Northeastern physics professor Alain Karma studies cracks. His work could lead to better batteries, tougher materials, and an improved understanding of how people age.

In a paper published in Nature Physics, Northeastern University Department of Physics Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor Alain Karma, in collaboration with his postdoctoral research associate Chih-Hung Chen and Professor Eran Bouchbinder of the Weizmann Institute of Science's Chemical Physics Department, discovered the mechanism that causes cracks to behave strangely when they spread very rapidly in brittle materials.

Dr. Alain Karma's group and researchers at Johns Hopkins University combine theoretical modeling and experiments to explain how topologically complex nanoporous and nanocomposite structures form by liquid metal dealloying, a novel technique to produce new materials with outstanding properties for energy applications.

Sudden car­diac arrest is the leading cause of death in the indus­tri­al­ized world. How­ever, it’s not well under­stood and is chal­lenging to both pre­dict and effec­tively pre­vent.

First-year students explored a range of research topics in the Summer Dis­covery Expe­ri­ence, an inten­sive summer ini­tia­tive run by the National Sci­ence Foundation-​​funded PRISM pro­gram.

Researchers from Northeastern University are among the many scientists helping NASA use the weightlessness of space to design stronger and more sustainable materials here on Earth.