing a role in promising research on next-generation solar cells.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Profiles in Summer Research: Nari Lee

August 26, 2016

A progression of summer experiences with faculty has left the rising senior with an expanding set of research skills and medical school aspirations.

Read Article

Science and Technology

For planetary science students, a summer of science in space with NASA

August 24, 2016

For Brown planetary science graduate students, a “mission-planning bootcamp” at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena offers an insider’s view of how to conduct research in space.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Mathematicians, police join forces on the mathematics of crime

August 19, 2016

Researchers used real data from the City of Providence to look for interesting trends and patterns that might help police analyze criminal activity.

Read Article

Science and Technology

In summer at sea, adventurous student continues a personal academic journey

August 16, 2016

Driven by a love of marine life and the memory of his grandfather, Peter Baek set out this summer on a six-week sailing voyage to study a delicate ecosystem south of the Equator.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Declining fishery production in critical African lake pinned to climate change

August 5, 2016

Warming water over the past 150 years is causing declining fish stocks in Lake Tanganyika, a large freshwater lake that supplies food for millions of Africans.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Researchers image brain cells’ reactions to concussive trauma

August 2, 2016

Using a laboratory device that can deliver concussive impacts to cell cultures and image the aftermath in real time, researchers from Brown are gaining new insight into how brain cells react to trauma.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Process could make key biodegradable polymer stronger and longer-lasting

July 25, 2016

The creation of a new polymer morphology in a material called PLA could lead to better medical implants and drug-delivery devices.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Asteroid that formed Moon’s Imbrium Basin may have been protoplanet-sized

July 20, 2016

The research, published in Nature, has implications for our understanding of the early solar system.

Read Article

Science and Technology

GAGA may be the secret of the sexes — at least in insects

July 14, 2016

Without simple repeating sequences of the DNA “letters” GA on the X chromosome, distinct genders could never have evolved, at least in flies and mosquitoes.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Tiny ‘racetracks’ show how bacteria get organized

July 13, 2016

The new research sheds light on the surprisingly complex collective movements of bacteria in confined spaces.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Researchers develop key power-splitting component for terahertz waves

June 29, 2016

The new device could be useful in future terahertz communications networks, which would have a much higher data capacity than current cellular and wireless networks.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Research uncovers spleen’s role in shaping blood cells

June 27, 2016

Computer models developed by Brown University mathematicians help to describe an underappreciated function of the spleen.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Research bolsters case for a present-day subsurface ocean on Pluto

June 21, 2016

An updated thermal model for Pluto suggests that liquid water beneath the dwarf planet’s ice shell may not be frozen yet.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Technique could help climate models sweat the small stuff

June 3, 2016

Research led by a Brown University physicist reveals a way to include small-scale dynamics into computer simulations of large-scale phenomena, which could make for better climate models and astrophysical simulations.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Software turns webcams into eye-trackers

June 1, 2016

Developed by computer scientists at Brown, the new software could help web developers to optimize content and make websites more user-friendly.

Read Article

Science and Technology

NIH awards Brown $11.5M for computational biology research

June 1, 2016

Brown University will launch a Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Computational Biology of Human Disease to expand its research using sophisticated computer analyses to understand and fight human diseases.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Study finds that protein puts the brakes on melanin

May 27, 2016

Skin, eye and hair pigmentation requires a delicate balance of acidity within the cellular compartments where melanin is made – that balance is partly regulated, scientists now know, by a protein called TPC2.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Student’s senior thesis becomes Gates Foundation-funded project

May 26, 2016

Wilson Cusack, a senior computer science concentrator, developed a text-message-based trading platform that helps connect farmers and buyers. With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he’ll pilot the project in the West African nation of Ghana.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Where meter meets mainframe: An early experiment teaching poetry with computers

May 23, 2016

A recently unearthed film from 1974 documents an early foray into the digital humanities by two Brown professors.

Read Article

Science and Technology

For botanist, road to White House led through Peruvian desert

May 6, 2016

The same scientific quest for which Erika Edwards won recognition from President Obama on May 5 had two months earlier led her and 12 students up dusty mountainsides in the world’s driest desert.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Advance could help grow stem cells more safely

May 1, 2016

Nurturing stem cells atop a bed of mouse cells works well, but is a non-starter for transplants to patients – Brown University scientists are developing a synthetic bed instead.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Flipping a chemical switch helps perovskite solar cells beat the heat

April 25, 2016

A simple chemical conversion could be another step toward making cheap, efficient and stable perovskite solar cells.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Fast and Furiosa: Student engineers off to the races at Michigan International Speedway

April 25, 2016

Having spent the last eight months designing and building their own racecar, an interdisciplinary team of Brown undergraduates is about to put their 115-mph racer to the test.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Europa’s heaving ice might make more heat than scientists thought

April 14, 2016

A new set of experiments sheds light on how much heat is created when ice is deformed, which could help scientists understand the possibility of a subsurface ocean on one of Jupiter’s moons.

Read Article

Science and Technology

In wide range of species, longevity proteins affect dozens of the same genes

April 13, 2016

Scientists studying the biology of aging have found dozens of genes common to worms, flies, mice and humans that are all affected by the same family of proteins.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Catalyst could make production of key chemical more eco-friendly

April 7, 2016

A new catalyst combining copper nanoparticles with a special type of graphene could lead to a greener way of producing ethylene, a key commodity chemical.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Lipscombe appointed to direct Brown Institute for Brain Science

April 5, 2016

Neuroscientist Diane Lipscombe will lead the multidisciplinary brain science center as its new director effective immediately, Brown Provost Richard Locke announced today.

Read Article

Science and Technology

The making of ‘SciToons’

April 5, 2016

Scientific concepts like the human microbiome, genetic splicing or conductive polymers sound complicated, but in the SciToons series Brown University students and faculty members make them fun and easier to understand.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Third annual Robot Block Party to be held at Brown

April 4, 2016

From preschoolers to professors, thousands of attendees are expected on Saturday to check out robotic technologies developed in the Ocean State and beyond.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Vibrations make large landslides flow like fluid

April 3, 2016

New research shows why some large landslides travel greater distances across flat land than scientists would generally expect, sometimes putting towns and populations far from mountainsides at risk.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Living in a constant din, bats’ hearing remains resilient

March 30, 2016

Bats need sensitive hearing to function effectively, yet live immersed in an intense clamor of sound – a new study shows that the noisy background doesn’t reduce their hearing sensitivity, which is a rare immunity in nature.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Amid the cacophony of bats, undergrad research takes flight

March 30, 2016

In two new studies inspired by the clamor of bats in flight, Brown undergraduates have made key contributions and ultimately come to regard research as a trajectory in their careers.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Song wins NSF CAREER award

March 28, 2016

For her studies on how distraction affects motor learning and action, National Science Foundation recognizes Assistant Professor Joo-Hyun Song with a CAREER award, which she’ll use to advance her research.

Read Article

Science and Technology

Graduate student honored by Chinese government

March 22, 2016

Yuanyuan ‘Alvin’ Zhou, an engineering graduate student, has been honored with the “Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad.”

Read Article

Science and Technology

Breadcrumb

News Search

News Archive

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter