News
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January 2, 2020
Drops of Liquid Crystal Molecules Branch Out into Strange StructuresA new study in Nature details this “weird” finding by showing how droplets containing chain-like liquid crystal molecules transform into complex shapes when the temperature drops. Conducted by Wei, graduate student Sophie Ettinger, Ph.D. alum Yu Xia, Shu Yang, and Arjun Yodh, this unexpected discovery provides new understanding about how molecular polydispersity—a condition where the lengths of liquid crystal molecules vary widely—can drive simple droplets to change into unusual shapes.
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January 2, 2020
Philadelphia’s Media Ecosystem is Broken. Can We Fix It?With local newsroom numbers decimated and traditional advertising models continuing to fail, the MIC Center hopes to identify new models for media that enable communities to be engaged in shaping and lifting up narratives that better represent them and address important social problems. Led by co-directors Annenberg Professor Victor Pickard, a Free Press board member, and Rutgers Professor Todd Wolfson, a Media Mobilizing Project board member, the Media, Inequality and Change (MIC) Center, Media Mobilizing Project and Free Press aim to address these issues by understanding how social change happens, the media’s role in creating obstacles and opportunities for structural reform, and what innovative, community-centered media and media-making can and should look like in the Philadelphia region.
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January 2, 2020
Researchers Use a Material’s ‘Memory’ to Encode Unique Physical PropertiesA new study shows that, as materials age, they “remember” prior stresses and external forces, which scientists and engineers can then use to create new materials with unique properties.
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January 2, 2020
Contemporary Art Enhances Penn Museum’s Africa GalleriesThe recently reinstalled Africa Galleries at the Penn Museum encompass 4,000 square feet and nearly 300 artifacts from Africa and the African diaspora. In this reimagined space, the historical pieces—statues, gold coins, carved ivory, richly dyed textiles—are juxtaposed with three groupings of contemporary art commissioned by Professor Tukufu Zuberi, the Africa Galleries’ lead curator.
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January 2, 2020
Alumna Andrea Mitchell on Her Career in JournalismNBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent and Penn alumna spoke at Kelly Writers House about her 40-plus-year career. She discussed everything from breaking into TV journalism in the 1960s to moderating the Democratic presidential debate.