Newly rediscovered historical medical notebooks solve some mysteries about famous Muybridge images
Muybridge was recruited by Penn in 1884 for a project using emerging motion picture technology to understand human and animal locomotion. He partnered with Francis Dercum, then chief of HUP’s Dispensary for Nervous Diseases, to study how neurological conditions impacted the movements of neurology patients. This year, Geoffrey Noble, a former neurology resident in the Perelman School of Medicine, found the original clinical records for nine of Muybridge and Dercum’s photographic subjects. The notebooks, which are the handwritten clinical records of the Dispensary’s physicians, include rich details about the patients photographed by Muybridge and Dercum. The photographs served as a foundation for Dercum’s analysis of the abnormal gait due to “locomotor ataxia.”
When the Schuylkill swallowed the city: Lessons from Hurricane Ida’s historic flood
New Penn research shows that Hurricane Ida wasn’t a once-in-a-century anomaly but a preview of how climate change, urbanization, and aging infrastructure are rewriting flood risk.
The Fed explained: What it does and why it matters
Former Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker and financial historian Peter Conti-Brown, both Wharton professors, unpack the central bank’s origins, its unusual structure, and the quiet ways it shapes the economy
How population changes are impacting primary education worldwide
Research from Penn sociologist Emily Hannum and colleagues reveals regional trends in whether school-age populations are increasing, plateauing, or decreasing—and shows how different countries are responding.
A bioengineered bean gum from the lab of Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell is found to reduce the levels of three microbes associated with head and neck squamous cell cancer to almost zero, without affecting the beneficial bacteria normally found in the mouth.
Fighting oral cancer with bioengineered chewing gum
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell shows that antiviral and antibacterial chewing gums reduce the levels of three microbes linked to worse outcomes in oral cancers, paving the way for more effective and affordable therapies.
