Still Life
Old Main clock faces installed
New carillon, restored clocks being installed
Joe Paterno's funeral procession
Joe Paterno through the years
Thousands mourn Paterno's passing
We ... are Penn State (December 19, 2011)
Penn State's creamery, from the cow to the cone
Researchers use balloons to unlock mysteries posed by dying stars
Everyday virus proves potent against cancer cells.
The scientists of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), including astronomers at Penn State, have produced a new map of the universe that is in full color, covers more than one quarter of the entire sky, and is full of so much detail that you would need five-hundred-thousand high-definition TVs to view it all. The map consists of more than one-trillion pixels measured by meticulously scanning the sky with a special-purpose telescope located in New Mexico. This week, at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas, the SDSS scientists announced results of four separate studies of this new map that, taken together, provide a history of the universe over the last six-billion years. (more)
New evidence that will help to answer long-standing questions about the history of stars in the disk of our galaxy is being released this week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society by a team that includes a Penn State astronomer. The research reveals some stars with orbits that take them to interesting places and that reveal interesting stories about how these stars were formed.
Donald Schneider, Head of Penn State's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, is one of the coauthors of the study. The study uses data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which has been mapping the stars in our galaxy for more than a decade. "The SDSS results are providing another window into the structure and history of our galaxy," said Schneider, who is the SDSS Survey Coordinator. More information is online at www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/Schneider1-2012. (more)
The Eberly College of Science at Penn State University, in conjunction with its Forensic Science Program, has established a partnership program with the University of Split in Croatia to expand educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students and to encourage relationships between the faculties of the two universities. The new partnership will facilitate student exchange programs; faculty exchanges; joint research projects; educational programs in forensic science and other scientific disciplines; faculty development; and the exchange of scientific materials, publications and information. (more)
As an asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier streaked past Earth during the early-morning hours last week, a team of astronomers at Penn State University and other institutions using NASA's Swift satellite monitored the fast-moving space rock, as did other professional and amateur astronomers using other instruments around the globe. The Swift satellite was the only observatory that captured the asteroid's ultraviolet emissions. Scientists now can use these ultraviolet data to understand the asteroid's surface composition and to more precisely predict the path of its future fly-bys near Earth. (more)
Galaxy -- an open-source, Web-based platform for data-intensive biomedical and genetic research -- is now available as a cloud computing resource. A team of researchers has developed the new technology, which will help scientists and biomedical researchers to harness such tools as DNA-sequencing and analysis software, as well as storage capacity for large quantities of scientific data. (more)
Both climate change and humans were responsible for the extinction of some large, cold-adapted, plant-eating mammals, according to research that is the first of its kind to use genetic, archeological, and climatic data together to infer the population history of large-bodied Ice-Age mammals. The research will be published in the journal Nature.
The study's findings are expected to shed light on the possible fates of living species of mammals as our planet continues its current warming cycle. Beth Shapiro, the Shaffer Associate Professor of Biology at Penn State University, is a member of the research team. High-resolution images are online at
http://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2011-news/Shapiro10-2011 (more)
Three planets -- each orbiting its own giant, dying star -- have been discovered by an international research team led by Alexander Wolszczan, Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State and the discoverer of the first planets ever found outside our solar system. Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, astronomers observed the planets' parent stars, which are tens of light years away from our solar system. One of the massive, dying stars has an additional mystery object orbiting it. The new research is expected to shed light on the evolution of planetary systems around dying stars. It also will help astronomers to understand how metal content influences the behavior of dying stars.
The research will be published in December in the Astrophysical Journal. The first author of the paper is Sara Gettel, a graduate student from Penn State's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the paper is co-authored by three graduate students from Poland. (more)
The photo of a nearby star and its orbiting companion -- with a temperature like a hot summer day in Arizona -- was revealed by Penn State Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kevin Luhman during a presentation at the Signposts of Planets conference at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on Oct. 20. A paper describing the discovery will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. "This planet-like companion is the coldest object ever directly photographed outside our solar system," said Luhman, who led the discovery team. "Its mass is about the same as many of the known extra-solar planets -- about six to nine times the mass of Jupiter -- but in other ways it is more like a star. Essentially, what we have found is a very small star with an atmospheric temperature about as cool as the Earth's." (more)
A team of scientists led by a Penn State University chemist has demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of a method of molecular depth profiling -- a technique used to analyze the surface of ultra-thin materials such as human tissue, nanoparticles, and other substances. In the new study, the researchers used computer simulations and modeling to show the effectiveness and limitations of the alternative method, which is being used by a research group in Taiwan. The new computer-simulation findings may help future researchers to choose when to use the new method of analyzing how and where particular molecules are distributed throughout the surface layers of ultra-thin materials. The research will be published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. (more)
Students who attend sex-segregated schools are not necessarily better educated than students who attend coeducational schools, but they are more likely to accept gender stereotypes, according to a team of psychologists. (more)
