11/15
Science & Technology
Through New Open Labs Program, Penn Grad Students Share Experiences, Science
Boyang Qin, a third-year Ph.D. student, stands on stage in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the University of Pennsylvania’s Houston Hall in front of 50 high school students and parents.
Penn Study: People More Likely to Defer Making Decisions the Longer They Wait
Would you rather eat an apple or a banana? Read Moby Dick or A Tale of Two Cities? Is a cup or a mug holding that coffee? How quickly the decision gets made matters. That’s because the longer someone takes to draw a conclusion, the more likely that person will disengage from the process altogether and simply never decide.
Penn Study Finds Well Being Necessary Part of Public Policy Agenda
“Well being can and should drive public policy, from the most local to the most international levels.”
Penn Vet Research Suggests a Way to Identify Animals at Risk of Blood Clots
Patients who are critically ill, be they dog, cat or human, have a tendency toward blood clotting disorders. When the formation of a clot takes too long, it puts them at risk of uncontrolled bleeding. But the other extreme is also dangerous; if blood clots too readily and a clot travels to the lungs, brain or heart, it can lead to organ failure or even death.
Three Penn Faculty Elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Marsha Lester, Andrea Liu and Amita Sehgal of the University of Pennsylvania have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, consid
Penn Arts and Sciences Launches Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology
Penn Arts and Sciences has announced the creation of the Vagelos Institute of Energy Science and Technology.
Penn Graduate Student Selected as a St. Gallen ‘Leader of Tomorrow’
Leaders of nations, businesses and academia gathered in a corner of Switzerland to meet promising young graduate students and foster dialogue on critical economic and political issues.
Innovation Prize Goes to Two Penn Seniors for Device That Continuously Tracks Body Temperature
This is the second of two features introducing the University of Pennsylvania’s 2016 President’s Innovation Prize winners.
Omega-3 Lowers Childhood Aggression in Short Term, Penn Research Shows
Incorporating omega-3, vitamins and mineral supplements into the diets of children with extreme aggression can reduce this problem behavior in the short term, especially its more impulsive, emotional form, according to University of Pennsylvania researchers who published their findings in the Journal of
Penn Joins in $40 Million Grant to Establish Simons Observatory
The Simons Foundation has awarded a $38.4 million grant to establish the Simons Observatory, a new astronomy facility in Chile’s Atacama Desert that will merge and expand existing efforts to explore the evolution of the universe from its earliest moments to today.
In the News
Scientific American
Grumpy voters want better stories. Not statistics
In a Q&A, PIK Professor Duncan Watts says that U.S. voters ignored Democratic policy in favor of Republican storytelling.
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WHYY (Philadelphia)
Climate policy under a second Trump presidency
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences discusses how much a president can do or undo when it comes to environmental policy.
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Interesting Engineering
Superhuman vision lets robots see through walls, smoke with new LiDAR-like eyes
Mingmin Zhao of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and colleagues are using radio signals to allow robots to “see” beyond traditional sensor limits.
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Technical.ly Philly
A sneak peek inside Penn Engineering’s new $137.5M mass timber building
Amy Gutmann Hall aims to be Philadelphia’s next big hub for AI and innovation while setting a new standard for architectural sustainability.
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Salon.com
Exxon CEO wants Trump to stay in Paris climate accord
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences voices his concern about the possibility that the U.S. could become a petrostate.
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Associated Press
Amid Earth’s heat records, scientists report another bump upward in annual carbon emissions
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that total carbon emissions including fossil fuel pollution and land use changes such as deforestation are basically flat because land emissions are declining.
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The Wall Street Journal
How can we remove carbon from the air? Here are a few ideas
Jennifer Wilcox of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design says that the carbon-removal potential of forestation can’t always be reliably measured in terms of how much removal and for how long.
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Associated Press
California air regulators approve changes to climate program that could raise gas prices
Danny Cullenward of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design says that many things being credited in California’s new climate program don’t help the climate.
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Times of India
Self shocks turn crystal to glass at ultralow power density: Study
A collaborative study by researchers from the School of Engineering and Applied Science has shed new light on amorphization, the transition from a crystalline to a glassy state at the nanoscale.
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Interesting Engineering
U.S. achieves billion-fold power-saving semiconductor tech; could challenge China
A collaborative effort by Ritesh Agarwal of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and colleagues has made phase-change memory more energy efficient and could unlock a future revolution in data storage.
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