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Apple orchard

Fruit research and extension projects receive funding from industry groups

9/21/18

The State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Apple Program recently awarded nearly $233,000 in funding to support new and ongoing fruit research and extension projects in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. The grants will support projects aimed at enhancing pest management, production efficiency and fruit quality.

school hallway

How winning friends may influence adolescent behaviors

9/20/18

Researchers tend to believe that either people select their friends based on shared behaviors, or that they make friends who then shape their behaviors. A team of Penn State researchers say both friend selection and friend influence may be at work for students. They add that gender can also play a role in how friends influence each other. The findings may lead to better prevention and intervention programs for risky behaviors such as smoking and deliquency.

Andrew Read

Andrew Read named director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences

9/20/18

Andrew Read has been appointed director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State effective Jan. 1, 2019. Read is an Evan Pugh University Professor of Biology and Entomology, Eberly Professor of Biotechnology and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics.

Woman standing on bridge above a pond

Building sustainable infrastructure

9/19/18

By studying infrastructure systems with a focus on smart buildings for integrated energy, Somayeh Asadi, assistant professor of architectural engineering, stresses the societal impact of buildings.

Oral Microbiota graphic

Young children's oral bacteria may predict obesity

9/19/18

Weight gain in early childhood is related to the composition of oral bacteria of two-year-old children, suggesting that this understudied aspect of a child’s microbiota could serve as an early indicator for childhood obesity.

Loyalsock Creek with trout inset

Few hatchery brook trout genes present in Pa. watershed wild fish

9/18/18

Despite many decades of annual brook trout stocking in one northcentral Pennsylvania watershed, the wild brook trout populations show few genes from hatchery fish, according to researchers who genotyped about 2,000 brook trout in Loyalsock Creek watershed, a 500-square-mile drainage in Lycoming and Sullivan counties celebrated by anglers for its trout fishing.

MattP

Dynamic assessment can help language learners have more success

9/18/18

Altering or individualizing assessment procedures can propel second-language learners toward more successful mastery of that language, ongoing research by Matt Poehner, associate professor of education at Penn State, and his interdisciplinary team suggests.

Multiple choice exam

Putting answers to the test

9/17/18

Teachers, rejoice. A team of Penn State researchers has developed a way to make multiple-choice exam questions easier for instructors to create, yet more intellectually challenging for test-takers. Utilizing machine-learning ranking models, the researchers have proposed a method that automatically generates "distractors," which are the alternative options used to distract students from the correct answer in a multiple choice question.

Infrared image of neutron star from Hubble Space Telescope

The surprising environment of an enigmatic neutron star

9/17/18

An unusual infrared emission detected by the Hubble Space Telescope from a nearby neutron star could indicate that the pulsar has features never before seen. The observation could help astronomers better understand the evolution of neutron stars.

Jose Duarte and Debora Verniz

Penn State research expenditures rise to record $927 million

9/14/18

Penn State’s research expenditures reached a record high for the second consecutive year in fiscal year 2017-2018, according to Vice President for Research Neil Sharkey. The $927 million total represents a $64 million increase over last year’s figure, and includes a record $562 million in federal funds and $365 million from a combination of private funders, the Commonwealth, and University sources.

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