In the news

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – People with hand amputations experience difficult daily life challenges, often leading to lifelong use of a prosthetic hands and services. An electronic glove, or e-glove, developed by Purdue University researchers can be worn over a prosthetic hand to provide humanlike softness, warmth, appearance and sensory perception, such as the ability to sense pressure, temperature and hydration. The technology is published in the Aug. 30 edition of NPG Asia Materials.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Human pathogens, such as HIV and viruses causing respiratory tract infection, have molecular fingerprints that are difficult to distinguish. To better detect these pathogens, sensors in diagnostic tools need to manipulate light on a nanoscale. But there isn’t a good way to manufacture these light manipulation devices without damaging the sensors. Purdue University engineers have a solution: Stickers.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Current drugs to treat malignant tumors may be successful at reaching the tumor site but often fail to fully reach the cancerous cells in tumors. The problem persists because tumor models used in cancer research and produced by cell culture in laboratories are not nearly the size of the actual tumors in patients. So even when a drug appears to be effective in the tiny tumors in research labs, they may perform much differently for patients.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The field of topology or the study of how surfaces behave in different dimensions has profoundly influenced the current understanding of matter. The prime example is the topological insulator, which conducts electricity only on the surface while being completely insulating inside the bulk. Topological insulators behave like a metal, i.e., silver on the surface, but inside, it would behave like glass. These properties are defined using the conductivity or flow of electrons depicting whether there is a highway or a road-block for their motion. One major driver of future applications for topological insulators is in the field of spin-electronic devices since these electrons spin in unison, all aligned with each other while flowing on the surface.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — On the frontier of quantum computing, scientists are exploring how electronic excitations – collective behavior of many electrons acting in concert– behave differently in comparison to ordinary electrons. In certain regimes of ultra-low temperature and high magnetic field, electronic excitations in a two-dimensional plane act as if they carry on a fraction of the ordinary electron charge and obey unusual properties when any two particles are exchanged. Some of these properties may be useful for quantum information processing.

Prof. Zubin Jacob has been awarded a prestigious Director’s Fellowship from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday (Aug. 2) ratified six named faculty positions.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Opioid users tend to be alone and incapacitated during an overdose. Purdue University researchers are developing a device that would automatically detect an overdose and deliver naloxone, a drug known to reverse deadly effects. “The antidote is always going to be with you,” said Hyowon “Hugh” Lee, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue. “The device wouldn’t require you to recognize that you’re having an overdose or to inject yourself with naloxone, keeping you stable long enough for emergency services to arrive.”

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — More than 174,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year, according to the American Cancer Society, putting it behind only skin cancer as the most common cancer among American men. Ji-Xin Cheng, adjunct professor of Purdue’s Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry, says a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine found that 1,410 men need to be screened and 48 additional cases of prostate cancer need to be treated to prevent only one death.

Internet searches, decade-old emails and on-demand video offerings help contribute to electricity consumption by America’s server farms and data centers amounting to more than 2 percent of the country’s annual total.