News
Nov 16, 2018
MCIBS student wins poster awards at conference
Sreenidhi Srinivasan won Best Poster and the Brenda Love Bacteriology Award at the 2018 AAVLD Conference.
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Nov 15, 2018
Color coded — matching taste with color
Color can impact the taste of food, and our experiences and expectations can affect how we taste food, according to Penn State researchers, who suggest this may have implications for how food and beverage industries should market their products.
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Nov 13, 2018
DNA structure impacts rate and accuracy of DNA synthesis
The speed and error rate of DNA synthesis is influenced by the three-dimensional structure of the DNA. Using “third-generation” genome-wide DNA sequencing data, a team of researchers from Penn State and the Czech Academy of Sciences showed that sequences with the potential to form unusual DNA conformations, which are frequently associated with cancer and neurological diseases, can in fact slow down or speed up the DNA synthesis process and cause more or fewer sequencing errors.
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Nov 13, 2018
'Scaring' soybeans into defensive mode yields better plants a generation later
By temporarily silencing the expression of a critical gene, researchers fooled soybean plants into sensing they were under siege, encountering a wide range of stresses. Then, after selectively cross breeding those plants with the original stock, the progeny "remember" the stress-induced responses to become more vigorous, resilient and productive plants, according to a team of researchers.
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Nov 12, 2018
Anopheles mosquitoes could spread Mayaro virus in U.S., other diverse regions
Mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles are well known as primary vectors of malaria. But a new study suggests that Anopheles species, including some found in the United States, also are capable of carrying and transmitting an emerging pathogen, Mayaro virus, which has caused outbreaks of disease in South America and the Caribbean.
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Nov 12, 2018
Grant supports research to combat white-nose syndrome in bats
Penn State research aimed at combating white-nose syndrome in bats has received funding from the Bats for the Future Fund, a public-private partnership between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, Southern Company, and the Avangrid Foundation.
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Nov 09, 2018
Gates Foundation grant to support research on satellite crop surveillance
A research team in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has received a Grand Challenges Explorations grant — an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A group led by David Hughes, associate professor of entomology and biology, will pursue an innovative global health and development research project, titled "Pest and Disease Surveillance via High-Resolution Satellites."
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Nov 09, 2018
Professor named 2018 distinguished member of Association for Computing Machinery
Vasant G. Honavar, professor and Edward Frymoyer Chair of Information Sciences and Technology, has been named a distinguished member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest and most prestigious association of computing professionals. Honavar, who is one of 49 distinguished members named for 2018, was recognized for his outstanding scientific contributions to computing.
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Nov 08, 2018
Biomedical engineering welcomes pioneering cancer, cryo-electron microscopy researcher
Deborah Kelly, a ground-breaking researcher who developed the new field of structural oncology, will join the University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering as full professor and Lloyd and Dottie Foehr Huck Chair in Molecular Biophysics. Kelly will also hold a joint appointment with the Huck Institutes of Life Sciences and will serve as the director of the new Center for Structural Oncology (CSO) at Penn State.
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Nov 05, 2018
Hot temperatures can trigger an RNA response in plants
The stress of hotter temperatures may trigger a response in a plant's RNA, or ribonucleic acid — part of a cell's genetic messaging system — to help manage this change in its environment, according to a team of Penn State researchers.
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