Science & Technology

PHILADELPHIA –- Material scientists at the Nano/Bio Interface Center of the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated the transduction of optical radiation to electrical current in a molecular circuit.

PHILADELPHIA –- Psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Memphis have released a new study on linguistic evolution that challenges the prominent hypothesis for why languages differ throughout the world.

PHILADELPHIA –- Biologists at the University of Pennsylvania studying the processes of evolution appear to have resolved a longstanding conundrum: How can organisms be robust against the effects of mutations yet simultaneously adaptable when the environment changes?

 PHILADELPHIA –- Skirkanich Hall, home to the Bioengineering Department in the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, has received the 2010 Institute Honor Award for Architecture from the American Institute of Architects.

PHILADELPHIA –- Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd., has been awarded the inaugural Dean’s Medal from Eduardo Glandt, dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science.

PHILADELPHIA –- Environmentalists from the University of Pennsylvania have been awarded a $4.35 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a Critical Zone Observatory in Puerto Rico.

PHILADELPHIA –- A study of 30 years of antidepressant-drug treatment data published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that the benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo may be minimal or nonexistent in patients with mild or moderate symptoms.

PHILADELPHIA –- People who identify as African-American may be as little as 1 percent West African or as much as 99 percent, just one finding of a large-scale, genome-wide study of African and African-American ancestry released today.