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Science & Technology
Penn Researchers Show Single Drug and Soft Environment Can Increase Platelet Production
PHILADELPHIA — Humans produce billions of clot-forming platelets every day, but there are times when there aren’t enough of them, such as with certain diseases or during invasive surgery.
Penn Paleontologists Contribute to X-Ray Technique for Determining Pigmentation Patterns in Fossils
PHILADELPHIA — An international team including University of Pennsylvania paleontologists is unearthing the appearance of ancient animals by using the world’s most powerful X-rays.
Two Penn Engineers to Attend Annual Frontiers of Engineering Symposium
PHILADELPHIA -– Two faculty members from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science will be participating in the 17th annual Frontiers of Engineering Symposium in September.
Penn researchers link sea-level rise to increasing temperatures
Understanding the long-term impact of a warming climate is vexing for scientists and citizens alike; there are many variables and obscure, complex relationships between them. But one such relationship stands out, both in terms of directness and consequences: the relationship between rising temperatures and rising seas.
Penn Physicists Observe “Campfire Effect” in Blinking Nanorod Semiconductors
PHILADELPHIA — When semiconductor nanorods are exposed to light, they blink in a seemingly random pattern. By clustering nanorods together, physicists at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that their combined “on” time is increased dramatically providing new insight into this mysterious blinking behavior.
Penn’s Douglas Jerolmack First Recipient of Luna B Leopold Young Scientist Award
PHILADELPHIA -- Douglas Jerolmack, a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania, has won the American Geophysical Union’s first Luna B.
Penn/MAGPI to Provide Advanced Networking, Applications, Demonstrations at Conference
PHILADELPHIA – MAGPI, the University of Pennsylvania's Internet2 hub, is bringing advanced networking connectivity to the 2011 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia June 26-29.
Penn Researchers Link Fastest Sea-Level Rise in Two Millennia to Increasing Temperatures
PHILADELPHIA — An international research team including University of Pennsylvania scientists has shown that the rate of sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years and that there is a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.
Penn Researchers Break Light-Matter Coupling Strength Limit in Nanoscale Semiconductors
PHILADELPHIA—New engineering research at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrates that polaritons have increased coupling strength when confined to nanoscale semiconductors. This represents a promising advance in the field of photonics: smaller and faster circuits that use light rather than electricity.
Government, Industry, Academics to Address Cutting-edge Energy Technologies at Penn Conference
PHILADELPHIA -- Following this week’s release of the Office of the Executive’s “A Policy Framework for the 21st Century Grid,” Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, willaddress Urban Smart Grid and Energy Innovation, a conference organized by the Penn Institute for Urban Researc
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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