News Archives

You're gonna hear them roar

Inside the Morris Arboretum’s ‘Jewel’

In 1899, amateur botanist John Morris and his sister Lydia built a “jewel” on the property of their summer estate, Compton. This fernery, a glassed home for ferns, rimmed by a foundation of stone, perfectly tapped into the Victorian era fascination with the plants. Fascination, however, may be an understatement.Some say the Victorians were downright obsessed. The term pteridomania describes this fixation on ferns: Forms of the plant appeared on textiles, pottery, furniture, and even gravestones.

Penn Vet-CHOP research sheds light on birth defects

Each year in the United States, about 2,600 babies are born with cleft palates, roughly 150,000 people are diagnosed with epilepsy, and nearly half a million babies are born preterm, which puts them at risk of respiratory failure. New insight from a study by researchers at the School of Veterinary Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics, has laid the groundwork for developing diagnostic tools and therapies for these all-too-common conditions.

HR offers new smoking cessation program

Penn’s Division of Human Resources (HR) has unveiled a new smoking cessation program to help faculty and staff who smoke improve their health and save money on the costs of nicotine replacement therapy. All full- and part-time, benefits-eligible employees can enroll.

Neural and Behavioral Sciences Building

CENTER OF COLLABORATION: By the time students set foot on campus in the fall of 2016, Penn will have two reimagined entrances at opposite corners. To the northeast: The New College House on Hill Field.

Student Spotlight with Katharine Cristaudo

“KAT” FOR SHORT: Katharine Cristaudo, a second-year MSW student in the School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) is the president of Social Work Advocates for Immigrant Rights (SWAIR), a student-run organization at SP2 that offers support to Philadelphia’s immigrant community, and aspires to increase knowledge and understanding of the role of social workers in addressing immigration issues.

For the Record: Louis Duhring

A pioneer in dermatology, Louis Duhring was a physician and Penn professor whose work and generosity left a lasting legacy in the field and at the University.

Penn Team Links Africans’ Ability to Digest Milk to Spread of Cattle Raising

Babies are born with the ability to digest lactose, the sugar found in milk, but most humans lose this ability after infancy because of declining levels of the lactose-digesting enzyme lactase. People who maintain high levels of lactase reap the nutritive benefits of milk, however, offering a potential evolutionary advantage to lactase persistence, or what is commonly known as lactose tolerance.

Move your feet to beat oral cancer

On Saturday, March 29, Penn Dental Medicine’s student-run Philadelphia Oral Cancer Awareness Society will join students from Temple’s Kornberg School of Dentistry to present the 6th Annual Philadelphia Oral Cancer Walk & 5K. This event includes free community oral cancer screenings from 8 a.m. to noon.

27th Annual Women of Color at Penn Awards Luncheon to be Held March 21

WHO:             Women of Color at Penn                       University of Pennsylvania