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Science & Technology
Penn Interactive Map Shows Community Traits Built from More than 37 Billion Tweets
It’s no secret that communities across the United States differ greatly. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s World Well-Being Project sought a simple way to capture, explore and share such differences on a large scale.
Teaching Robots to ‘Feel with Their Eyes’
An engineering Ph.D. student is leading a project that builds up a database of surfaces so that robots may better identify what objects are made of and how to handle them.
Penn Collaboration Produces Surprising Insights Into the White Spots on Butterfly Wings
A collaboration between biologists and materials scientists at the University of Pennsylvania is yielding new insights into the wings of the “skipper butterfly” in the Costa Rican rainforest. What they learn could lead to technological advancements in systems ranging from power-efficient computer displays to sensors to energy efficient buildings, windows and vehicles.
A Perturbed Skin Microbiome Can Be ‘Contagious’ and Promote Inflammation, Penn Study Finds
Even in healthy individuals, the skin plays host to a menagerie of bacteria, fungi and viruses. Growing scientific evidence suggests that this lively community, collectively known as the skin microbiome, serves an important role in healing, allergies, inflammatory responses and protection from infection.
A New Method Could Enable More Stable and Scalable Quantum Computing, Penn Physicists Report
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University and Goucher College, have discovered a new topological material which may enable fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Exploring new worlds: Penn students design an ice drilling robot for Mars
The team’s robot is designed to drill through soil on Mars, extract ice and clay, and then melt the ice and filter it into drinkable water.
Penn Study: Blocking Yeast-Bacteria Interaction May Prevent Severe Biofilms That Cause Childhood Tooth Decay
Though most tooth decay can be blamed on bacteria, such as Streptococcus mutans, the fungus Candida albicans may be a joint culprit in an alarmingly common form of severe tooth decay affecting toddlers known as early childhood caries.
Penn/CHOP Team Gains Insights Into Cause of Infant Leukemias and Those Triggered by Chemotherapy
Certain pediatric leukemias share a common underlying cause with treatment-related secondary leukemias. Both diseases involve translocations in the KMT2A gene, in which a portion of this gene is swapped out with DNA from a “partner” gene on a separate chromosome.
Smart Materials Used in Ultrasound Behave Similar to Water, Penn Chemists Report
A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania is gaining new insight into the smart materials used in ultrasound technology. While forming the most thorough model to date of how these materials work, they have found striking similarities with the behavior of water.
In the News
The world’s oceans just broke an important climate change record
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that the warming of the oceans is helping to destabilize ice shelves and fuel more powerful hurricanes and tropical cyclones.
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New Penn AI master’s program aims to prep students for ‘jobs that we can’t yet imagine’
Chris Callison-Burch of the School of Engineering and Applied Science discusses Penn’s new online master’s program in artificial intelligence.
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The University of Pennsylvania is the first Ivy to offer an AI master’s
The School of Engineering and Applied Science has announced its first master’s degree in artificial intelligence, led by Chris Callison-Burch.
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Penn Engineering announces first Ivy League Master’s degree in AI
The School of Engineering and Applied Science has announced the first graduate program in artificial intelligence among Ivy League universities, led by Chris Callison-Burch.
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Penn Engineering rolls out an online master’s degree in AI, first in Ivy League
The School of Engineering and Applied Science has announced the first graduate program in artificial intelligence among Ivy League universities, led by Chris Callison-Burch.
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Man does DNA test, not prepared for what comes back ‘unusually high’
César de la Fuente of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Perelman School of Medicine says that Neanderthal DNA provides insights into human evolution, population dynamics, and genetic adaptations, including correlations with traits such as immunity and susceptibility to diseases.
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Forecast group predicts busiest hurricane season on record with 33 storms
A research team led by Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences is predicting the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season will produce the most named storms on record, fueled by exceptionally warm ocean waters and an expected shift from El Niño to La Niña.
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My Climate Story: Philly students take science from abstract to personal
The “My Climate Story” project at the Environmental Humanities Department helps students and teachers learn about climate change’s impact in everyday backyards, with remarks from Bethany Wiggin. The idea is credited to María Villarreal, a College of Arts and Sciences second-year from Tampico, Mexico.
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Penn professor on gen AI’s rapacious use of energy: ‘One of the defining challenges of my career’
Benjamin Lee of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that hardware and infrastructure costs are growing at high rates for generative AI.
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Satellite images capture extraordinary flooding in the United Arab Emirates
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences explains how three low-pressure systems formed a train of storms that battered the United Arab Emirates.
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