Science & Technology

PHILADELPHIA –- Why is there so much disagreement about whether using recreational drugs is morally wrong? A University of Pennsylvania psychology study shows that the debate about drugs might really be about sex.The study compared two competing theories.

PHILADELPHIA –- Contradicting a popular model of self-control, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist says the data from a 2007 study argues against the idea that glucose is the resource used to manage self control and that humans rely on this energy source for will power.

PHILADELPHIA –- A team of paleontologists, including a University of Pennsylvania doctoral candidate, has described a new species of dinosaur based upon an incomplete skeleton found in western New Mexico.

PHILADELPHIA –- Genetic researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have combined data from existing archaeological and linguistic studies of Africa with human genetic data to shed light on the demographic history of the continent from which all human activity emerged.

PHILADELPHIA –- Physicists from the University of Pennsylvania and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have reported an elegant experimental study of the melting behaviors of thin crystalline films, uncovering a variety of interesting differences between thick films of greater than four layers and thinner or single-layer films.

PHILADELPHIA –- University of Pennsylvania bioengineers have demonstrated that the cells that line blood vessels respond to mechanical forces — the microscopic tugging and pulling on cellular structures — by reinforcing and growing their connections, thus creating stronger adhesive interactions between neighboring cells.

PHILADELPHIA –- Two University of Pennsylvania mathematicians have found solutions to a 140-year-old, 7-dimensional equation that were not known to exist for more than a century despite its widespread use in modeling the behavior of gases.

PHILADELPHIA –- Veterinary vision scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have safely and successfully used a viral vector in targeting a class of photoreceptors of the retina called rods, a critical first step in developing gene therapies for inherited blindness caused by rod degeneration.  

PHILADELPHIA –- Four University of Pennsylvania faculty members have been named Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  They are among 299 new Fellows and Foreign Honorary Members recognized as leaders in sciences, arts and humanities, business and public affairs. 

PHILADELPHIA –- Veterinary ophthalmology researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have used gene therapy to restore retinal cone function and day vision in two canine models of congenital achromatopsia, also called rod monochromacy or total color blindness.