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Katherine Unger Baillie
Senior Science News Officer
kbaillie@upenn.edu
Earth and Environmental Science
A fountain, its steps, and its garden—restored
A fountain, its steps, and its garden—restored
In a photo essay, see the newly restored Step Fountain and surrounding garden beds at the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania.
The world at our feet: Reflections on Earth and its prospects
The world at our feet: Reflections on Earth and its prospects
It’s our tiny oasis in a vast universe, and it’s feeling fragile. Five faculty from Penn Arts & Sciences who study the Earth’s geological past, its surface activity, and its soils and life forms discuss how Earth and its inhabitants can get along better.
Shifting sands, creeping soils, and a new understanding of landscape evolution
Shifting sands, creeping soils, and a new understanding of landscape evolution
New experiments show that, even when undisturbed, piles of sand grains are in constant motion, challenging theories of how soils and other types of disordered materials behave.
Penn Vet dual degrees: The student experience
Penn Vet dual degrees: The student experience
The expansion of the dual degree program is timely, given the recent perfect storm of a pandemic; growing awareness of social, racial and economic inequity; and increased impact of climate change .
For early amphibians, a new lifestyle meant a new spine
For early amphibians, a new lifestyle meant a new spine
Moving from water to land and back again corresponded with distinct changes in animals’ spinal morphology, according to a new study led by paleontologist Aja Carter.
Reconsiderations of past, present, and future in a new environmental humanities book
Reconsiderations of past, present, and future in a new environmental humanities book
Featuring contributions from scholars representing a range of disciplines, ‘Timescales: Thinking Across Ecological Temporalities,’ is an outgrowth of the Penn Program for Environmental Humanities.
Newly described horned dinosaur from New Mexico was the earliest of its kind
Newly described horned dinosaur from New Mexico was the earliest of its kind
With a frilled head and beaked face, Menefeeceratops sealeyi lived 82 million years ago, predating its relative, Triceratops. Researchers including Peter Dodson, of the School of Veterinary Medicine, and Steven Jasinski, who recently earned his doctorate from the School of Arts & Sciences, describe the find.
Studying plants from 400 miles up
Studying plants from 400 miles up
Using remote sensing data, senior Paul Lin looked for signals of climate change in the grasslands of the Great Plains.
Penn group wins EPA Campus RainWorks Challenge
Penn group wins EPA Campus RainWorks Challenge
The student-led project will reimagine the campus of West Philadelphia’s Andrew Hamilton School, including vegetable gardens, a food forest, and other green stormwater-management tools.
Communicating change in a ‘land of extremes’
Communicating change in a ‘land of extremes’
In Aurora MacRae-Crerar’s Penn Global Seminar, students are grappling with the impacts of a shifting and unpredictable climate in Mongolia.
Media Contact
In the News
The New York Times
The hills are alive with the flows of physics
In the lab of Douglas Jerolmack, researchers led by doctoral candidate Nakul Deshpande of the School of Arts & Sciences explored how landscapes gradually move over time.
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Science
Why do rivers leap from their banks? Scientists strive to predict deadly flooding events
Douglas Jerolmack of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about his research on avulsion, a phenomenon in which rivers seek new routes. His experiments confirmed that avulsions are both natural and predictable.
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The New York Times
Businesses aim to pull greenhouse gases from the air. It’s a gamble
Jennifer Wilcox of the School of Engineering and Applied Science spoke about companies pledging to eliminate their carbon emissions within decades. “Carbon removal shouldn’t be seen as a get-out-of-jail-free card,” she said. “It has a role to play, particularly for sectors that are very difficult to decarbonize, but it shouldn’t be an excuse for everyone to keep emitting greenhouse gases indefinitely.”
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The Hill
Wealthy households have 25 percent higher carbon impacts than lower-income homes
Vincent Reina of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design spoke about how class affects access to sustainable energy alternatives. “For higher income individuals, it's a function of choice," he said. "For lower income individuals, it's a function of constraints.”
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The New York Times
Southern Iraq’s toxic twilight
Marilyn Howarth of the Perelman School of Medicine says oil rain, a byproduct of oil production, can be carcinogenic. “The oil itself can contain traces of heavy metals, arsenic, and radioactivity, which could be a source of lung cancer,” she said.
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Science
No asteroids needed: ancient mass extinction tied to ozone loss, warming climate
Lauren Sallan of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about the end of the Devonian period 359 million years ago, in which the ozone layer was damaged, resulting in a mass extinction. The discovery is significant to today’s climate change research.
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