Science & Technology

Photograph of a seismograph reading following an earthquake.

Understanding the Northeast earthquake

Last week, people in the Northeast experienced a rare earthquake that registered a magnitude of 4.8. Penn Today spoke with David Goldsby of the School of Arts & Sciences and Robert Carpick of the School of Engineering and Applied Science about the event.

Nathi Magubane ・



In the News


Politico.com

Climate cash pours into election swing region. Will it help Harris?

Danny Cullenward of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design says that capturing methane to make hydrogen is trading a short-lived pollutant for a permanent pollutant in the form of carbon dioxide.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

As colleges grapple with AI’s pitfalls, U. of Delaware uses technology to transform faculty lectures into interactive study aides

Penn will be the first Ivy League school to launch a new undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence. PIK Professor Duncan Watts and colleagues built the Media Bias Detector, which uses artificial intelligence to scan news articles for tone and bias.

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NPR

Why the U.S. government is spending $7 billion on solar for low-income homes

Sanya Carley of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design says that the Solar for All program could have an impact far beyond its projected 900,000 low-income households.

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NBC News

More colleges are offering AI degrees—could they give job seekers an edge?

Penn will offer a major in AI starting this fall, with remarks from rising third-year Emma Twitmyer of Wayne, Pennsylvania.

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Technology.org

Shedding light on cellular metabolism to fight disease

Yihui Shen of the School of Engineering and Applied Science talks about her newly established lab where she aims to advance the molecular precision of coherent Raman imaging to allow researchers to understand the minutia of metabolism and open doors to new cancer treatments and therapies.

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NPR

If you get an offer to buy a carbon offset, experts say this is what you should know

Danny Cullenward of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design says that a carbon offset represents a promise that someone’s money is going toward an action that will reduce or remove planet-heating pollution.

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Forbes

Artificial expectations? Time to get real about AI

Benjamin Lee of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that the rate and depth of adoption for generative AI has been slower than many anticipated.

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Fox 29 (Philadelphia)

Global tech outage: South Jersey Boy Scout troop stuck overseas due to airline impact of outage

Benjamin Lee of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says there need to be contingency plans to cover ongoing vulnerabilities of critical computer infrastructure.

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EdSurge

An education chatbot company collapsed. Where did the student data go?

Rob Nelson of the Provost’s Office says that it’s too soon in the development of generative AI tools to scale up one idea to a whole school district or college campus.

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CNN

A detailed look at children’s brains might show how sex and gender are different, new study says

A study co-authored by Dani S. Bassett of the School of Engineering and Applied Science finds that sex and gender map onto largely distinct parts of the brain.

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