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An adult male caribou, photographed in Greenland

Penn State to host Polar Day 2014

4/18/14

Penn State University’s Polar Day, a free public event celebrating the natural and cultural value of the Polar Regions, will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 19, in the HUB-Robeson Center's Freeman Auditorium. The event will begin with a lecture on rapid change in the Arctic by Julienne Stroeve, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. Stroeve has briefed government officials around the world on climate change and Arctic ice, and has studied sea ice at its lowest extent in the Arctic Ocean.

Science Seminars: April 21 to 25

4/18/14

Upcoming Penn State Science Seminars

Monday, April 21

“Dynamic Nature of Plant Volatile Release in Response to Insect Herbivory”
James Tumlinson, Penn State
12:10 to 1:10 p.m., 108 Wartik Laboratory
Contact: Michael Axtell, 814-867-0

Planet orbiting a star

First Earth-size planet discovered in another star's 'habitable zone'

4/18/14

A team of astronomers that includes Penn State scientists has discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone," the distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery was made with NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. The discovery of this Earth-size planet, now named Kepler-186f, confirms -- for the first time -- that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our Sun.

Information Literacy award 2014

Information literacy judged at 2014 Undergraduate Exhibition

4/18/14

Information literacy for all students is a goal of Penn State's University Libraries, and to help highlight its importance, the Libraries have funded cash awards as part of the 2014 Undergraduate Research Exhibition, co-sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Education and the Schreyers Honor College in partnership with the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, the University Libraries and Phi Kappa Phi Honorary Society.

Ashley Stadler Blank poses in the Business Building

Resource-rich community helps docotral students dive into research

4/18/14

Ashley Stadler Blank has focused on sports business and marketing since her undergraduate years at Xavier University where she earned a bachelor of science degree in sport management. She also holds a master of sports business management degree and an master of business adminstration from the University of Central Florida. When it came time for her to choose a doctorate program, the broad expertise of the marketing faculty at the Smeal College of Business, and the Center for Sports Business and Research made Penn State a perfect fit.

light lab-tiles

Under some LED bulbs whites aren't 'whiter than white'

4/18/14

For years, companies have been adding whiteners to laundry detergent, paints, plastics, paper and fabrics to make whites look "whiter than white," but now, with a switch away from incandescent and fluorescent lighting, different degrees of whites may all look the same, according to experts in lighting.

female Varroa mite

East African honeybees are safe from invasive pests … for now

4/16/14

Several parasites and pathogens that devastate honeybees in Europe, Asia and the United States are spreading across East Africa, but do not appear to be impacting native honeybee populations at this time, according to an international team of researchers.

Dr. Jane Wilburne

$1.9M grant will help build teaching, learning capacity at Penn State Harrisburg

4/16/14

Dr. Jane M. Wilburne, associate professor of mathematics education in Penn State Harrisburg’s Teacher Education Program, has received a $1.875 million Eligible Partnership Project grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The three-year award supports partnerships with and professional development opportunities for local school districts to provide innovative, research-based, approaches to improve student teaching experiences.

childs hand

Inhibited children become anxious adults

4/16/14

Koraly Pérez-Edgar's work over the years has demonstrated that extreme shyness observed in children is often a predictor of anxiety later in life. She says that the way shy children behave will evolve as they grow up, "but they can remain uncomfortable in their own skin in new social situations." Pérez-Edgar runs the University's Cognition, Affect, and Temperament Lab.

Probing Question: How were the Egyptian pyramids built?

4/15/14

The Aztecs, Mayans, and ancient Egyptians were three very different civilizations with one very large similarity: pyramids. However, of these three ancient cultures, the Egyptians set the standard for what most people recognize as classic pyramid design: massive monuments with a square base and four smooth-sided triangular sides, rising to a point. (The Aztecs and Mayans built their pyramids with tiered steps and a flat top.)

Ellysa Cahoy

Penn State awarded Mellon grant to study personal scholarly archiving

4/15/14

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a grant of $440,000 to Penn State. The two-year project in collaboration with George Mason University will build upon the 2012-13 research led by Ellysa Stern Cahoy, education librarian, studying how faculty managed and archived their scholarly information collections. Over the next two years, Stern Cahoy, in collaboration with Sean Takats, associate professor of history at George Mason University and director of research projects at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, will direct software development to enhance how faculty organize and archive information, including their own scholarly publications.

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