News
May 18, 2026
Worker bumble bees help determine which baby bee will become queen
Every bumble bee colony has a queen, but a new study led by researchers at Penn State suggests the process of determining which baby bee reigns supreme may be less monarchal than the royal title suggests. The study explored why some bumble bee larvae become workers and others become queens, despite coming from the same eggs.
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May 15, 2026
Stretchy implants could stick to arteries to treat high blood pressure
High blood pressure, formally known as hypertension, is a leading cause of heart disease in the United States, impacting nearly half of all adults. Approximately one in 10 of these patients experience drug-resistant hypertension that can be difficult to address, but according to researchers at Penn State, tiny devices that gently shock one of the body's most critical arteries could offer effective treatment.
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May 12, 2026
Q&A: What can plant evolution teach people about breeding better crops?
May 22 is United Nations International Day for Biological Diversity, drawing attention to a critical resource for developing crops that are resilient or resistant to extreme weather and other threats to their health, according to Jesse Lasky, associate professor of biology at Penn State.
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May 12, 2026
College of Ag Sciences, FAO mark one-year anniversary of Youth Food Lab
Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences welcomed a delegation from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, or FAO, to University Park last week to mark the first anniversary of the World Food Forum Youth Food Lab North America at Penn State partnership and to explore opportunities to deepen collaboration on global agrifood systems, innovation and education.
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May 11, 2026
Q&A: Is AI democratizing global health or reinforcing old inequities?
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the tools that are central to global health decision-making in areas like disease control policies, financing and vaccination strategies, such as infectious disease modeling. This brings new opportunities to the modeling landscape, but could also exacerbate existing disparities, according to Matt Ferrari, professor of biology and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at the Huck Institutes of Life Sciences at Penn State.
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May 11, 2026
Q&A: Tips to protect against ticks
May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and Pennsylvania consistently ranks as one of the top states in the nation for reported cases of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses. However, there are ways to protect people, pets and livestock against ticks and the pathogens they carry, according to Erika Machtinger, associate professor of entomology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
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May 06, 2026
Elevated blood sugar levels during pregnancy may result in poorer birth outcomes
Pregnant women in the United States are routinely tested for gestational diabetes, a condition where the body has high blood sugar during pregnancy that can lead to health problems for both mothers and babies. In a recent study led by Penn State researchers, scientists examined records from thousands of births and found that failing the glucose challenge test was associated with babies with higher birth weights — a risk factor for future obesity and diabetes — even when women passed their second glucose test.
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May 05, 2026
Dipanjan Pan named Huck director for innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems
Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences has named Dipanjan Pan, Dorothy Foehr Huck & J. Lloyd Huck Chair Professor in Nanomedicine and professor of materials science and engineering and of nuclear engineering, to serve as the Huck’s first director for innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems.
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May 05, 2026
How can the same genetic mutation lead to different clinical outcomes?
Individuals that share the same deletion of a portion of chromosome 16 are at risk of developing neurodevelopmental disorders, but some experience severe intellectual disability or developmental delay, while others may only exhibit milder psychiatric features like depression or anxiety. How can this be? To answer this, a team led by Penn State scientists has developed methods to evaluate how genetic variants elsewhere in an individual’s genome work with the deletion to help determine the features that the individual will manifest.
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May 04, 2026
Plant genes influence bacterial evolution in legume-bacteria partnership
In a recently published study, Penn State researchers described the complex relationship between plant host genes and rhizobial genes, and how plant genes strongly influence which rhizobial strains plants chose from a diverse mixture.
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