4/22
Science & Technology
Penn Science Café Presents ‘Public (Mis)understanding of Evolution’
WHO: Michael Weisberg Chair and Professor
New Penn Study Links Moving More With Decreased Mortality
“Get up and move.”
Penn Researcher Contributes Engineering Expertise to Solving Dental Maladies
Dentistry is often described as part art, part science. Geelsu Hwang, a research associate in the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, wants to add engineering to the mix.
Raising Age of Majority Doesn’t Affect Teen Crime Rates, Penn Research Shows
In the criminal justice world, there’s an ongoing debate about whether to increase the age of majority, the point at which an adolescent can no longer be tried in the juvenile legal system and instead must be tried as an adult.
A Voyage of Discovery for Freshmen at Penn
Ian Petrie is not a maritime historian. And none of the 12 students who enrolled in his freshmen seminar had substantive experience with handwritten 19th-century manuscripts.
Penn Study: Machine Learning at Arraignments Can Cut Repeat Domestic Violence
In one large metropolitan area, arraignment decisions made with the assistance of machine learning cut new domestic violence incidents by half, leading to more than 1,000 fewer such post-arraignment arrests annually, according to new findings from the University of Pennsylvania.
Penn Research: An FDA-approved Alzheimer’s Drug Could Help Smokers Quit
Despite several safe drug therapies available to help smokers quit, three-quarters report relapsing within six months of a quit attempt.
Penn Study Reveals How Fish Control Microbes Through Their Gills
Oriol Sunyer, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, has described fish as “an open gut swimming.” Their mucosal surfaces — their skin, digestive tract and gills — are in constant con
Penn Engineers Use Network Science to Predict How Ligaments Fail
When doctors diagnose a torn ligament, it’s usually because they can see ruptures in the ligament’s collagen fibers, visible on a variety of different scans. However, they also often treat patients with many of the symptoms of a tear, but whose ligaments don’t show this kind of damage.
Penn Study: Visualizing a Parasite Crossing the Blood Brain Barrier
An estimated 30 percent of the world’s population is chronically infected with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Most people live with the infection without noticeable effect, but it can be life-threatening for people with suppressed immune systems, such as people on cancer therapies or who have HIV/AIDS.
In the News
Associated Press
Here’s why experts don’t think cloud seeding played a role in Dubai’s downpour
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that many people blaming cloud seeding for Dubai storms are climate change deniers trying to divert attention from what’s really happening.
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Big Think
Can we stop AI hallucinations? And do we even want to?
Chris Callison-Burch of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that auto-regressive generation can make it difficult for language learning models to perform fact-based or symbolic reasoning.
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Salon.com
“Record-shattering” heat wave in Antarctica — yep, climate change is the culprit
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that persistent summer weather extremes like heat waves are becoming more common as people continue to warm the planet with carbon pollution.
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CNET
How the solar eclipse will affect solar panels and the grid
Benjamin Lee of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that the electrical grid will have to figure out how to match supply and demand during brief windows where the energy source goes away.
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Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Scientists struggle to explain ‘really weird’ spike in world temperatures
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that tendencies to exaggerate climate science in favor of “doomist” narratives helps no one except the fossil fuel industry.
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Vox.com
Spring is here very early. That’s not good
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that plant-flowering, tree-leafing, and egg-hatching are all markers associated with spring that are happening sooner.
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The New York Times
Can your personal medical devices be recycled?
A lab at the School of Engineering and Applied Science led the development of a COVID test made from bacterial cellulose, an organic compound.
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Tampa Bay Times
Could Florida electric bills go up because of a fuel made from manure?
Danny Cullenward of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design says that federal and California state subsidies have led to a gold rush of companies trying to get into the business of renewable natural gas around the country.
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CNBC
Students can soon major in AI at this Ivy League university—it’ll prepare them for ‘jobs that don’t yet exist’
The Raj and Neera Singh Program in Artificial Intelligence at Penn will be the first AI undergraduate engineering major at an Ivy League school, led by George Pappas of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
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WESA Radio (Pittsburgh)
Pa. environmental, religious and other groups criticize Shapiro plan for ignoring climate change
A study by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design found that Pennsylvania would benefit overall from joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
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