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Science & Technology
Diving Deep for Alternative Energy
When Alison Sweeney, an assistant professor in the School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Physics and Astronomy, went scuba diving in Palau this summer, she wasn’t on vacation.
Penn Helps Develop Algorithm Aimed at Combating Science’s Reproducibility Problem
Big data sets are important tools of modern science. Mining for correlations between millions of pieces of information can reveal vital relationships or predict future outcomes, such as risk factors for a disease or structures of new chemical compounds.
I-Corps Puts Penn Startups In Drive
It’s a crash course in business skills, Peter Gebhard says, while summing up his experience so far with Innovation Corps, or I-Corps, an accelerator program supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Lightning Reshapes Rocks at the Atomic Level, Penn Study Finds
At a rock outcropping in southern France, a jagged fracture runs along the granite. The surface in and around the crevice is discolored black, as if wet or covered in algae.
For Penn’s Timothy Linksvayer, Ants Are a Model of Complex Societies
In small plastic tubs lining the shelves of a basement laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, a million organisms live in complex societies.
Penn’s THORwIn Takes Home Gold at RoboCup
The University of Pennsylvania’s robotic soccer team continues its international reign, winning the Robot Soccer World Cup’s AdultSize Humanoid League for the second year in a row.
A Window Into the Workings of Complex Societies
In small plastic tubs lining the shelves of a basement laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, a million organisms live in complex societies.
Penn Vet Study Shows Immune Cells in the Skin Remember and Defend Against Parasites
Just as the brain forms memories of familiar faces, the immune system remembers pathogens it has encountered in the past. T cells with these memories circulate in the blood stream looking for sites of new infection.
Recent Penn Alum Finds His Calling to Help Others
What began as preparations for a class service trip to China has turned into a possible career path for Nikhil Rajapuram, a May graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Penn Researchers Discover New Chiral Property of Silicon, With Photonic Applications
By encoding information in photons via their spin, “photonic” computers could be orders of magnitude faster and efficient than their current-day counterparts. Likewise, encoding information in the spin of electrons, rather than just their quantity, could make “spintronic” computers with similar advantages.
In the News
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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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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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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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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Why don’t we just ban fossil fuels?
Joseph Romm of the School of Arts & Sciences says that stronger action against fossil fuels is essential to save the planet.
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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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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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We don’t have time for climate misinformation
In a co-written Op-Ed, Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that meaningful decarbonization in the U.S. is in jeopardy of being blocked or slowed if a significant portion of the electorate does not accept the basic scientific facts and implications of climate change.
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Penn to become first Ivy League to offer AI degree, looks to ‘train the leaders’ in emerging field
Penn is the first Ivy League university to offer a degree in artificial intelligence, with remarks from Robert Ghrist of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
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A famous climate scientist is in court, with big stakes for attacks on science
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences is suing a right-wing author and a policy analyst for defamation against the “hockey stick” climate change graph.
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