Inroads to Diabetes Treatment: Studying when and how the human body releases insulin to maintain blood sugar levels, researchers have found that three proteins relay signals in a process similar to an electrical circuit. Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Andre Levchenko and his team have built upon this discovery to construct a mathematical model of this circuit to better understand and predict how these oscillating signals are used within a cell.

Shake-Proof Plan: To understand how things fall, you have to shake them up a bit. Lead investigator Professor Benjamin Schafer, the Swirnow Family Faculty Scholar and chair of Civil Engineering, has been awarded a three-year $925,000 National Science Foundation grant to study how seismic forces affect midrise cold-formed-steel buildings, up to nine stories high, during the violent shaking of earthquakes. The work will include development of computer models, as well as the testing of two-story buildings atop full-size “shake tables” that replicate the forces of actual earthquakes.

Farming Wind: What’s the most cost-effective way to capture the power of wind? Charles Meneveau, the Louis M. Sardella Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has worked with a colleague in Belgium to come up with a new formula for success. The answer: Wind turbines should be placed about 15 rotor diameters apart-around twice as far apart as in the current layouts-for more cost-efficient power generation. Wind farms consisting of hundreds, and even thousands, of turbines may be underperforming due to inadequate spacing, says Meneveau. The duo’s finding will be important as more farms are added in the United States, Europe, and China.