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Science & Technology
AI Month roundup: From ethical algorithms to robots that learn
During the month of April, Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science showcased a series of news items exploring the evolving world of artificial intelligence.
2024 tropical cyclone prediction
Michael Mann and colleagues predict a record-breaking 33 named storms for the 2024 North Atlantic hurricane season. It is the highest count ever projected.
Six from Penn elected 2024 AAAS Fellows
Researchers representing six schools join a class of scientists, engineers, and innovators spanning 24 scientific disciplines.
Bringing cognitive science in action to young minds
Penn Upward Bound high school students from West Philadelphia got a tour of the Penn Smart Aviary, GRASP Lab, and the Penn Vet Working Dog Center during a visit to Pennovation Works.
Understanding the Northeast earthquake
Last week, people in the Northeast experienced a rare earthquake that registered a magnitude of 4.8. Penn Today spoke with David Goldsby of the School of Arts & Sciences and Robert Carpick of the School of Engineering and Applied Science about the event.
Penn Electric Racing’s latest race car
Designed and produced by the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s student-run club, REV9 will compete in the annual Formula Society of Automotive Engineers Michigan race in June.
Teaching doglike robots to walk on the moon’s dusty, icy surface
Researchers from Penn are part of a NASA-funded multidisciplinary collaborative effort that’s teaching robots to navigate the extraterrestrial craters, like the moon and Mars.
Sherry Gao pushes the boundaries of genetic engineering
The Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering aims to make gene editing tools like CRISPR more accurate, and encourage first generation students along the way.
Total solar eclipse
Gary Bernstein and Bhuvnesh Jain speak with Penn Today about the significance of the coming total eclipse.
The hidden geometry of learning: Neural networks think alike
New research by Penn engineers illuminates the inner workings of neural networks, opening the possibility of developing hyper-efficient algorithms that could classify images in a fraction of the time.
In the News
New Penn AI master’s program aims to prep students for ‘jobs that we can’t yet imagine’
Chris Callison-Burch of the School of Engineering and Applied Science discusses Penn’s new online master’s program in artificial intelligence.
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Penn Engineering announces first Ivy League Master’s degree in AI
The School of Engineering and Applied Science has announced the first graduate program in artificial intelligence among Ivy League universities, led by Chris Callison-Burch.
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Penn Engineering rolls out an online master’s degree in AI, first in Ivy League
The School of Engineering and Applied Science has announced the first graduate program in artificial intelligence among Ivy League universities, led by Chris Callison-Burch.
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Man does DNA test, not prepared for what comes back ‘unusually high’
César de la Fuente of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Perelman School of Medicine says that Neanderthal DNA provides insights into human evolution, population dynamics, and genetic adaptations, including correlations with traits such as immunity and susceptibility to diseases.
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Forecast group predicts busiest hurricane season on record with 33 storms
A research team led by Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences is predicting the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season will produce the most named storms on record, fueled by exceptionally warm ocean waters and an expected shift from El Niño to La Niña.
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My Climate Story: Philly students take science from abstract to personal
The “My Climate Story” project at the Environmental Humanities Department helps students and teachers learn about climate change’s impact in everyday backyards, with remarks from Bethany Wiggin. The idea is credited to María Villarreal, a College of Arts and Sciences second-year from Tampico, Mexico.
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Penn professor on gen AI’s rapacious use of energy: ‘One of the defining challenges of my career’
Benjamin Lee of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that hardware and infrastructure costs are growing at high rates for generative AI.
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Satellite images capture extraordinary flooding in the United Arab Emirates
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences explains how three low-pressure systems formed a train of storms that battered the United Arab Emirates.
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Here’s why experts don’t think cloud seeding played a role in Dubai’s downpour
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that many people blaming cloud seeding for Dubai storms are climate change deniers trying to divert attention from what’s really happening.
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Can we stop AI hallucinations? And do we even want to?
Chris Callison-Burch of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says that auto-regressive generation can make it difficult for language learning models to perform fact-based or symbolic reasoning.
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