Penn State Eberly College of Science

Science Education Abroad Ambassadors promote study abroad in our college, answer students’ questions, and serve as a peer resource. ?? Ariella Biney and Loren Foster are both fourth-year biology students and are this year’s ambassadors. Stop by Ritenour to ask them your questions about study abroad and how you can have an enriching, cultural experience. Penn State Global #PennStateBio #PennStateScience

Science Achievement Graduate Fellows joined Sara Seager, astrophysicist and planetary scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for a casual reception before she presented the joint Science Achievement Graduate Fellows-Russell Marker Lecture in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The students had the unique opportunity to chat with Seager and ask her questions about her work and much more. Then, during her talk, she spoke about exoplanets and the search for life beyond Earth. ?? ??? Heard on campus story: https://bit.ly/3V0N2EF #PennStateAstro

Did you know that lifestyle can shape the composition of beneficial bacteria and other microorganisms within your mouth? A team led by Penn State biologists found that major lifestyle factors like subsistence strategy —how a person obtains the necessities of life like food and shelter — as well as more specific behaviors, like smoking, may be contributing to differences in the "oral microbiome" across different populations. Read more at https://bit.ly/4fqA9vR #PennStateBio

Congrats to David Radice, associate professor of physics and of astronomy and astrophysics, for receiving a Sustainment Award from NASA! This award will provide a $920,000 grant to advance an open-source code called AthenaK, which is a freely accessible code that provides an infrastructure for astrophysical simulations. Read more at https://bit.ly/4fAVhis #PennStatePhysics #PennStateAstro

We are leading the way in the discovery of a new protein, called LanD, which has the potential to revolutionize industrial mining. This protein naturally houses an unusual binding site that can differentiate between rare earth elements, and researchers, including Professor of Chemistry Joseph Cotruvo, Jr., have made it even better. “Each rare earth element has specific properties that make it useful for different applications, yet they are notoriously difficult to separate from each other. Current industrial methods are inefficient and require heavy use of toxic chemicals, so a protein-based method for rare earth mining could make this process more efficient, greener, and less expensive," Cotruvo said. Read more at https://bit.ly/40DBxq8 #PennStateChemistry

We are always thrilled to welcome Dr. Ala Stanford, MD, FACS, FAAP back to campus! Not only is Stanford the recipient of the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award, but she's also a bestselling author. During her visit, she spoke about her journey into medicine and beyond and held a book signing for her new book, "Take Care of Them Like My Own: Faith, Fortitude, and a Surgeon's Fight for Health Justice." Thank you, Ala, for visiting and sharing your story with our students. #PennStateBio #PennStateScience

Multiple researchers, including Kevin Luhman, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, were featured in The New York Times about unexplained objects orbiting in the Orion Nebula. ?? Two of the scientists named them Jupiter Mass Binary Objects, or JuMBOs, and they suggest that something was wrong in researchers' understanding of star and planet formation. Luhman reanalyzed the original JuMBO data and said he could not find many of them. “I was able to identify a few hundred brown dwarf candidates,” he said, but “there was only a small amount of overlap with the JuMBOs.They might be just two random background stars that happen to be close to each other in the sky and are unrelated." Read the full article at https://nyti.ms/48JiY5P #PennStateAstro

A new study has revealed brown dwarf protoplanetary disks in the Orion Nebula using photos from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope decades ago. ?? Protoplanetary disks are gas and dust within which planets are born, and these new results will help astronomers better understand how brown dwarfs form, their relationship to stars and planets, and if they might have planets of their own. Read more about this work done by Kevin Luhman, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, and a team of international researchers. https://bit.ly/4hsqQwE #PennStateAstro

Congratulations to Paul Baum, Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics, for being honored by Penn State with the title of Atherton Professor! The University created the Atherton Professorship to recognize the continuing high level of scholarly or creative activity Evan Pugh Professors may pursue after their retirement. “Paul Baum’s deep and elegant ideas have connected mathematical areas in a unique way and continue to spawn new mathematics more than 40 year later," said Paul Milewski, head of the Department of Mathematics. Read more about Baum at https://bit.ly/4f4hwO5 #PennStateMath

Penn State is home to the world's first One Health Microbiome Center, which studies two research areas — the microbiome and human health’s dependency on the environment and agriculture — together under one lens. Seth Bordenstein, professor of biology in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, professor of entomology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, and director of this center, recently shared the exciting work being done at Penn State with President Neeli Bendapudi. #PennStateBio #PennStateScience