School of Arts & Sciences

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The ability to assess surroundings and move through the world is a skill shared by many animals, including humans, yet the brain mechanisms that make it possible are poorly understood.

Many people report deep feelings of connection and self-loss while listening to music, meditating or during intense experiences of awe, an experience captured by the phrase, “I felt at one with all things” or “I was lost in the music.”

A combination of anthropology and French created the path for student Samantha Sharon Ashok at the University of Pennsylvania to discoveries detailed in her award-winning senior honors thesis. Ashok researched the mid-1800s work of Paul Broca, a French physician and anthropologist, one of the most influential scientists of his time.

In the field of criminology, it is well established that men engage in more crime than women.

In previous papers, University of Pennsylvania physicists investigated the “coffee ring effect,” the ring-shaped stain of particles left after drops of coffee evaporate. In one paper, they learned how to undo this effect by altering particle shape.

When a close friend shares bad news, our instinct is to help. But putting ourselves in a friend’s shoes, imagining how we would feel if we were the one suffering, may have detrimental effects on our own health, according to a new study led by the University of Pennsylvania’s Anneke E. K. Buffone.

In a huge study of female rhesus macaques, a team of researchers led by the University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Platt found those with many close female relatives have a higher life expectancy.

Thanks to the Penn Arab Music Ensemble, a group of nearly 120 University of Pennsylvania student musicians and their audiences are exposed to the culture of Arab music.

The midwater region of the ocean is the largest habitat by volume in the world, making up 99 percent of Earth’s livable space. It’s home to a myriad of occupants, many of which have evolved peculiar abilities to allow them to survive.