School of Arts & Sciences

By Sarah Welsh Nature versus nurture is an age-old question in biology, centering on whether a given trait is determined by an organism’s genes or by its environment. Most times the answer is “both,” but research at the University of Pennsylvania has found one trait in particular that is not easily described by either.

The role that attention plays in generating new and useful ideas is controversial among neuroscientists. Some neuroimaging studies have shown that creativity involves more cognitive control, or focused attention. Other studies have shown it involves less.

Investigators at a new University of Pennsylvania research center will focus on key physical principles that underpin cancer’s development and growth.

After meeting online as students in University of Pennsylvania music professor Carol Muller’s open learning course, a professor at a small college in Central Appalachia and a teacher at a university in Ecuador began a dynamic collaboration.

Jason Morgan held a variety of jobs through his 30s, but it was a job lay-off during the economic downturn that led him to the University of Pennsylvania. In 2009, Morgan lost his job as a wedding photographer but soon found a job as a clerk at a restaurant on the Penn campus.

Doing doctoral research in a ninth grade music classroom in Hamburg, Germany, set Emily Joy Rothchild on a path to work with students on a recently released CD and music video that tackles the tough topics of terrorism, Islamophobia and hate.

Despite their ubiquity in consumer electronics, rare-earth metals are, as their name suggests, hard to come by. Mining and purifying them is an expensive, labor-intensive and ecologically devastating process.

Michael Platt has been named the University of Pennsylvania’s 16th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, effective July 1.  

The University of Pennsylvania today announced a partnership with leading nonprofit online learning platform edX, expanding the University’s open learning course offerings to reach millions of additional learners worldwide.

The Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania announced today that Penn alumna Sindhuri Nandhakumar is the recipient of the 2015-16 Sobti Family Fellowship.