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Science & Technology
Penn Team Finds Key Molecules Involved in Forming Long-term Memories
PHILADELPHIA — How does one’s experience of an event get translated into a memory that can be accessed months, even years later? A team led by University of Pennsylvania scientists has come closer to answering that question, identifying key molecules that help convert short-term memories into long-term ones.
Compound Derived From a Mushroom Lengthens Survival Time in Dogs With Cancer, Penn Vet Study Finds
PHILADELPHIA — Dogs with hemangiosarcoma that were treated with a compound derived from the Coriolus versicolor mushroom had the longest survival times ever reported for dogs with the disease. These promising findings offer hope that the compound may one day offer cancer patients — human and canine alike — a viable alternative or complementary treatment to traditional chemotherapies.
Penn Researchers Make First All-optical Nanowire Switch
PHILADELPHIA — Computers may be getting faster every year, but those advances in computer speed could be dwarfed if their 1’s and 0’s were represented by bursts of light, instead of electricity.
Penn Dental Welcomes Class of 2016 With White Coat Ceremony
WHO: Dean Denis Kinane, School of Dental Medicine, Dean Afaf Meleis, School of Nursing Dean Emeritus D.
Researchers from Penn, USGS and the Smithsonian Augment Climate Records Using Fossil Pollen
PHILADELPHIA — Ancient pollen and charcoal preserved in deeply buried sediments in Egypt’s Nile Delta document the region’s ancient droughts and fires, including a huge drought 4,200 years ago associated with the demise of Egypt’s Old Kingdom, the era known as the pyramid-building time.
Penn Researchers and Colleagues Create a Cheaper, Cleaner, More Efficient Catalyst for Burning Methane
PHILADELPHIA — As the world’s accessible oil reserves dwindle, natural gas has become an increasing important energy source. The primary component of natural gas is methane, which has the advantage of releasing less carbon dioxide when it’s burned than do many other hydrocarbon fuels.
High school students go for gold in ‘Robolympics’
The night before the Olympic torch was lit in London, a different sort of international competition was beginning at the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Charles L. Kane of Penn Awarded the Dirac Medal for Contributions to Theoretical Physics
PHILADELPHIA – Charles L. Kane of the University of Pennsylvania is among three who have been awarded the 2012 Dirac Medal and Prize by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics.
Penn Engineering’s Camp for Girls Grows, Adds Math Classes
PHILADELPHIA — In a ceremony in Levine Hall’s Wu and Chen Auditorium on Aug. 3, the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania graduated its latest class: 70 girls entering the 7th, 8th and 9th grades.
Penn Researchers Show New Way of Assembling Particles Into Complex Structures
PHILADELPHIA — Many recent advances in microtechnology and nanotechnology depend on microscopic spherical particles self-assembling into large-scale aggregates to form a relatively limited range of crystalline structures.
In the News
Associated Press
Here’s why experts don’t think cloud seeding played a role in Dubai’s downpour
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that many people blaming cloud seeding for Dubai storms are climate change deniers trying to divert attention from what’s really happening.
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Big Think
Can we stop AI hallucinations? And do we even want to?
Chris Callison-Burch of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that auto-regressive generation can make it difficult for language learning models to perform fact-based or symbolic reasoning.
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Salon.com
“Record-shattering” heat wave in Antarctica — yep, climate change is the culprit
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that persistent summer weather extremes like heat waves are becoming more common as people continue to warm the planet with carbon pollution.
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CNET
How the solar eclipse will affect solar panels and the grid
Benjamin Lee of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that the electrical grid will have to figure out how to match supply and demand during brief windows where the energy source goes away.
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Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
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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Vox.com
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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The New York Times
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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Tampa Bay Times
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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CNBC
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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WESA Radio (Pittsburgh)
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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