News Archives

If you see more, you’re likely to eat more

The health-conscious know that they’re likely to wreak havoc on their hips if they eat too much at Thanksgiving dinner or dip too heartily into gigantic supermarket dispensers of candy. But what if they sampled just a little bit of each potato dish or just a couple pieces of each gummy color?

Staff Q&A: Bob Higgins

STAFF Q&A/Getting trauma victims to Penn’s hospitals is all in a day’s work for the man who run’s UPHS’s helicopter flight team.

Bookquick/“Everyday Politics: Reconnecting Citizens and Public Life”

Increasingly a spectator sport, electoral politics has become bitterly polarized by professional consultants and lobbyists, and has been boiled down to the distributive mantra of “who gets what.” In “Everyday Politics,” Harry Boyte transcends partisan politics to offer an alternative. He demonstrates how community rooted activities reconnect citizens to engaged public life, not just on election day, but throughout the year.

T Cell's Memory May Offer Long-Term Immunity to Leishmaniasis

PHILADELPHIA -- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a "central memory" form of "helper" T cells that can offer immunity to leishmaniasis, a disease that causes considerable death and disfigurement across the globe and has been found in U.S. military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Looking inside terror cells

They’re college educated people from upper middle-class homes, many of whom are married with children. They don’t have criminal records and they suffer a less-than-average rate of mental illness. They’re also terrorists. “ Most of what we know about terrorism is wrong,” said forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman, speaking at the Penn Bookstore on Sept. 23. “[Terrorists] are the elite of their country.”

Arguing for reason in a name-calling culture

As Amy Gutmann acknowledged Sept. 23 at the Penn Bookstore, deliberative democracy is not a phrase that trips off the tongue easily. But, she said, "It holds out the biggest promise for making democracy the best it can be." "Deliberation is difficult. It requires education, experience and good models," Gutmann said during a talk and book signing for two of her books, "Why Deliberative Democracy?" (with Dennis Thompson) and "Identity in Democracy."

Out & About: Gold diggers

Bling bling may be on the way out. At least that was one of the opinions voiced at “Seven-Up on Gold,” Sept. 29 at Kelly Writers House. The event, the first in a series that will invite seven speakers to talk, sing or generally hold forth on a particular topic for about seven minutes, was being held in conjunction with “Color Project,” the current exhibit at the Esther Klein Gallery.

A 9/11 rumor bites the dust

Not long after 9/11, rumors began to circulate about the fate of the search-and-rescue dogs that dug through the rubble in the days following the tragedy. Stories appeared about dogs dying after inhaling toxic fumes and others developing cancer.

Beauty in motion

When Norman Badler was in graduate school, trying to figure out a topic for his dissertation, he became enamored by vision. Specifically, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the human ability to not only see, but also to process that information in real time. “ It struck me then that people are able to do something quite remarkable,” says Badler. “They can look at other people and at the same time describe what those people are doing.” His dream was to give computers that same ability.

At Work With...Fran Murray