School of Arts & Sciences

The totality of RNA molecules in an organism at any one time is the product of a delicate dance. Genes must be “turned on,” or expressed, in order to turn DNA into RNA and then that RNA into proteins that accomplish an organism’s physiological needs. But, just as important, those RNA transcripts must be cleared away once they are no longer required. 

University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and Provost Vincent Price have announced the creation of the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation.

Over the summer, as University of Pennsylvania senior Adam Adnane was riding the train with his father on the way home from his research position at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, he quickly consulted his phone to find out when the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha was going to fall this year.

For people who work in the service sector, unpredictable, unstable schedules have a range of negative consequences, including psychological stress and poor health, according to a new working paper from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley.

By Patrick Ammerman

When a 2013 study published in Science concluded that reading literary fiction for as few as 20 minutes could improve someone’s social abilities, it made quite the splash.

By Patrick Ammerman Evolution tends to create simple rules that can work in organisms of all kinds. These rules are often all that nature needs to build some of the most complicated parts of biology through thousands of years of adaptation.

By Patrick Ammerman Scientists can seem set apart from other disciplines, interpreting the rules of the natural world without the involvement of the social sciences and the humanities. But a new initiative at the University of Pennsylvania is trying to change that by fostering new collaborations around the lynchpin issue of energy.

Charlotte Matthai found inspiration for her University of Pennsylvania senior thesis project during a research venture that took her to museums in three states.

Take a glance around the oceans, rivers and lakes of today and you’ll confront an astonishing diversity of fish, from narrow-bodied eels to the 25-foot-long giant oarfish to delicate, fluttering seahorses. The vast majority of fish alive today — approximately 96 percent — are known as teleosts, a group of ray-finned fish that emerged 260 million years ago.