Through
11/26
Science & Technology
Penn Engineer Mark Harding Learns About Himself Via Teaching
(This is the second in a series about University of Pennsylvania students who took their arguments in support of federal student financial aid to Washington this summer in a project organized by the Office of Student Registration and Financial Services. Other profiles feature students Kristin Thomas and Mounica Gummadi.)
Penn Researchers Help Show New Way to Study and Improve Catalytic Reactions
Catalysts are everywhere. They make chemical reactions that normally occur at extremely high temperatures and pressures possible within factories, cars and the comparatively balmy conditions within the human body. Developing better catalysts, however, is mainly a hit-or-miss process.
Nano-Noses at Penn Science Cafe
Physicist Charlie Johnson connects the biological to the digital, using graphene and carbon nanotubes to turn chemical interactions into electrical signals. Johnson will explain how attaching biological structures, such as antibodies, to these flat or rolled-up lattices of carbon atoms has enabled him and his colleagues to build new kinds of sensors, detecting things like Lyme disease bacteria.
John Swartley Appointed Associate Vice Provost for Research at Penn
John S. Swartley has been named associate vice provost for research and executive director of the Center for Technology Transfer at the University of Pennsylvania.
President Obama Requests Bioethics Commission to Play Early Role in BRAIN Initiative
WASHINGTON -- As part of the new Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, or BRAIN Initiative, announced in April, President Barack Obama has asked the Presidential Commission
Two Penn Researchers Named Simons Investigators
Rajeev Alur and Randall Kamien of the University of Pennsylvania have been awarded five-year, $500,000 grants from the Simons Foundation, as part of its 2013 class of Simons Investigators.
Penn Biologists Simulate a Cell in Action
The inner workings of a cell involve hundreds of thousands of discrete molecules, engaged in a repeating cycle of interactions that sustain life.
Penn’s Rachleff Scholars: The Best of Engineering
For a select group of engineering undergraduates in the Rachleff Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania, summer will be spent conducting research that ranges from robotics to cancer cells.
Penn to Implement AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative
The University of Pennsylvania has been named a project site for the Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative, a multiyear, multimillion dollar project that aims to improve the quality of education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Penn Psychologists Show that Quality Matters More Than Quantity for Word Learning
Several studies have shown that how much parents say to their children when they are very young is a good predictor of children’s vocabulary at the point when they begin school.
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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