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Newly described horned dinosaur from New Mexico was the earliest of its kind
Illustration of a horned dinosaur in a jungle setting

A team from Penn and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History described Menefeeceratops sealeyi, a horned dinosaur found in New Mexico that predates its relative Triceratops. (Image: Sergey Kasovskiy)

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.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Studying plants from 400 miles up
student standing outside with mountains in the background

Paul Lin completed a senior thesis grounded in his dual interests in the environment and data science. (Image: Courtesy of Paul Lin)

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.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Penn group wins EPA Campus RainWorks Challenge
A sketch of adults and children looking over a lush rain garden

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.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Communicating change in a ‘land of extremes’
fog rolling in over mongolia water

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.

Katherine Unger Baillie

‘Pompeii of prehistoric plants’ unlocks evolutionary secret
Fossil plants with a ruler that says Geology at Penn

Ash from a volcanic eruption 300 million years ago helped preserve an ancient forest, including foliage of newly characterized noeggerathialean plants. (Image: Hermann Pfefferkorn)

‘Pompeii of prehistoric plants’ unlocks evolutionary secret

An international research team, including Hermann Pfefferkorn of the School of Arts & Sciences, has solved the mystery of where 300-million-year-old specimens fit into the plant family tree.

Katherine Unger Baillie

From animals to people and back again
four panels with photos of a mink, a tiger, a dog and cat, and a gorilla

Humans aren’t the only species susceptible to COVID-19. A growing number of other animal species have become infected, posing a threat to the health of wildlife and domesticated animals, and in some cases exacerbating threats to people.

From animals to people and back again

Penn researchers are studying the propensity of SARS-CoV-2 to cross between species, and they are working to protect people, pets, and wildlife from COVID-19 infection.

Katherine Unger Baillie

The outlook for science under the Biden-Harris administration
International leaders celebrate the Paris Climate Accord

President Biden made good on his promise to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord on his first day in office. The agreement was originally adopted at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015. (Image: UNclimatechange)

The outlook for science under the Biden-Harris administration

Penn Today spoke with experts in various areas of science and environmental policy about what they anticipate will shift now that President Biden has assumed the nation’s leadership.

Katherine Unger Baillie

America’s first fossil fuel state
spruce power station

America’s first fossil fuel state

History course looks at Pennsylvania’s role in helping fossil fuel power the making of the modern world.

Kristen de Groot