IceCube, the world's largest observatory ever built to detect the elusive sub-atomic particles called neutrinos, has just been completed in the crystal-clear ice at the South Pole. Trillions of neutrinos stream through the human body at any given moment, but they rarely interact with regular matter, and researchers want to know more about them. The observatory provides an innovative means to investigate the sources and properties of neutrinos, which originate in some of the most spectacular phenomena in the universe. (more)
A team of scientists led by Melissa Rolls, an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University, has peered inside neurons to discover an unexpected process that is required for regeneration after severe neuron injury. The process was discovered during Rolls's studies aimed at deciphering the inner workings of dendrites -- the part of the neuron that receives information from other cells and from the outside world. The research will be published in the print edition of the scientific journal Current Biology on Dec. 21. (more)
Patrick J. Buckley of Reading, Pa., will be honored as the student marshal for the Eberly College of Science during Penn State University's fall commencement ceremonies on Dec. 18, at the University Park campus. Buckley has selected Paul A. Bartell of the Department of Poultry Sciences to be his faculty escort for the commencement exercises.
Wendy Freedman, Crawford H. Greenewalt chair and director of the observatories of the Carnegie Instititution of Science, will present the 2010 John M. Chemerda Lectures in Science on Nov. 8, 9 and 10, on Penn State's University Park campus.
Freedman will present two lectures of a more technical nature: "The Carnegie Dark Energy and Hubble Constant Projects" at 4 p.m. Nov. 8, in 114 McCallister Building and "The Giant Magellan Telescope Project" at 4 p.m. on Nov. 9, in 538 Davey Laboratory.
She also will give a public lecture titled "New Windows on the Cosmos" at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 10, in 100 Life Sciences Building.
An international program to unveil the nature of Dark Energy, the mysterious force that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, has been awarded a grant of $8 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Project (HETDEX), is led by the University of Texas at Austin and includes Penn State University, Texas A&M University, and three institutions in Germany. Penn State is one of the major institutional partners of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, one of the largest optical telescopes in the world. (more)
Penn State students, faculty, staff, alumni and the public are invited to a free lecture, titled "The FBI's Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC)," on Sept. 13. The lecture will be delivered by Andrew English, an FBI intelligence analyst. The lecture event is the second of four presentations on forensic science, criminal justice and crime fiction in the 2010 Forensic Science Lecture Series. All lectures are free and will be held on Mondays from 12:20 p.m. to 1:10 p.m. in room 111 of the Wartik Laboratory on Penn State's University Park campus. (more)
Astronomers on two research teams, including an astronomer at Penn State, have demonstrated the power of a new technique to determine the chemical composition of the atmospheres of planets far outside our solar system. Using the technique -- called narrow-band transit spectrophotometry -- the teams discovered the element potassium in the atmospheres of giant planets similar in size to Jupiter. (more)
In a landmark study to be published in the journal Nature, scientists have been able to create the first picture of genetic processes that happen inside every cell of our bodies. Using a 3-D visualization method called X-ray crystallography, Song Tan, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University, has built the first-ever image of a protein interacting with the nucleosome -- DNA packed tightly into space-saving bundles organized around a protein core. The research is expected to aid future investigations into diseases such as cancer. (more)
A new report, prepared for the National Academy of Sciences by the National Research Council, ranked the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) as the top U.S. priority for the next large ground-based astronomical facility. "The LSST is one of the most ambitious ground-based astronomical projects ever undertaken," said Larry Ramsey, head of Penn State's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and a member of the LSST Board of Directors. "It promises to provide fundamental advances in many fields of astrophysics, from the identification of potential 'killer asteroids' to the global properties of the universe." The 8.4-meter LSST telescope, to be placed on a mountain in northern Chile, will be equipped with the world's largest digital camera -- 3.2 billion pixels -- to construct a color "movie" of the entire visible sky for studying changes in movement or brightness. (more)
Robert C. Shaler, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, has retired after having served as the founding director of the Penn State Forensic Science Program since 2005. Shaler is well known for supervising the massive DNA-testing effort to identify thousands of victims of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, and he is the author of Who They Were: Inside the World Trade Center DNA Story: The Unprecedented Effort to Identify the Missing. More information is online at www.science.psu.edu. (more)
