Latest News

March 19, 2018

Working with mushroom growers and residents in southern Chester County, Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is ramping up ongoing research efforts to alleviate mushroom phorid fly infestations in southeastern Pennsylvania.

March 15, 2018

Valentine's Day may have passed for this year, but if you're in love with sweet, firm, antioxidant-rich — and award-winning — tomatoes that will perform well in your garden this season, you're in luck, thanks to a researcher in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. "Valentine," a new variety of grape tomato that germinated in the breeding program of plant scientist Majid Foolad, now is available commercially after nearly two decades in development.

March 13, 2018

Millions of Americans will celebrate the St. Patrick's Day holiday this month with a "traditional" meal of corned beef and cabbage — but most won't pause to consider what makes the meat so distinctive or how it ended up being a tradition.

March 13, 2018

Carpenter ants infected with a specialized parasitic fungus are not subjected to aggression or isolation from their nest mates, and they continue to share in the colony's food resources until they leave the nest for the last time to die, according to a study led by Penn State researchers.

March 7, 2018

A good way to describe ramps, it has been said, is to note what they are not. Ramps are not leeks, nor are they scallions or shallots. Ramps look like scallions, but they're smaller and have one or two broad, flat leaves.

February 27, 2018

NSF Day, on Feb. 28 at the Nittany Lion Inn, will feature several events aimed at providing resources and support for faculty interested in strengthening their research grant applications and forwarding their research careers.

February 26, 2018

Access to wood fuels for cooking must be considered when formulating policy to deal with food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa, according to researchers who advocate expanding the effort to improve wood-fuel systems and make them more sustainable.

February 13, 2018

Estrogens in treated wastewater that find their way into temporary wetlands known as vernal pools persist for weeks or even months, according to researchers, who suggest that persistence may have implications for these critical aquatic habitats.

February 1, 2018

Agroforestry could play an important role in mitigating climate change because it sequesters more atmospheric carbon in plant parts and soil than conventional farming, according to Penn State researchers.

January 29, 2018

To meet increasing consumer demand for heritage-breed turkeys to be the centerpiece of holiday and other meals, researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences are studying methods producers can use to raise the historical birds.

January 25, 2018

In the big woods of Pennsylvania's Northern Tier, the home range of the average white-tailed deer is more than twice as large as that of a deer in urban or agricultural areas of the state. Penn State researcher Duane Diefenbach documented that phenomenon early on in his work, but it did not occur to him it might be representative of many different mammal species around the globe.

January 24, 2018

While the overprescribing of opioid-based painkillers may be the main driver of the increased abuse of opioids in rural America, it may be more complex than that. Economists say that other factors, including declining farm income, extreme weather and other natural disasters, may affect a crisis that is killing thousands of citizens and costing the country billions of dollars.

January 18, 2018

Bean plants that suppress secondary root growth in favor of boosting primary root growth forage greater soil volume to acquire phosphorus, according to Penn State researchers, who say their recent findings have implications for plant breeders and improving crop productivity in nutrient-poor soils.

January 8, 2018

Manuel Llinás, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and Jason Rasgon, professor of entomology and disease epidemiology, have participated in the formulation of an updated research agenda for global malaria elimination and eradication.

January 4, 2018

Penn State's new data center gives researchers the ability to tackle complex questions that range from detecting subatomic particles, to understanding how planets form, to anticipating how natural disasters and more gradual changes in natural systems will affect human systems such as water supply and food production.

December 14, 2017

Food safety practices that Americans take for granted — washing hands with soap, refrigeration, and not cutting raw meat and vegetables on the same surface without disinfection — are not widely practiced in other places around the world, and researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences want to change that.

December 11, 2017

Limiting a much-needed resource could pit pathogens against one another and prevent the emergence of drug resistance, say researchers.

December 11, 2017

Using a network of up to 60 citizen scientists, a team of Penn State researchers will assess the levels of endocrine-disrupting compounds in the Susquehanna River next year, and in turn empower those volunteers to become part of the solution to water-quality problems related to emerging contaminants.

December 4, 2017

The Center for Security Research and Education at Penn State invites University faculty and researchers to apply to its new grant program to support security-related scholarship and educational programs at Penn State.

November 30, 2017

A new study of methane emissions from livestock in the United States — led by a researcher in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences — has challenged previous top-down estimates.

November 28, 2017

Researchers in Penn State’s Colleges of Engineering, Agricultural Sciences, and Medicine have been awarded a grant from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to investigate how low-temperature plasma can treat infectious bacterial growth on human tissue and prosthetic implants in the cardiovascular system.

November 21, 2017

For more than a century, plant geneticists have been studying maize as a model system to understand the rules governing the inheritance of traits, and a team of researchers recently unveiled a previously unknown mechanism that triggers gene silencing in corn.

November 20, 2017

A Penn State-led research team is hoping to enlist insects as allies in an effort to make crops more tolerant of environmental stressors, after the crops are already growing in the greenhouse or field.

November 17, 2017

The Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness at Penn State has just released “Supporting United States Veterans: A review of veteran-focused needs assessments from 2008-2017.” The report reviewed veterans needs assessments from the past decade and identified the most common needs.

November 17, 2017

A nearly $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will support Penn State researchers in determining best management practices for organic beekeeping by comparing organic and chemical-free to conventional management systems. The funding comes from the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative of USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

November 9, 2017

Mushrooms have more ergothioneine and glutathione together than any other food. Both of these are important antioxidants that previous research has linked to anti-aging treatments and strategies. Researchers are also exploring whether the antioxidants play a role in brain health.

November 8, 2017

Penn State’s research expenditures reached a record high of $863 million for the 2016-2017 fiscal year, an increase of $27 million, according to Vice President for Research Neil Sharkey. The total included $534 million in federal funds, and $329 million from a combination of private funders, the Commonwealth, and university sources.

November 8, 2017

A chemical used in plastic packaging may get passed from mother to offspring during pregnancy, affecting the gut bacteria of the young. Researchers suggest this could increase the possibilities of inflammation-related conditions, such as colon cancer and type 2 diabetes, for the offspring later in life.