Science & Technology

Penn Geologist Edward Doheny Named to Irish Education 100

PHILADELPHIA — Edward Doheny of the University of Pennsylvania has been named to the 2011 Irish Education 100 by the Irish Voice newspaper. The annual list honors leading educators of Irish descent. 

Katherine Unger Baillie

Eight Professors Named 2012 Penn Fellows

PHILADELPHIA – Eight University of Pennsylvania professors have been named Penn Fellows for 2012.  The announcement was made by

Julie McWilliams

Four Penn Professors Named AAAS Fellows

PHILADELPHIA - Four faculty members at the University of Pennsylvania have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Three from Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and one from its School of Arts and Sciences

Karen Kreeger, Evan Lerner

Penn Scientists Pioneer New Method for Watching Proteins Fold

PHILADELPHIA — A protein’s function depends on both the chains of molecules it is made of and the way those chains are folded. And while figuring out the former is relatively easy, the latter represents a huge challenge with serious implications because many diseases are the result of misfolded proteins.

Evan Lerner

Penn Medical Researchers Dispute the Efficacy of a Breast Cancer Treatment

PHILADELPHIA -- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine are suggesting that a prophylactic treatment option increasingly offered to breast cancer patients has only a slight benefit, and the modest gains to life expectancy the treatment provides may actually be offset by decreases in quality of life for many patients.

Katie Delach

Is there a place to stargaze on Penn’s campus?

Dear Benny: I’ve been told that someplace on campus there is an observatory used for stargazing. If this is true, I’d like to know what sort of equipment it has. Also, can anyone visit? —Star Struck Dear Star Struck:

Tanya Barrientos

Five Penn Researchers Named American Physical Society Fellows

PHILADELPHIA — The American Physical Society has elected five University of Pennsylvania faculty members to its 2011 APS Fellowship class. They are Mark Devlin, Alan “Charlie” Johnson, Joshua Klein, Feng Gai and Howard Hu.

Evan Lerner

Penn Geneticists Help Show Bitter Taste Perception Is Not Just About Flavors

PHILADELPHIA — Long the bane of picky eaters everywhere, broccoli’s taste is not just a matter of having a cultured palate; some people can easily taste a bitter compound in the vegetable that others have difficulty detecting. Now a team of Penn researchers has helped uncover the evolutionary history of one of the genes responsible for this trait.

Evan Lerner



In the News


Technical.ly Philly

Celebrate Philly’s winners of the 2024 Technical.ly Awards

Jeffrey Babin of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Wharton School is Technical.ly’s 2024 Educator of the Year. The Pennovation Accelerator, a six-week program hosted at the Pennovation Works, is Technical.ly’s 2024 Program of the Year.

FULL STORY →



Philadelphia Inquirer

Decoding Trump’s climate priorities—or lack thereof

In an opinion essay, Sanya Carley of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design examines the implications and possibilities of Donald Trump’s energy and climate agenda.

FULL STORY →



Rolling Stone

RFK Jr.’s 10 wildest medical theories

Kenneth R. Foster of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says studies haven’t provided clear evidence that exposure to levels of radio frequency energy below accepted limits, such as Wi-Fi, disrupts the blood-brain barrier.

FULL STORY →



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.

FULL STORY →



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.

FULL STORY →



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.

FULL STORY →



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.

FULL STORY →



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.

FULL STORY →



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.

FULL STORY →



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.

FULL STORY →