News
Jun 20, 2024
New tomato, potato family tree shows that fruit color and size evolved together
Fruits of Solanum plants, a group in the nightshade family, are incredibly diverse, ranging from sizable red tomatoes and purple eggplants to the poisonous green berries on potato plants. A new and improved family tree of this group, produced by an international team led by researchers at Penn State, helps explain the striking diversity of fruit colors and sizes and how they might have evolved.
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Jun 17, 2024
Unexpected diversity of light-sensing proteins goes beyond vision in frogs
Frogs have maintained a surprising diversity of light-sensing proteins over evolutionary time, according to a new study led by a Penn State researcher. Light-sensing proteins, called opsins, enable vision in sighted animals, and are responsible for many more biological functions like regulating circadian rhythms. The researchers explored the evolution of nonvisual opsins in frogs, finding that most modern species examined in this study retained a shocking number of these proteins.
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Jun 13, 2024
Bisanz named Huck Early Career Chair in Host-Microbiome Interactions
Jordan Bisanz, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Eberly College of Science at Penn State, has been awarded a Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Early Career Chair in Host-Microbiome Interactions.
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Jun 11, 2024
Penn State Altoona to host ‘Biomachine’ by Huck SciArt Team
For the next year, the Hite Lobby in the Misciagna Family Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State Altoona will be home to the sculpture “Biomachine” by Daryl Bradford and Talley Fisher of Huck SciArts Initiative.
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Jun 06, 2024
Guiltinan named director of the Penn State Plant Institute
Mark Guiltinan, professor of plant molecular biology and J. Franklin Styer Professor of Horticultural Botany, has been named director of the Penn State Plant Institute.
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Jun 05, 2024
Patrick Drew named interim director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences
Patrick Drew, professor of engineering sciences and mechanics, of neurosurgery, of biology and of biomedical engineering and associate director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, has been selected to serve as interim director of the Huck Institutes with the appointment of Troy Ott as dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State. Drew’s position will be effective July 1.
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Jun 05, 2024
Troy Ott named dean of Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences
Troy Ott, interim director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, has been named dean of the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences, effective July 1.
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Jun 03, 2024
Combining pest treatments may be key to helping honey bees survive the winter
Winters can be tough on managed honey bee colonies, with beekeepers in the United States reporting that one-third of their colonies die each winter. A new study by Penn State researchers has found that using not one but multiple pest treatments may help bees make it to spring.
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Jun 03, 2024
Food, not sex, drove the evolution of giraffes’ long neck, new study finds
Why do giraffes have such long necks? A study led by Penn State biologists explores how this trait might have evolved and lends new insight into this iconic question. The reigning hypothesis is that competition among males influenced neck length, but the research team found that female giraffes have proportionally longer necks than males — suggesting that high nutritional needs of females may have driven the evolution of this trait.
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May 29, 2024
Denise Okafor named Huck Early Career Chair in Biophysics
Denise Okafor, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Eberly College of Science at Penn State, has been awarded a Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Early Career Chair in Biophysics.
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