News Archives

Scientists Produce Mouse Eggs from Embryonic Stem Cells, Demonstrating Cells' Totipotency Even Outside the Body

PHILADELPHIA  Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have created the first mammalian gametes grown in vitro directly from embryonic stem cells. The work, in which mouse stem cells placed in Petri dishes  without any special growth or transcription factors  grew into oocytes and then into embryos, will be reported this week on the web site of the journal Science.

Better College Houses and gardens

Two talks, one theme in common

One speaker came to underscore the enduring friendship between France and America. The other came to express new hope for an enduring peace between Israel and Palestine. For both, that also meant talking about Iraq. For French Ambassador to the United States Jean-David Lafitte, making his first official visit outside Washington to speak at Penn on April 11, Franco-American differences over Iraq were a mere speed bump on a long road.

Cliff Stanley

Have you met our new executive vice president, Maj. Gen. Clifford Stanley, yet? If you haven’t, be patient—you will. He has missed few opportunities to press the flesh in his six months on the job, starting with a big welcome party on College Green last November. As he works on his portion of Penn’s next strategic plan, he is also working his way through all the offices that report to him and many that don’t, meeting and learning about the people who make them work.

At work with...Jennifer Hooker

We hear a symphony

All the seats in Irvine Auditorium were empty, but the familiar haunting strains of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” filled the hall. On stage, a small circle of violinists, viola players and cellists leaned into their instruments. Rehearsal had begun. There are just a few days left before the April 25th joint concert of the University of Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra and the University of Pennsylvania Choral Society.

When TV docs take on medical reality

Does reality inform fiction or fiction inform reality? If you ask Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School, he would say it is a little bit of both. Turow has spent the past decade probing the relationship between the television and medical establishments, putting popular prime-time medical programs like “ER,” “Scrubs” and “Gideon’s Crossing” under his critical eye. He said that today’s medical shows usually involve complicated ethical storylines where “the power of doctors often just falls apart.”

Penn Team Takes First Prize in Ninja Film Contest

PHILADELPHIA  A dozen students and alumni at the University of Pennsylvania have won the $15,000 grand prize in a competition that drew some 70 three-minute Ninja-themed films. The contest was sponsored by videogame publisher Activision, part of its promotion of a new game called Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven. Entries were judged by producer Terence Chang and director John Woo, known for films including Face/Off and Mission Impossible 2.

Michael X. Delli Carpini Named Dean of Penn's Annenberg School for Communication

PHILADELPHIA -- Michael X. Delli Carpini, a respected scholar in American politics, public-opinion research and mass media, has been named the Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Penn President Judith Rodin announced today. Delli Carpini currently serves as director of the public policy program of the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia.

Penn Commencement Live on the Web

PHILADELPHIA  Family and friends unable to attend Penn's 247th Commencement in person will be able to view the entire ceremony online thanks to a live Webcast. Coverage of the ceremony at Franklin Field  from processional to recessional and all the pomp and circumstance in between  will be broadcast live on the Internet beginning at 9 a.m. (EDT), Monday, May 19.