PHILADELPHIA -- Charles Kane and Eugene Mele of the University of Pennsylvania are among five scientists awarded the 2010 Europhysics Prize of the European Physical Society Condensed Matter Division for the theoretical prediction

PHILADELPHIA –- Why is there so much disagreement about whether using recreational drugs is morally wrong? A University of Pennsylvania psychology study shows that the debate about drugs might really be about sex.The study compared two competing theories.

Thirty-two years ago, Penn biologist Daniel Janzen broke some ribs falling into a ravine in the Área de Conservación Guanacaste in northwestern Costa Rica. Sore and unable to leave his chair beneath a 25-watt light bulb deep in the forest, Janzen began to study the moths attracted to the dim light.

PHILADELPHIA –- Contradicting a popular model of self-control, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist says the data from a 2007 study argues against the idea that glucose is the resource used to manage self control and that humans rely on this energy source for will power.

Photo Credit: Scott Spitzer

PHILADELPHIA –- A team of paleontologists, including a University of Pennsylvania doctoral candidate, has described a new species of dinosaur based upon an incomplete skeleton found in western New Mexico.

PHILADELPHIA –- Genetic researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have combined data from existing archaeological and linguistic studies of Africa with human genetic data to shed light on the demographic history of the continent from which all human activity emerged.

PHILADELPHIA –- Physicists from the University of Pennsylvania and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have reported an elegant experimental study of the melting behaviors of thin crystalline films, uncovering a variety of interesting differences between thick films of greater than four layers and thinner or single-layer films.

PHILADELPHIA –- An international collaboration led by chemists and engineers from the University of Pennsylvania has prepared a library of synthetic biomaterials that mimic cellular membranes and that show promise in targeted delivery of cancer drugs, gene therapy, proteins, imaging and diagnostic agents and cosmetics safely to the body in the emerging field called nanomedicine.  

WHAT:    Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell will speak at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine’s Commencement.