Natural Science

In 1950, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology sent scholars to a site in central Turkey, about 50 miles southwest of Ankara. There they began an effort to uncover — literally and figuratively — details about the societies and cultures of the people who lived there hundreds to thousands of years before.

PHILADELPHIA — By showing that tiny particles injected into a liquid crystal medium behave as predicted by existing mathematical theorems, physicists have opened the door for the creation of a host of new materials with properties that do not exist in nature.

The findings show that researchers can create a "recipe book" to build new materials of sorts using topology, a major mathematical field that describes the properties that do not change when an object is stretched, bent or otherwise “continuously deformed.”

WHO:             Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program of the International  

PHILADELPHIA — Though churning smokestacks, cud-chewing cows and gasoline-burning vehicles are contributing constantly to greenhouse gas emissions, there are also many processes that do the reverse, pulling molecules like carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. One of these is chemical weathering, which occurs when rock turns into soil. Carbon dioxide molecules and rain combine to dissolve rock, and the weathering products, including sediment, eventually make their way through waterways to the ocean where some become trapped on the ocean bottom and in coral reefs and seashells.

PHILADELPHIA — Directed assembly is a growing field of research in nanotechnology in which scientists and engineers aim to manufacture structures on the smallest scales without having to individually manipulate each component. Rather, they set out precisely defined starting conditions and let the physics and chemistry that govern those components do the rest.  

La’Toya Latney’s grandmother has a photo from when Latney was about 5 years old. In it, she is sitting in front of the television, transfixed by a nature program on grizzly bears hunting salmon swimming upstream.

“At that time she said she knew I was going to be a veterinarian, so it’s been a long time coming for me,” says Latney.

PHILADELPHIA — In the waning days of 2012, two words have dominated the post-election discourse: “fiscal cliff.” The cliff is a combination of impending budgetary measures that will take effect in January if a legislative compromise is not reached.

One area of the budget that would see serious cuts is funding for the national science agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. Combined with cuts to other agencies and departments, the amount of research and development funding lost could total $58 billion over five years.

PHILADELPHIA — Learning calculus is no easy feat. But beginning next month, the University of Pennsylvania’s Robert Ghrist will use a new, visually stimulating approach to engage tens of thousands of students in the task with a massive open online course, or MOOC, offered through Coursera’s online platform.