News | The Huck Institutes (en-US)

Credit: Anne Marie Vardo-Zalik. All Rights Reserved.

Nov 15, 2024

York professor helps students engage in ecology research in California

Associate Professor of Biology Anne Vardo-Zalik travels to the Hopland region of California every two years to conduct ecology research.

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Early career researchers from 14 countries and five continents joined together to conduct research at the Dickinson College Farm in Carlisle. They were broken into four research groups based on the water-energy-food nexus paradigm: soil health, waste management, renewable fuels, and livestock and water quality. Credit: Contributed photo. All Rights Reserved.

Nov 15, 2024

Penn State water-energy-food nexus project takes a global approach

Young water-energy-food nexus researchers from 14 countries join in summer research workshop.

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Nov 14, 2024

Q&A: How do microbiomes influence the study of life?

Microorganisms — bacteria, viruses and other tiny life forms — may drive biological variation in visible life as much, if not more, than genetic mutations, creating new lineages and even new species of animals and plants, according to Seth Bordenstein, director of Penn State’s One Health Microbiome Center within the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.

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Nov 13, 2024

Neuroscience student wins National Research Service Award fellowship

Chad Brunswick, a Ph.D candidate in the Huck Institutes’ intercollege graduate degree program in Neuroscience, has been awarded a prestigious National Research Service Award (NRSA) from the National Institute on Aging, one of the constituent institutes of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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Nov 13, 2024

Three Penn State researchers awarded scientific grants from Kaufman Foundation

The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation — a supporting organization of The Pittsburgh Foundation, which works to improve the quality of life in the Pittsburgh region — has selected three Penn State researchers to receive scientific research grants. The foundation awards grants to scientists at institutes of higher learning in Pennsylvania who are conducting innovative, fundamental scientific research in the fields of biology, chemistry and physics.

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Nov 11, 2024

Consistent bedtime linked with better child emotion and behavior regulation

Sleep can affect a child’s attitude and behavior, as many parents can attest, but a consistent bedtime may be more influential than sleep quality or duration, according to a new publication authored by researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development and Penn State College of Medicine.

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Nov 11, 2024

Biology and Ecology Student Research Showcase winners announced

The Biology and Ecology Student Research Showcase, hosted by the Biology Graduate Student Association and Ecology Graduate Student Organization on Nov. 1, featured poster and podium presentations from nearly 30 graduate and undergraduate students.

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Nov 08, 2024

Uncharted territory: A Q&A with Nanyin Zhang on mapping brain activity

To understand how different regions of the brain work together, researchers use a method called resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI). The method measures brain activity by observing changes in blood flow to different parts of the brain; however, rsfMRI does not explain how these blood flow changes to different brain regions relate to what is happening with the brain’s neurons — cells that send and receive messages in the form of electronic signals.

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The novel Cleavage High-throughput Assay (CHiTA) developed at Penn State provides a scarless method to characterize thousands of diverse small self-cleaving RNA enzymes, called twister ribozymes, in a single experiment. The image shows 2D models of some of the tested ribozymes that had imperfections in their helical and loop elements but were still active, demonstrating that twister ribozyme's ability to self-cleave is tolerant of these slight structural imperfections. Credit: Lauren McKinley and Philip Bevilacqua / Penn State. Creative Commons

Nov 05, 2024

Testing thousands of RNA enzymes helps find first ‘twister ribozyme’ in mammals

A new method, developed by Penn State researchers, can test the activity of thousands of predicted ribozymes in a single experiment.

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Jonathan Lynch in Mozambique reviewing a bean experiment with (from left) Celestina Jochua, Magalhaes Miguel and Soares Xerinda, all of whom are scientists with the Mozambican government, who earned their doctoral degrees under Lynch's supervision at Penn State. Credit: Penn State. Creative Commons

Nov 05, 2024

Distinguished professor in plant nutrition retires after long, impactful career

Jonathan Lynch, distinguished professor of plant nutrition, retired this fall after an innovative and impactful 33-year career in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, focused on conducting research to alleviate world hunger and enhance crop production by subsistence farmers in developing countries.

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