News

Graduate students seek solutions to complex challenges through novel research

What if you could predict when a civil war would break out in a country? Or, what if there was a way to reverse the nerve damage associated with traumatic brain injury? Two graduate students at Penn State are doing extraordinary research to solve these problems that impact our global society.

President's blog: The power of language

At a recent brown bag luncheon, Penn State President Eric Barron learned about the Center for Language Science, an outfit that examines everything from language acquisition to bilingualism to cognition to neurobiology.

American chestnut restoration effort getting a boost from molecular geneticists

Efforts to restore American chestnut trees to their rightful place in the North American forest ecosystem are progressing, although progress has come at a slower pace than once expected, according to researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, who explain they have reached a pivotal point.

Penn State communication arts and sciences faculty receive CDC grant

A one-year, $322,876 grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will enable researchers from the Penn State Department of Communication Arts and Sciences to evaluate antibiotic prescriptions for childhood ear infections, examine doctor-parent conversations about the use of antibiotics, survey parents’ attitudes toward antibiotic use, and, ultimately, identify effective communication strategies that reduce the overuse of antibiotics in treating pediatric illness.

New strategy for antidepressant therapies

Increasing the activity of the neurotransmitter GABA in the brains of depressed mice has antidepressant effects

Geier recipient of early career professorship award

Charles Geier, assistant professor of human development and family studies at Penn State, was recently named as the inaugural recipient of the Dr. Frances Keesler Graham Early Career Professorship.

Research Penn State 2016 a success

This first-of-its-kind showcase event for the University's five interdisciplinary research institutes, held over two days in October, highlighted the breadth and depth of research in the life sciences, energy and the environment, materials science and engineering, cyber-enabled science, and the social sciences at Penn State.

Parasitic plants may form weapons out of genes stolen from hosts

Sneaky parasitic weeds may be able to steal genes from the plants they are attacking and then use those genes against the host plant, according to a team of scientists.

America the Bountiful ag workforce event highlights Penn State initiative

PlantVillage, an online crop-disease knowledge library and image database co-founded by Penn State researcher David Hughes, was represented at an event unveiling a new agricultural workforce development initiative Oct. 6 in Washington, D.C.

Heard on Campus: Rush Holt, retired lawmaker and AAAS leader

Rush Holt, executive officer of the American Association for Advancement of Science, and retired United States congressman, joined a group of leading Penn State researchers at a panel discussion entitled 'Scientist-Citizen: Science Policy in the Age of Promise and Peril' at Penn State's HUB Robeson Center on the evening of Oct. 13.