School of Arts & Sciences

Literally taking to the streets of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania students found inspiration in parks, museums, subways and street corners for their “Writing Philadelphia” class assignments.

Honoring the life of Martin Luther King Jr., the University of Pennsylvania kicked off its 23rd Annual Commemorative Symposium on Social Change with a Day of Service, Monday, Jan. 15.

With countless medical advances and efforts to curb smoking, one might expect that life expectancy in the United States would improve. Yet according to recent studies, there’s been a reduction in the rate of improvement in American mortality during the past three decades.

According to the Guinness World Records, the longest any person has held a continuous vocal note is just shy of two minutes. That’s quite an achievement.Compared to the Pacific midshipman fish, however, the endurance of the human vocal cord is no match. Midshipman fish can generate a mating call that emits continuously from their bodies for a full hour.

Bo Zhen, an assistant professor of physics in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded a

School of Arts and Sciences professsor's unique writing lesson is one used by professors and writers worldwide.

A political science major and student fellow at Penn's Perry World House is working with a team of student fellows to construct a website showing how cities deal with an influx of climate change refugees.

Humans possess six forms of the protein actin, which perform essential functions in the body. Two in particular, β-actin and γ-actin, are nearly identical, only differing by four amino acids. Yet these near-twin proteins carry out distinct roles. A long standing question for biologists has been, how is this possible?

Gaia Tavoni, a postdoctoral fellow of the Computational Neuroscience Initiative, has been named a Swartz Foundation Fellow for Theory in Neuroscience for her research proposal suggesting pathways to investigate the brain mechanisms involved in learning and memory.

A political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has been studying Russian politics for more than a quarter century is in the midst of wrapping up two books.