News
Sep 08, 2020
Insect Biodiversity Center to promote insect conservation, healthy ecosystems
Penn State's new Insect Biodiversity Center brings together faculty researchers and educators from 8 colleges to study and celebrate insect diversity in science and practice in an effort to conserve insects and the ecosystems in which they live.
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Sep 07, 2020
Pollinator project supports biodiversity at Penn State Orchard Road solar array
An innovative project is creating a buzz around Penn State’s University Park campus, especially among the many species of pollinators that call Centre County home.
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Sep 01, 2020
School of Hospitality Management develops profit planning tool for restaurants
During the easiest of times, restaurant operators are extremely busy. Now, as the COVID-19 pandemic and related governmental restrictions disrupt the restaurant industry, operating a restaurant is even more challenging, fraught, and time-consuming. To help restaurant operators weather this period of extreme instability, researchers in Penn State’s School of Hospitality Management developed an easy-to-use, profit planning tool.
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Sep 01, 2020
Biomedical engineering graduate student receives Blue Flame Award
Lauren Randolph, a graduate research assistant in biomedical engineering at Penn State, has received the Blue Flame Award, given by Addgene, a non-profit plasmid repository. Addgene presents the award to researchers with at least one plasmid deposited at Addgene that has been distributed to other researchers more than 100 times.
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Aug 28, 2020
Vietnam farmers' poultry sales during outbreaks may increase virus transmission
Small-scale poultry farmers in Vietnam tend to respond to viral outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) by rapidly selling their birds as a way to avoid financial loss, according to a new study by an international team of researchers. As these birds are commingled with other birds in markets and trading networks, this practice may increase the likelihood of widespread disease transmission.
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Aug 25, 2020
Penn State black walnut trial turns 40, now ideal climate-change experiment
Visitors to Penn State’s University Park campus often arrive with a short list of attractions they want to see. Among the most popular are the Nittany Lion Shrine, the Berkey Creamery and The Arboretum at Penn State. However, few are aware of the Black Walnut Provenance Study, let alone care to visit it.
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Aug 25, 2020
Measles outbreaks in Niger linked to rainfall and temperature, study finds
Rainfall and temperature drive agricultural activity, which, in turn, influences patterns of measles outbreaks in the West African nation of Niger, according to an international team of researchers. The findings may be useful for improving vaccine coverage for seasonally mobile populations within Niger and other countries.
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Aug 25, 2020
Advanced biofuels show promise for replacing some fossil fuels
Plant-based biofuels can play a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and growing these crops in certain landscapes offers net climate benefits compared to other land use options, according to a team of international scientists.
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Aug 25, 2020
Grant to enable creation of AI tools to improve adolescents' diets and nutrition
With a $1.2 million grant from Fondation Botnar, an international team of researchers will assess the feasibility of creating and launching a global-scale artificial-intelligence (AI) app for mobile devices that diagnoses diet-related problems and offers nutritional advice to adolescent girls living in urban settings in Ghana and Vietnam.
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Aug 25, 2020
Faculty funded to study how people's movement impacts COVID-19 transmission
Nita Bharti, Lloyd Huck Early Career Professor and assistant professor of biology at Penn State, and her collaborator Anthony Robinson, associate professor of geography at Penn State, have been awarded seed funding from the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State to study how monitoring the movement of people can potentially be used as a predictor or early indicator of COVID-19 transmission and guide health policy decisions.
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