News

Penn State awarded grant to help dairy farmers develop climate-smart commodities

Funding of up to $25 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will support a new Penn State-led collaboration with dairy industry associations and producers to develop and implement climate-smart practices on Pennsylvania dairy farms.

Graduate students in entomology and ecology win prestigious fellowships

Two graduate students who work in the laboratory of an entomology faculty member in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences recently received prestigious fellowships to further their graduate education and research.

Penn State research team will study Lassa virus spread in Nigeria

A team of researchers led by Penn State has been awarded $4 million from the National Science Foundation to investigate the elements that lead to the spread of Lassa virus from rodents to humans in Nigeria.

Torrey pine genetic research may benefit efforts to save chestnut, ash trees

A new genomic study of the rarest pine tree in the world, the Torrey pine, aimed at bolstering the case for a genetic rescue of the species barely surviving in the western U.S., revealed the complexity and risk associated with the endeavor. However, a tree geneticist at Penn State who oversaw the research suggests it may benefit efforts she is involved in to save other species in the East.

Jared Ali named director of the Penn State Center for Chemical Ecology

Jared Ali, Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair of Chemical Ecology and associate professor of entomology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, has been named director of the Penn State Center for Chemical Ecology (CCE).

Laser writing may enable ‘electronic nose’ for multi-gas sensor

Environmental sensors are a step closer to simultaneously sniffing out multiple gases that could indicate disease or pollution, thanks to a Penn State collaboration. Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics in the College of Engineering, and Lauren Zarzar, assistant professor of chemistry in Eberly College of Science, and their teams combined laser writing and responsive sensor technologies to fabricate the first highly customizable microscale gas sensing devices.

Jared Ali named Huck Chair of Chemical Ecology

Jared Ali, associate professor of entomology in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, has been named the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair of Chemical Ecology by the University’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.

Secrets of reptile and amphibian aging revealed

At 190 years old, Jonathan the Seychelles giant tortoise recently made news for being the “oldest living land animal in the world.” Although, anecdotal evidence like this exists that some species of turtles and other ectotherms — or ‘cold-blooded’ animals — live a long time, evidence is spotty and mostly focused on animals living in zoos or a few individuals living in the wild.

Managing habitat for flowering plants may mitigate climate effects on bee health

Warm, wet weather conditions and changing climate negatively influence the nectar intake and nutritional health of honey bees, but maintaining large tracts of grassy natural habitat with flowering plants around apiaries may help to mitigate the detrimental effects of climate, according to a new study by an international team of researchers.

Future of deer management clouded by coming steep decline in hunter numbers

Because so many deer hunters are aging out of the sport — and new hunters are not being recruited to replace them — deer management strategies will need to change to manage populations of whitetails in many states.