4/22
Penn in the News
A round-up of Penn mentions in local, national, and international media.
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Penn In the News
Record ocean heating spike may herald acceleration of global warming
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that people should focus on the longer-term outlook of steady overall ocean heating, not the fleeting impacts of El Niño and La Niña on surface temperature.
Penn In the News
Noise colors: Which one is best for sleep?
A 2021 Perelman School of Medicine review of 38 different studies found little evidence that white noise improves sleep.
Penn In the News
Want to get in the flow? Try this math equation
Angela Duckworth of the School of Arts & Sciences says that the larger number of possible outcomes in graded assignments provides a greater reduction in uncertainty than pass-fail assignments.
Penn In the News
What’s with the aversion to lab-grown meat?
Paul Rozin of the School of Arts & Sciences discusses the cultural, environmental, and evolutionary roots of people’s disgust toward cultured meat.
Penn In the News
We’re not alone: Animals suffer from mental health issues too
Carlo Siracusa of the School of Veterinary Medicine said, that while dogs certainly experience mental health issues like anxiety, their experiences differ from humans’ because they can’t plan for the future. “They’re not worrying if their buddies at the dog park are making fun of them,” he said. “Dogs aren’t obsessed in their thoughts like humans—as far as we know. They’re unlikely to be depressed in human terms.”
Penn In the News
Don’t count on evolution to save us from toxic chemicals and pollution
PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff spoke about how humans continue to evolve. For example, she said, a genetic variant that enables lactose tolerance didn’t emerge until somewhere between the past several hundred and 2,000 years. “When you’re talking about evolutionary time scales, that’s like a flash.”
Penn In the News
The slow march toward the first same-sex couple to have a baby
Marisa Bartolomei of the Perelman School of Medicine commented on the difficulty in creating an embryo with two sets of maternal DNA. “We don’t get the full set of [gene] products that we need to undergo proper development unless we have both a maternal and paternal contribution to a fertilized egg,” she said.
Penn In the News
Do soda taxes actually work? Here’s what the science is telling us
Christina Roberto of the Perelman School of Medicine discussed her research on the effects of Philadelphia’s sugar-sweetened beverage tax. “It’s really hard to shift these behaviors, and taxes are, if not the single most, one of the most impactful and important policies to move the needle on unhealthy eating habits,” she said.
Penn In the News
The Exoplanet Next Door
Cullen Blake of the School of Arts & Sciences is mentioned for studying low mass-stars and their planets.
Penn In the News
The Man Who Fought a Bull With Mind Control
Jonathan Moreno of the Perelman School of Medicine and the School of Arts & Sciences is quoted about a bullfight experiment conducted by José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado.