Salon.com

Your dog has a rich interior life it's not telling you about

James Serpell of the School of Veterinary Medicine spoke about how dogs interact with and interpret the world around them, from barking to licking to sniffing. “While we derive most of the information about the world around us through our eyes and ears, dogs can access an additional layer of information via their noses that we are essentially ‘blind’ to,” he said.

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Bloomberg

Lack of progress in treating COVID causes worry for unvaccinated

Jeffrey Morris of the Perelman School of Medicine said there’s been little progress in treating COVID-19 in recent months.

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USA Today

Fact check: 62-mile-wide mega comet unlikely to hit Earth, will just pass by it in 2031

Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about the giant comet they recently discovered. “There is no possibility of this thing getting any closer to Earth than Saturn gets,” said Bernstein.

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The Washington Post

To get shots in arms, governments turn to money in pockets

Harald Schmidt of the Perelman School of Medicine reflected on the use of incentives to motivate people to get vaccinated for COVID-19. “If we just get needles into arms we haven’t really made any progress on the bigger picture, which is that whole communities are lacking trust in health care systems or the government,” he said.

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The Hill

How to turn the tide on vaccine hesitancy: Apply an algorithm that actually works

Damon Centola of the Annenberg School for Communication wrote an opinion piece about the best strategies for promoting COVID-19 vaccination. “It takes time to digest an idea with substance to it; it takes repeatedly seeing an idea successfully adopted by others for it to be accepted, take hold and become a norm, and that kind of messaging is most effective when an idea works its way from the outside in,” he said.

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Al Jazeera

How Netanyahu plans to bring down Israel’s new government

Ian Lustick of the School of Arts & Sciences described former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategies to reclaim power. Netanyahu’s trio of tactics include discrediting the new government’s legitimacy, working with allies to use filibusters to delay legislation and create tensions between parties, and encouraging members of the coalition to desert it, said Lustick.

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9/1

Printing & Postcards

A yellow and green victorian house
Mary Tasillo and members of Common Press host a hands-on letterpress printing workshop. Common Press will provide supplies.

5:00 p.m.

Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk

  • Carol Muller and West Philadelphia H.S. receive Faculty-Community Partnership Award

    Music professor Carol Muller, who also directs the minor in jazz and popular music studies, is being recognized for her work on projects that engage Penn graduate and undergraduate students in music, arts, and wellness partnerships with the West Philadelphia/Philadelphia community through Academically Based Community Service.

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    • The New York Times

    Nonprofits get a new type of donation: Cryptocurrency

    Vice President John Zeller of Development and Alumni Relations spoke about a large gift of cryptocurrency to the Wharton School. “It’s very nice to have the capacity to do it when a donor says, ‘I have some Bitcoin,’” he said. “We can accept it now without it grinding the university to a halt.”

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    The New York Times

    Breakthrough COVID infections show ‘the unvaccinated are now putting the vaccinated at risk’

    Drew Weissman of the Perelman School of Medicine said the COVID-19 vaccines are “still working great,” but highly contagious variants and low vaccination rates are eroding progress. “You can’t control a pandemic when 30 percent or even half the people are immunized,” he said.

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