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Penn Chemist Alan G. MacDiarmid Honored with China's Friendship Award
PHILADELPHIA -- University of Pennsylvania Professor and Nobel Laureate Alan G. MacDiarmid received the Friendship Award today from Chinese Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu at a ceremony in Beijing. This year, the annual Friendship Award was conferred on 84 foreign experts for their outstanding contributions to China's economic and social development. MacDiarmid was honored for his work as chairman of the Alan G. MacDiarmid Institute at Jilin University in ChangChun, China, and professor in Jilin University Chemistry Department.
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University of Pennsylvania and Sayre High School Hold Community Celebration Day and Health Fair
PHILADELPHIA -- The University of Pennsylvania and Sayre High School are holding the "Penn-West Philadelphia Community Celebration Day and Health Fair" at the Sayre campus, 58th and Walnut streets, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 9.The event will feature free medical and dental screenings by Penn medical and dental school students and faculty, a clean-up of the school and surrounding area, food and drinks and comments by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell.
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Hidden Diversity: DNA "Barcoding" Reveals a Common Butterfly Is Actually 10 Different Species
PHILADELPHIA -- A common butterfly, found in a variety of habitats from the southern United States to northern Argentina, is actually comprised of at least 10 separate species, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Writer urges people to keep journals in times of joy and pain
For 41 years, Janet Ruth Falon has kept a journal, writing about her spirituality, Jewish faith, and both painful and joyful experiences. Now, 19-plus volumes later, Falon has written a book about journaling itself, which she says is the “way to shake everything up inside.” In “The Jewish Journaling Book” (Jewish Lights, 2004), Falon debunks some journaling myths (you don’t have to write everyday) and encourages people to create their own journals, unique to their individual tastes.
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Ask Benny: When will the construction ever end?
Dear Benny,What is the goal of the construction in front of the Penn Museum and why is it taking so long? — Missing The Garden Dear Anxious Onlooker,There’s a good reason you haven’t noticed much progress at the site — most of the work is happening below ground. But rest assured, work is moving along and should be completed soon.
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Web site cuts through political spin
President George W. Bush accuses Democratic Senator John Kerry of casting 98 Senate votes to increase taxes. John Kerry says new jobs being created on the Bush administration’s watch are paying workers $9,000 less than old ones. Are these statements true, or are they simply political spin designed to win votes? According to the people at the nonpartisan organization Annenberg Political Fact Check and its web site, www.factcheck.org, it’s the latter.
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Bookquick/“Debt for Sale: A Social History of the Credit Trap”
After September 11, 2001, ordinary Americans were urged to shop. Patriotic shopping would thwart terrorists, celebrate public life and pull us back from the abyss of recession, we were told. But we knew that we could not really save America by shopping: Too many of us carried too much debt.
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The fine art of sleep
Hans Van Dongen spends his waking hours thinking about sleep. Or, to be more accurate, lack of sleep. An expert on sleep deprivation and how it affects the way we make it through the day, Van Dongen, a research associate professor of sleep and chronobiology in Penn’s School of Medicine, also knows more than most people about the biological clock. His current research involves studying the effects of both sleep loss and jet lag on astronauts.
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New site shines light on Penn arts
In the last few years Penn’s web presence has changed dramatically. First there was the complete overhaul of the University’s main web site, designed to make virtual visits to the campus more user friendly. On the heels of that initiative came a new site called Research at Penn, which drew attention to the University’s leadership role in research. Now comes a site that shines a spotlight on Penn’s rich and varied arts and culture offerings.
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Return of the minute-long treatise
Daniel Janzen says most of the world is plant illiterate. That is, people can’t read nature. And, as a result, most of us don’t know enough about the natural world to make any sense of it. “ If you couldn’t read, that library over there would just be a stone cave full of firewood,” Janzen, a biology professor and biodiversity expert in the Department of Biology, told his audience at the first of this fall’s 60-Second Lectures. “Well, 5.5 billion people in the world can’t read this,” Janzen added, picking up a plant. In the not-so-distant future, he said, that will change.