Through
11/26
Science & Technology
Penn Research Shows Mechanism Behind Wear at the Atomic Scale
PHILADELPHIA — Wear is a fact of life. As surfaces rub against one another, they break down and lose their original shape. With less material to start with and functionality that often depends critically on shape and surface structure, wear affects nanoscale objects more strongly than it does their macroscale counterparts.
Brookings Again Tops List in University of Pennsylvania’s Annual World Think Tank Rankings
PHILADELPHIA –- For the third consecutive time, the Brookings Institution has been ranked Think Tank of the Year in the University of Pennsylvania Global Go-To Think Tank Report.
Nanotech center continues to grow
Construction on the $91.5 million Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology on the 3200 block of Walnut Street is proceeding on time and on budget.
Owl Monkeys Who ‘Stay True’ Reproduce More Than Those With Multiple Partners, Penn Study Finds
PHILADELPHIA — Breaking up is hard to do — and can be detrimental to one’s reproductive fitness, according to a new University of Pennsylvania study.
Penn Physicists Help Show Math Behind Growth of 'Coffee Rings'
PHILADELPHIA — Last year, a team of University of Pennsylvania physicists showed how to undo the “coffee-ring effect,” a commonplace occurrence when drops of liquid with suspended particles dry, leaving a ring-shaped stain at the drop’s edges.
Penn Vet Study Reveals a Promising New Target for Parkinson’s Disease Therapies
PHILADELPHIA — With a new insight into a model of Parkinson’s disease, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have identified a novel target for mitigating some of the disease’s toll on the brain.
Penn Research Team Awarded $2.75 Million as Part of New ‘Swarm’ Computing Center
PHILADELPHIA — Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are participating in a massive, interdisciplinary collaboration known as the TerraSwarm Research Center, which will study the potential applications — and risks — of “swarm-based” computing and robotics.
After Six Decades, Penn Archaeologists Carry on a Tradition of Research and Discovery in Turkey
In 1950, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology sent scholars to a site in central Turkey, about 50 miles southwest of Ankara.
Penn Physicists Help Create ‘Recipe Book’ for Building New Materials
PHILADELPHIA — By showing that tiny particles injected into a liquid crystal medium behave as predicted by existing mathematical theorems, physicists have opened the door for the creation of a host of new materials with properties that do not exist in nature.
University of Pennsylvania to Release Annual Index of World’s Top Think Tanks Jan. 17
WHO: Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program of the International
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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