How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected outdoor recreation in America?
| psu.edu
New research led by Penn State’s Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management shows that 20% of Americans began regularly participating in outdoor recreation during the COVID-19 pandemic, while 13% of Americans stopped.
Feb. 4 Coffee Hour: How to increase the public value of scientific research
| psu.edu
The Department of Geography's Coffee Hour will feature Arthur Lupia, the Gerald R Ford Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan, at 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4. Lupia will discuss how to develop more effective communication strategies to reach and engage the public.
Nuclear waste's need for a new kind of cement
| by Titus Reed, Juan Pablo "JP" Gevaudan
Storing spent nuclear fuel rods has long been a challenge. But a new material that is being developed may help store nuclear waste more safely and for a longer time. It may also reduce carbon emissions by replacing an ingredient in concrete, a major greenhouse gas generator.
Mining for knowledge: Scientists identify bee that can aid black cherry recovery
| psu.edu
A ground-nesting bee family — commonly known as miner bees — could play a heightened role in rebuilding black cherry populations in Pennsylvania and beyond, according to Penn State entomologists who investigated pollinators’ contributions to the valuable hardwood species.
Cold-sintering may open door to improved solid-state battery production
| psu.edu
Compared to their traditional battery counterparts, solid-state batteries have higher energy potential and are safer, making them key to advancing electric vehicle development and use. Penn State researchers have proposed an improved method of solid-state battery production that enables multi-material integration for better batteries: cold sintering.
Graduate student selected for prestigious U.S. Department of Energy program
| psu.edu
Penn State graduate student Ryan Fair is currently participating in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. Fair is one of 65 graduate students representing 29 states in this year’s program.
Form fit: Device wraps around hot surfaces, turns wasted heat to electricity
| psu.edu
Penn State scientists have created flexible thermoelectric devices that can wrap around pipes and other hot surfaces, converting wasted heat into electricity more efficiently than previously possible.
Penn State gets grant to teach private forest owners to adapt to climate change
| psu.edu
Researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences will use a newly awarded $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work with 13 other land-grant universities in the eastern U.S. to create an education program that will help private forests owners adapt to and mitigate climate change.
Libraries launches ROAM, an expanded open educational resources repository
| psu.edu
Penn State University Libraries’ Open Publishing unit recently launched ROAM (short for “Repository of Open and Affordable Materials”), a newly expanded online publication service for openly licensed educational materials authored by Penn State faculty from all disciplines and campuses.
‘Machine Learning for Weather Prediction’: A free public lecture on Jan. 22
| psu.edu
Jia Li, professor of statistics and computer science, will present a free public lecture titled “Bioinformatics and Machine Learning for Bioinformatics and Weather Prediction on Jan. 22 via Zoom, part of the 2022 Ashtekar Frontiers of Science Lectures in the Eberly College of Science.
Libraries expands agreement, supports open access monographs
| psu.edu
Penn State University Libraries has expanded its agreement with the Public Library of Science (PLOS), a nonprofit publisher of peer-reviewed open access research journals. The Libraries has also expanded its support for open access monograph publishing by university presses.
2022 Materials Spotlight series kicks off Jan. 27 with “The Future of Plastics”
| psu.edu
Presented by the Penn State Materials Research Institute, the Materials Spotlight Series connects industry and Penn State faculty and students for a series of presentations designed to create connections and spark discussions. The first edition of the 2022 Materials Spotlight Series, “The Future of Plastics,” will be held from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Jan. 27 on the virtual platform Gather.Town.