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Star Struck: Physics Grows Astronomically
Growing up in a big city like Baltimore, Elizabeth Raun never got a really good look at the stars and heavens -- all those street lights obscuring the skies. It wasn't until she got to another big city, Philadelphia, and Penn, that she got a really good look at what's up there. And now is hooked. Raun, a math and economics major, is required to take a course in the physical sciences to fulfill her graduation requirements. With some trepidation, she took Astronomy 1, a course designed for non-science majors. It turned out to be a lot more fun than she thought.
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Water in the Desert: Penn Professor Leads International Effort
Water may be considered an inexhaustible resource because the total supply of water in the biosphere is not affected by human activities. Water is not destroyed by human uses, although it may be held for a time in combination with other chemicals. To be useful, however, water must be in a particular place and of a certain quality, and so it must be regarded as a renewable, and often scarce, resource, with recycling times that depend on its location and use. --The Encyclopedia Britannica
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This Old House Needs 150 Service Calls a Day
Down in the basement of the Franklin Building Annex is the latest tool in the never ending battle to save university buildings from decay. It is a midrange computer that thinks the whole university is its own old house -- an old house composed of 124 buildings built between 1872 and 1996 and used by 50,000 patrons any day of the week.
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Neutrinos Materialize and Pack a Wallop
Some dead stars heavier than our sun move across outer space at 450 kilometers per second. Now physicists from Penn and CERN (a European high-energy physics lab) have suggested that the dead stars, or pulsars, were kicked to that speed by the puniest of all particles known to physicists: the neutrinos. What an unlikely candidate. Neutrinos are so puny they cannot push even our most sensitive detectors on Earth. Neutrinos simply fly through matter like ghosts fly through walls. How could they kick something they pass through like ghosts?
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Call to Action from New Recreation Chief
A bowling tournament. A golf outing. A fishing rodeo. And there's more coming. And you can find out about it and sign up for activities on the new Recreation Department home page, http://www.upenn.edu/recreation. All this is part of Mike Diorka's plan. Enthusiasm bursting from every pore, Diorka this year assumed the position of Penn's head of Recreation. With major plans to restructure the department, he expects to make recreation a more visible aspect of campus life.
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Habla Chino o Arabe?
Enrollments in Chinese and Arabic college courses are growing faster than enrollments in other foreign languages, with Spanish enrollments also increasing significantly. These are among the findings of the Modern Language Association of America's (MLA) 18th annual study of foreign language enrollment.
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Internet Interview of Rodin
Stop by the hippest magazine on the Internet for an on-line interview of President Judith Rodin. The Salon Magazine q&a, describing Rodin as "the moving force behind the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community," discusses the causes and trends behind the apparent rise of incivility and polarization plaguing public discourse. The address is http://www.salon1999.com/news/news970108.html
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Well Said
The following quotes from Penn professors and others appeared in publications across the country and around the world. "The Christmas truce was the last twitch of the 19th century. It was the last public moment in which it was assumed that people were nice. It's the last gesture that human beings are getting better the longer the human race goes on. " --Paul Fussel, professor emeritus of English, commenting on how the German and British soldiers swapped food during the first Christmas of World War I (U.S. News and World Report, Monday, November 11).
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The French Paradox and the Consumption of Alcohol
Smoking. Hypertension. Lack of exercise. A high-fat diet. All of these things can lead to coronary heart disease (CHD). Yet the French, who are no strangers to these risk factors, suffer the lowest level of heart disease in the Western World. This is known as "The French Paradox." On April 22, Serge Renaud, the scientist who solved this paradox, came to Penn to discuss his findings. Renaud is the researcher who identified the connection between France's low CHD mortality rates and the moderate and regular consumption of alcoholic beverages.
News・ Sports
Rich Bonfiglio named new men’s tennis coach
Bonfiglio began his coaching career at Trinity in 2011 and coached at Ithaca, Amherst, the University of San Diego, Columbia, and USC before coming to Penn.