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Talking energy at Penn
Wind turbines in water, with a sunset in the background.

Talking energy at Penn

Energy Week 2022, hosted by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology, runs April 4-8. It includes student presentations, along with conversations about renewables, energy and the war in Ukraine, and much more.

Michele W. Berger , Lindsey Samahon

Decoding a material’s ‘memory’
particles shown as gray dots with arrows and colored lines indicating their direction of movement

A suspension of particles of different sizes during shearing experiments conducted in the lab of Paulo Arratia, with arrows indicating particle “flow” and trajectories. In a new study published in Nature Physics, researchers detail the relationship between a disordered material’s individual particle arrangement and how it reacts to external stressors. The study also found that these materials have “memory” that can be used to predict how and when they will flow. (Image: Arratia lab)

Decoding a material’s ‘memory’

A new study details the relationship between particle structure and flow in disordered materials, insights that can be used to understand systems ranging from mudslides to biofilms.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Climate scientist Michael Mann to join Penn faculty
Michael E. Mann.

Michael E. Mann is Penn’s inaugural Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science. (Image: Joshua Yospin)

nocred

Climate scientist Michael Mann to join Penn faculty

Mann is the first new faculty member to be recruited as part of the recently announced Energy and Sustainability Initiative as a Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Newly identified softshell turtle lived alongside T. rex and Triceratops
Illustration of ancient turtle in water with Tyrannosaurus walking on ground nearby

Newly identified softshell turtle lived alongside T. rex and Triceratops

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 of a new softshell turtle from the end of the Cretaceous Period.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Four takeaways from the IPCC’s report on climate adaptation and vulnerability
Person in SCUBA fear floating over bleached coral reefs.

Evidence of coral reef bleaching in a seabed off Hachijo-jima Island in Tokyo, November 2020. The latest report from the IPCC focuses on how climate change is affecting coral reefs like this and other biodiversity, as well as people and places. (Image: The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images)

Four takeaways from the IPCC’s report on climate adaptation and vulnerability

The assessment gets explicit about the effect of climate change on people, places, and ecosystems. Experts from Penn weigh in on what it means.

Michele W. Berger

Got an idea to address the impacts of climate change along the Delaware? You could win money to make it happen

Got an idea to address the impacts of climate change along the Delaware? You could win money to make it happen

The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities’ Ecotopian Toolkit competition is soliciting proposals for tools to help the greater Philadelphia region address impacts of climate change. “One of the things that the project is really keen to develop is helping Philadelphians, and people really across the whole watershed, understand the ways that the water really connects to them and to their lives,” said Bethany Wiggin.

Interaction with lung cells transforms asbestos particles
Side-by-side panels labeled with 1 nanometer scale bar show atomic structure of asbestos

Interaction with lung cells transforms asbestos particles

To better understand what happens once asbestos enters a human body, researchers in the School of Arts & Sciences took a nanoscale look at the mineral.

Katherine Unger Baillie

A call for tools to navigate the future of the Delaware River watershed
Three images of highway submerged with water, robot, and underwater scene that says Ecotopian Toolkit for Delaware Watershed Justice

A call for tools to navigate the future of the Delaware River watershed

The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities is partnering with Philadelphia’s Independence Seaport Museum to solicit designs for tools to help Delaware River watershed residents adapt and respond to climate change and other ecological challenges.

Katherine Unger Baillie

After the shutdown, what comes next for the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery?
philadelphia refinery

Flames and smoke emerge from the Philadelphia Energy Solutions Refining Complex in Philadelphia, Friday, June 21, 2019. (Image: Matt Rourke/AP Images)

After the shutdown, what comes next for the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery?

Creating a greener, more equitable future at the site means understanding its complex history, its long-running public health impacts, and working in partnership with communities.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Climate change and the problem with time
Hand-drawn images of charts and graphs and waves, measuring global rise in temperatures and sea levels.

Climate change and the problem with time

Episode 7 of “In These Times” brings together an oceanographer, a geophysicist, and a historian about the challenges to understanding the Earth’s 4.6 billion year history, and how our actions in the present impact a future we can only imagine.

From Omnia