5/19
Michele W. Berger
Senior Science News Officer
mwberger@upenn.edu
Bringing expertise from each of their disciplines, the School of Arts & Sciences’ Kathleen Morrison and Joseph Francisco and the Environmental Innovations Initiative’s Melissa Brown Goodall infused chemistry, anthropology, policy, and more into an introductory course on climate and the environment.
In collaboration with author Amitav Ghosh, musician Ali Sethi, and Penn’s Brooke O’Harra, 14 students brought to life a parable Ghosh wrote about the world’s largest mangrove forest, human greed, and the environment.
In wartime, saving human lives is a top priority. But secondary considerations often include preserving the cultural heritage also under siege. Penn experts offer their thoughts as the situation in Ukraine continues to unfold.
Penn Museum Director Christopher Woods leads the massive transformation of the 135-year-old institution’s building while reevaluating the collection, expanding the staff and community engagement, and addressing sensitive issues through new policies.
At a site in southern India, archaeologist Kathleen Morrison and colleagues discovered the remains of two types of dough, offering insights into how the region’s dietary practices have evolved.
In a Q & A, archaeologist and PIK Professor Lynn Meskell discusses her background, the subjects that interest her—from espionage to World Heritage sites—and collaborations that have organically arisen at Penn despite the pandemic and a mostly remote first year.
When Briana Nichols, a joint doctoral candidate in Penn GSE and anthropology, started working within communities of extensive migration, she says the thing they cared about the most was what it took to not migrate.
The SNF Paideia Program and partners featured Ernesto Pujol and Aaron Levy, an artist and an interdisciplinary scholar who have transformed both what it means to listen and what the act of listening can achieve as part of a lecture and workshops.
The University of Pennsylvania Libraries has received a rare collection of 151 interpositive glass plates by photographer Edward S. Curtis (1868–1952) from collector William H. Miller III. Appraised at $4.2 million, the gift to the Penn Libraries complements holdings across the University, making Penn a major center for research and work on Curtis, one of the most prolific American photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Deborah Thomas, who runs Penn’s Center for Experimental Ethnography, and Christopher Woods, director of the Penn Museum, discuss a conference on decolonization that starts today.
Michele W. Berger
Senior Science News Officer
mwberger@upenn.edu
PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff spoke about how humans continue to evolve. For example, she said, a genetic variant that enables lactose tolerance didn’t emerge until somewhere between the past several hundred and 2,000 years. “When you’re talking about evolutionary time scales, that’s like a flash.”
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PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff spoke about her research sampling the genes of remote populations in various African regions. “Our studies combined are just the tip of the iceberg,” she said.
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PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff spoke about the anthropological origins of dairy farming and consumption. “If you have cows, you have a source of liquid and proteins and nutrition,” she said. “As long as you can keep your cattle alive, of course.”
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A team led by Joyce White of the School of Arts & Sciences studied stalagmites in a Laotian cave and identified a drought that lasted for more than a millennium, one of a series of megadroughts that affected Asia and Africa between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.
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PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff said mitochondrial DNA is a poor tool for tracking ancient population history in Africa, as it only traces genes passed from mothers to children over time.
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Kathleen Morrison of the School of Arts and Sciences weighed in on the origins of human remains found in India’s Skeleton Lake. “I suspect that they’re aggregated there, that local people put them in the lake,” she says. “When you see a lot of human skeletons, usually it’s a graveyard.”
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