News
Aug 19, 2020
Invasive shrubs in Northeast forests grow leaves earlier and keep them longer
The rapid pace that invasive shrubs infiltrate forests in the northeastern United States makes scientists suspect they have a consistent advantage over native shrubs, and the first region-wide study of leaf timing, conducted by Penn State researchers, supports those suspicions.
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Aug 17, 2020
Podcast unpacks potential for social evolution in the midst of crisis
The newest episode of The Symbiotic Podcast welcomes the husband-and-wife team of David Loye and Riane Eisler, experts in how and why societies evolve and devolve, for an examination of multiple global crises occurring simultaneously in 2020.
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Aug 12, 2020
Cover crop roots are key to understanding ecosystem services
To judge the overall effectiveness of cover crops and choose those offering the most ecosystem services, agricultural scientists must consider the plants’ roots as well as above-ground biomass, according to Penn State researchers who tested the characteristics of cover crop roots in three monocultures and one mixture.
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Aug 11, 2020
Physio Student Cesar Matamoros Receives USDA Predoctoral Fellowship and Sloan Scholarship
Physio grad student Cesar Matamoros is the recipient of a grant that aims to develop the scientific workforce in the agricultural sciences, and another which aims to support students from underrepresented minority groups
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Aug 11, 2020
Determining how a coronavirus protein takes over human protein-making machinery
Jean-Paul Armache, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, has been awarded seed funding from the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State to use cryo-electron microscopy to study how an important SARS-CoV-2 protein binds to and takes over the human ribosome — a protein factory in the cell that the virus uses to copy itself.
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Aug 10, 2020
Flavonoids' presence in sorghum roots may lead to frost-resistant crop
Flavonoid compounds — produced by the roots of some sorghum plants — positively affect soil microorganisms, according to Penn State researchers, who suggest the discovery is an early step in developing a frost-resistant line of the valuable crop for North American farmers.
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Aug 06, 2020
Faculty teams awarded seed grants to fund biodevice development
Faculty teams from across multiple disciplines recently received Penn State Biodevices Seed Grants and Grace Woodward Collaborative Research in Engineering and Medicine Grants to support work on the development of biodevices.
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Aug 06, 2020
Penn State Microbiome Center and GALT enter collaboration to advance research
The Penn State Microbiome Center and General Automation Lab Technologies (GALT) announced their collaboration to advance plant pathology, environmental microbiology and human gut microbiome studies.
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Jul 28, 2020
Researchers identify evolutionary origins of SARS-CoV-2
By reconstructing the evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, an international research team of Chinese, European and U.S. scientists has discovered that the lineage that gave rise to the virus has been circulating in bats for decades and likely includes other viruses with the ability to infect humans.
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Jul 24, 2020
Researchers to examine relation of dysfunctional brain hubs to mental disorders
The National Institutes of Health has awarded Penn State researchers a $1.85 million grant to develop a new way to test if dysfunctions in certain areas of the brain lead to mental health complications and brain disorders. If successful, the research could lead to better mental health treatments.
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