Natural Sciences News Archive
Chemistry Professors Elected to AAAS. December 2004. Chemistry professors Barry S. Cooperman and Virgil Percec have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Chemistry professor honored for contributions to science in Japan. November 2004. The Japanese government has awarded chemistry professor Amos Smith its Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.
Grottoli Receives Awards for Geochemical Research. September 2004. The Geochemical Society has presented assistant professor of earth and environmental science Andrea Grottoli with its 2004 W.F. Clarke Award.
Two Chemistry Professors Honored. September 2004. Professors Michael Klein and Michael Therien have been recognized for their achievements in chemistry.
Mind Games. March 26, 2004. College students are accustomed to having their work scrutinized and graded by professors, but at the Kids Judge! Neuroscience Fair, third- and fourth-graders got to evaluate the lessons.
Ecologist Wins Inventors Prize. February 5, 2004. Biology professor Daniel Janzen has received the 2003 John Scott Award from the City Trusts of Philadelphia for his pioneering contributions to the field of conservation biology.
Long-term Effects of Embryo Culture on Behavior Studied. January 26, 2004. Scientists from the biology department have found a link between the conditions in which mouse embryos are cultured and the performance of the offspring in behavioral tests.
Physics Nobel Laureate Wins Fermi Award. January 2004. Research professor of physics Raymond Davis, Jr., has received the Enrico Fermi Award, a presidential honor recognizing lifetime achievement in the field of nuclear energy. Professor Davis, who received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics, shares the award with his collaborator, Princeton University professor John Bahcall, for their pioneering work in neutrino physics.
New Production Technique May Let Scientists Fine-Tune Strength and Conductivity of Nanotube-Laced Materials. December 02, 2003. Materials fortified with carbon nanotubes are strongest when the embedded filaments run parallel to each other, but electronic and thermal conductivity are best when the nanotubes are oriented randomly.
Baboons Identify Each Other by Status and Family; Such Abilities May Have Influenced Human Evolution. November 14, 2003. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania report that, much like humans, baboons identify each other based on complex rules that determine relationships between families and status or "rank" within their particular family.
Scientists Tease the Brain to Give Up its Secrets. November 13, 2003. The modern metaphor for the brain is a computer, but that hardly begins to capture how extraordinary the human brain is. Just take one example—what Martha Farah, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience calls “knowledge systems.”
Professor Wins Presidential Honor. November 2003. Research Professor of Physics Raymond Davis Jr. Hon. '90 is one of three recipients of the Enrico Fermi Award. The Fermi Award recognizes scientists of international stature in the development, use, or production of engergy.
Professor Selected for Polymer Chemistry Prize. October 14, 2003. Chemistry professor Virgil Percec has been chosen as the 2004 recipientof the Award in Polymer Chemistry by the American Chemical Society.
Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professors Appointed. October 2003. Dr. Mark Devlin and Dr. Sharon Thompson-Schill have been appointed Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professors in the School of Arts and Sciences.
Chemistry Professor to Receive Yamada Prize. October 2003. Chemistry Professor Amos B. Smith III has been selected to receive the 2003 Yamada Prize by the Japan Research Foundation for Optically Active Compounds.
Tom C. Lubensky of physics wins prestigious award. October 2003. Mary Amanda Wood Professor of Physics Tom C. Lubensky has received the 2004 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize from the American Physical Society (APS).
Dr. Wei Guo was selected to be a 2003 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. Only 20 recipients were chosen from among the most promising biomedical researchers in the nation for 2003, from a pool of nominations from 120 institutions. The Biology Department is very proud to have him on our faculty. Please read more about it in the Pew Scholars press release.
The Pew Scholars website is available here.
Virgil Percec. will receive the American Chemical Society Award in Polymer Chemistry at the Awards Ceremony, Tuesday, March 30, 2004, in conjunction with the 227th ACS National Meeting in Anaheim, CA September 2003.
Dreyfus Foundation recognizes new faculty member. September 18, 2003. Assistant Professor Ivan J. Dmochowski has received the New Faculty Award from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation for his project, “Methods, Molecules, and Microscopes for Better Biological Imaging.”
Professor honored for research in language acquisition. September 18, 2003. Lila R. Gleitman, professor of psychology and linguistics, has received the American Psychological Association’s 2003 Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions.
Solar System "Fossils" Discovered by Hubble Telescope. September 6,2003. Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Gary Bernstein and agroup of collaborators announced the discovery of three of the faintest and smallest objects ever detected beyond Neptune.
Smaller Portions in Restaurants and Markets May Explain the "French Paradox" of Rich Foods and a Svelte Population. August 21, 2003. The perplexing disconnect between France’s rich cuisine and slender population can be explained in part by portions that are significantly smaller in French restaurants and supermarkets than in their American counterparts, according to Penn researchers Paul Rozin, Kimberly Kabnick, and Erin Pete and colleagues from the CNRS in Paris.
Professor Receives American Institute of Chemists’ Highest Award. July 9, 2003. The American Institute of Chemists and the Chemical Heritage Foundation have presented Professor Ralph Hirschmann with the 2003 AIC Gold Medal.
Mathematics Professor Honored for Combinatorial Research. May 21, 2003 The Institute of Combinatorics and Its Applications has awarded its Euler Medal to Professor Herbert Wilf.
Two SAS professors named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences. May 7, 2003 Professors David Cass and Michael Klein have been named fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Membership honors intellectual achievement, leadership, and creativity.
Plant biologist elected to National Academy of Sciences. May 5, 2003 Robert I. Williams Term Professor of Biology Anthony Cashmore has beenelected to the National Academy of Sciences. Election to membership in the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.
Diebold Named Guggenheim Fellow. April 16, 2003
Scientists Pinpoint Stellar Production of Helium, Yielding New Insights into the Evolution of the Universe. March 6, 2003. Raul Jimenez, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and his colleagues at Tuorla Observatory, the University of Delaware, and Swinburne University reported in Science that they have calculated the rate of helium production by stars in our universe with greater precision than ever before. This accomplishment paves the way for a better understanding of the composition of the early universe and the exact nature of dark energy.
Hundreds of Highly Branched Molecules Unite in a Giant Self-Assembled Liquid Crystal Lattice. February 24, 2003. P. Roy Vagelos Professor of Chemistry Virgil Percec and colleagues at Penn and the University of Sheffield have created a supramolecular structure that unites hundreds of thousands of atoms via self-assembly.
Penn Scientists Hochstrasser, Davis Win Franklin Medal. January 29, 2003
Surfactant Curtails Nanotube Clumping in Water, Removing a Major Barrier to Many Applications. January 29, 2003. Scientists at the Department of Physics and the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter have discovered that a readily available chemical disperses nanotubes in water with remarkable efficiency.
Human Brain’s Method of Combining Information Depends on How Many Senses Supply Input. November 22, 2002.
Scientists Show How Large-Scale Order and Small-Scale Disorder Unite in Materials Used in Ultrasound, Sonar. October 31, 2002
Raymond Davis Jr. Wins Nobel Prize for Contributions to Neutrino Research and Our Understanding of the Sun October 8, 2002
Read
more about Raymond Davis and neutrino research at Penn.
Database Lets Researchers Worldwide Access the Genome of the Malarial Parasite Plasmodium falciparum. October 2, 2002
Study Finds Cognitive Therapy at Least as Effective as Drugs in Long-Term Treatment of Severe Depression. May 23, 2002
Penn
Physicist Raymond Davis Jr. Receives National Medal of
Science.
May 10, 2002
Adding Carbon Nanotubes to Epoxy Yields a Composite Three Times Harder and Far Better at Conducting Heat April 15, 2002
Study Tracks Health of Rescue Dogs, Handlers Involved in Searches at World Trade Center and Pentagon. March 20, 2002
The Path to a Neatly Folded Protein, Long the Subject of Debate, Appears in many Cases to be Long and Winding. February 26, 2002
Nanotube ‘Peapods’ have Tunable Electronic Properties, Penn and Illinois Scientists Report in Science January 03, 2002