Companies could make the switch to wood power
Some companies could economically convert their operations to wood boilers for heat and power, according to a team of forestry researchers.
Research
Research
Transportation conference will draw industry experts, debut new technologies
12/5/13
The 19th annual Transportation Engineering and Safety Conference will be held from Dec. 11 to 13 at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel on the University Park campus. Sponsored by the Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, the event includes seminars facilitated by leading experts, opportunities for discussion among participants and a variety of topic-specific workshops.
A blast from its past dates the youngest neutron-star binary
12/4/13
X-rays streaming toward Earth from the region near a neutron star that is cannibalizing its companion star have revealed the pair to be the youngest X-ray binary yet known.
Probing Question: Is outsourcing of health care services bad?
12/4/13
"If you've had an X-ray taken at a hospital in the past decade, the chance that it was read by a radiologist elsewhere in the world is pretty high," says Jonathan Clark, assistant professor of health policy and administration. "That's because around 90 percent of hospitals in the United States now outsource some portion of their radiology services."
In the case of wholesale food distributors, it's all about location
12/4/13
In all but the shortest supply chains, food travels through wholesale distribution centers on its way from farm to consumer, and the location of these distributors can have a big impact on the efficiency of a food system. Now, a new mathematical model can help business owners and policy makers determine the optimal locations for such distributors, thanks to a research team led by an engineer in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
Shipboard newspapers as social media for early polar explorers
12/3/13
An associate professor of English at Penn State, Hester Blum is an expert in American literature, specializing in the 19th Century. Her book, The View from the Mast-Head, has been called the first to treat American sailor narratives as literary texts. Her current project, supported by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, is a study of shipboard newspapers published aboard polar expeditions. “I am interested in the collective, confined literary culture of working men at the scene of their labor,” Blum writes.
Op-Ed: Made in Pennsylvania, but a model for America
12/2/13
The following is an opinion piece collectively authored by seven Pennsylvania university presidents, including Penn State President Rod Erickson. Each of these leaders believe Pennsylvania is on the verge of a reinvention of its manufacturing segment through science, engineering and innovation.
With that knowledge in mind, these seven presidents are embarking on an unprecedented collaboration and are asking other institutions to join them in supporting entrepreneurial efforts to make Pennsylvania a manufacturing powerhouse, and in doing so, create high-wage jobs.
Distinguished professor Brian Orland discusses human/environment relationships
11/27/13
As part of its 50th anniversary celebration in 2013, the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture produced a series of video interviews with its distinguished and Evan Pugh Professors. The sixth in the series is Brian Orland, distinguished professor of landscape architecture.
Ultra-bright gamma-ray burst shakes up theories of light production
11/27/13
One of the brightest gamma-ray explosions ever seen is the focus of five papers published recently in the journals Science Express and Astrophysical Journal Letters by research teams that include David Burrows, Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics.
Goals affect feelings of pride and shame after success and failure
11/27/13
When the St. Louis Cardinals lost the World Series, just how much shame did the players feel? According to researchers at Penn State and Australia's Central Queensland University, a person's goals at the outset of a competence-based task, such as a sporting event, can influence how much shame or pride he or she feels upon completion of the task.
Research finds positive long-term outcomes of cochlear implantation
11/26/13
Penn State Brandywine assistant professor of psychology Daniela Martin is on the frontline of significant, unique research. With the first generation of cochlear implant recipients reaching adulthood, Martin and her colleagues are out to discover the long-term psychological outcomes of this relatively new medical procedure.
50 Years of Beatles: 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' propelled band in U.S.
11/26/13
As pop-music masterworks go, the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is one of the most ambitious, self-conscious compositions in the fabled Lennon-McCartney songbook. It would also be the classic tune that would alter the group’s fortunes across the globe, as Penn State Laureate Kenneth Womack explains.
Finding hidden circles may improve social network privacy settings
11/26/13
Creating a computer program to find relationships in networks, such as Google Plus and Facebook, may help users more easily set up and maintain privacy settings, according to researchers.
Search for habitable planets should be more conservative
11/25/13
Scientists should take the conservative approach when searching for habitable zones where life-sustaining planets might exist, according to James Kasting, Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Penn State, including when building Terrestrial Planet Finders.
Seven faculty named Fellows of AAAS
11/25/13
Seven Penn State faculty members have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Roaring to the moon, Lunar Lion pays launch reservation fee
11/25/13
The Lunar Lion, a moon lander being designed and built by the Penn State Lunar Lion team, the only university-led team in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, will be sent into space as part of a multiple spacecraft effort coordinated by a new player in the space industry, Team Phoenicia LLC, of Menlo Park, Calif. The Lunar Lion team's fully refundable launch reservation fee, paid to Phoenicia, is a significant project milestone.