Science & Technology

Energy Working Group at Penn Hosts Mini-Symposium on Sustainable Energy

WHO: Energy Working Group at Penn, a multi-disciplinary group of University of Pennsylvania scientists and engineersGeorge Crabtree, senior scientist and director of the materials science division of the Argonne National Laboratory Joanne Milliken, director of the U.S. Energy Department hydrogen program

Jacquie Posey ・

MAGPI Hub at University of Pennsylvania Connects to New Internet2 Network

PHILADELPHIA -- The MAGPI advanced networking hub at the University of Pennsylvania has connected to the new Internet2 Network, providing the research and education community in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware with more than 10 times the capacity of its current network and with new on-demand bandwidth capabilities.

Julie McWilliams, Lauren Rotman ・

Penn Team Bridges the Digital Divide in Cameroon

Penn Team Bridges the Digital Divide in CameroonJan. 30, 2007PHILADELPHIA -- Some students in Cameroon now have computers thanks to a University of Pennsylvania engineering service organization.  A six member team of students, faculty and alumni of CommuniTech spent two and a half weeks during the winter break in Cameroon to establish computer labs.

Jeanne Leong ・

A Quarter-century of Community Partnerships

Glen Casey will be the first to admit it: He wasn’t the perfect student in high school. “I was always doing the dumbest things; getting into fights, getting arrested,” he says. A student then at University City High, Casey failed ninth grade, and barely passed 10th. “I just really wasn’t into school,” he says.



In the News


Earth Magazine

Researchers find no link between testosterone and a lack of cognitive empathy

New research by Gideon Nave of the Wharton School found that, contrary to past research, increased testosterone levels do not impair men’s ability to empathize. “We found that there is no evidence to support this effect of testosterone, but that doesn’t rule out any possible effects,” said Nave. “From what we know, though, it seems that if testosterone does have an influence, the effect is complex, not linear.”

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Breeding has shaped dogs’ brains, MRI scans reveal

Wilfried Mai of the School of Veterinary Medicine weighed in on a study that analyzed cognitive differences between dog breeds. “The paper demonstrates very nicely differences in brain morphology with either reduction or hypertrophy [larger size] of certain brain areas that are known to be associated with specific behaviors,” he said.

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WESA Radio (Pittsburgh)

Wheels, drones and Rescue Randy: DARPA robotics competition puts mine rescue to the test

A four-legged robot from the School of Engineering and Applied Science was among robots performing underwater search and rescue in a competition. “They're doing everything completely autonomously, so every step they take is kind of a minor victory for us,” said C. J. Taylor. “We always feel that we could do better. We learn so much from each of these events and that gives us new ideas about things that we want to try.”

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Penn Live

Wildlife diseases in Pennsylvania targeted by $10 million Game Commission-Penn partnership

Julie Ellis and Lisa Murphy of the School of Veterinary Medicine commented on a new collaboration between Penn Vet and the Pennsylvania Game Commission: the Pennsylvania Wildlife Futures Program, based at New Bolton Center.

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Axios

Looking to AI to understand how we learn

PIK Professor Konrad Kording said, “There is a big undercurrent in neuroscience [saying] we should go back to neural networks,” which rely on technology that allows machines to learn from their mistakes.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

‘Why not fly over it?’ Uber picks New Jersey firms in ambitious bid to beat traffic congestion

Rahul Mangharam of the School of Engineering and Applied Science commented on Uber’s new air taxi venture. “It’s going to be a very congested sky,” he said. “You want to make sure that each flight plan is safe by design, and that even if they do mess up for some reason, they have a fallback option.”

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The New York Times

A feisty Google adversary tests how much people care about privacy

Joseph Turow of the Annenberg School for Communication commented on DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine. “I’m almost embarrassed to say that I don’t use it more than I do,” he said. “There is something in my head that tells me I’ll get a better search from Google, even when I don’t know if that is demonstrably correct or not.”

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Wired

Twitter and Instagram unveil new ways to combat hate—again

Jessa Lingel of the Annenberg School for Communication said “we need humans” to help parse what is and isn’t offensive language based on context. “The tech just isn’t there yet.”

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Gizmodo

This freaky robotic fish is powered by ‘blood’

James Pikul of the School of Engineering and Applied Science co-authored a study in which researchers developed a soft, robotic lionfish powered by a blood-like compound. “This robot blood is our first demonstration of storing energy in a fluid that is normally only used for actuation,” he said.

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Scientific American

How the mind emerges from the brain’s complex networks

Danielle Bassett of the School of Engineering and Applied Science co-authored an article about network neuroscience, which allows us to see the origins of mental activity in the brain. One day, they write, “a neuroscientist who knew all the principles of brain function and everything about someone’s brain could predict that person’s mental conditions—the future, as well as the past, would be present inside the person’s mind.”

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