Katherine Unger Baillie

A decade ago, faculty from the departments of Biology and Psychology put together a vision statement describing their wishes to consolidate expertise and students from disparate locations oncampus in one facility, replete with functional, inviting spaces for collaboration and learning.

At first glance, it might seem that community gardening and beryllium isotopes have little in common.

The recent public health crisis in Flint, Mich., has refocused attention on an issue that likewise plagues Philadelphia: lead contamination. While the main concern in Flint is toxic lead in the water, in Philadelphia, paint from the city’s older buildings is thought to be the primary contributor to lead exposure, which can cause serious health problems, particularly in young children.

Science lovers, rejoice. The Philadelphia Science Festival (PSF) is making a return on Friday, April 22, through Saturday, April 30, and Penn, a sponsor and core collaborator of the event, will be well represented in the festivities.This year marks the sixth annual PSF and includes more than 90 events citywide.

This is the third in a series of features introducing the 2016 Penn President’s Engagement Prize winners. Public libraries serve communities in myriad ways, providing places where people gather to read, learn a new language, access the internet, pick up tax forms or apply for jobs.

Females are at a disadvantage when it comes to susceptibility to lupus and many other autoimmune conditions. Eighty-five percent of lupus patients are women.

By some estimates, there are more than 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Like our sun, many of these stars are orbited by planets.Over the last five years, thousands of exoplanet candidates have been detected by NASA’s Kepler satellite, part of a search for other worlds that resemble Earth and may even be hospitable to life.

At the southernmost edge of Penn Park, beyond the tennis courts and alongside the railroad tracks, an orchard grows. The first plantings—including fig, plum, pear, blueberry, quince, and elderberry—went in during the fall of 2014.

Methane is the world’s most abundant hydrocarbon. It’s the major component of natural gas and shale gas and, when burned, is an effective fuel. But it’s also a major contributor to climate change, with 24 times greater potency as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Possessing two X chromosomes is a double-edged sword, immunologically speaking. Females are better at fighting off infection than males, but they are also more susceptible to many autoimmune conditions, such as lupus.