Latest News

The Penn State Lake Erie Regional Grape Research and Extension Center will hold a public open house in September.

Studying for her dual-title doctoral degree in rural sociology and in international agriculture and development at Penn State, Paige Castellanos learned about the plight of families living in western Honduras, where many eke out a living in an economy marked by high poverty rates and subsistence agriculture.

In the world of plant-feeding insects, who shows up first to the party determines the overall success of the gathering; yet viruses can disrupt these intricate relationships, according to researchers at Penn State.

A faculty member in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is among a select group entrusted with updating a publication that is deemed the global "gold standard" of poultry nutrition information for academia, government and industry.

n addition to being nationally recognized figures in their fields, Paul Latshaw, Matthew Shaffer and Andrew McNitt have something else in common: They are all alumni of Penn State turfgrass programs. To honor their contributions to the turfgrass and sports surface industries, the Pennsylvania Turfgrass Council recently established three graduate fellowships in the College of Agricultural Sciences’ Department of Plant Science.

High bitter-taste sensitivity is associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer in older British women, according to researchers who conducted a unique study of 5,500 women whose diet, lifestyle and health has been tracked for about 20 years.

Eating white button mushrooms can create subtle shifts in the microbial community in the gut, which could improve the regulation of glucose in the liver, according to a team of researchers. They also suggest that better understanding this connection between mushrooms and gut microbes in mice could one day pave the way for new diabetes treatments and prevention strategies for people.

Social scientists rely on data to study social problems. However, data from traditional surveys can be difficult and time consuming to collect, as well as inaccurate, since not all factors can be measured well. A National Science Foundation-funded Penn State project will evaluate the accuracy of using Twitter data to represent populations across different demographic groups.

Maria Spencer has joined the Entrepreneurship & Innovation team in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences as the first John and Patty Warehime Entrepreneur in Residence.

A technology designed to improve CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in mosquitoes and other arthropods succeeds with a high degree of efficiency, while eliminating the need for difficult microinjection of genetic material, according to researchers.

Anywhere large-bodied mammalian carnivore species are present, other, smaller carnivores are less likely to occur, according to an international team of researchers that conducted the first global assessment of carnivore interactions using camera trap data. "Large carnivores are imperiled," said David Miller, associate professor of wildlife population ecology, Penn State, whose research group in the College of Agricultural Sciences led the study. "We were able to see that this finding, with large-bodied-carnivore species, held around the globe."

Growing up can be hard no matter what a family's circumstances, but it is often more so for children living in the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia, one of the poorest countries in the world, known for its dry environment, high mountains, nomadic culture and animal-husbandry heritage.

As a grape and hop integrated pest management specialist in New York state, Tim Weigle has been keenly following news about the spotted lanternfly's invasion of neighboring Pennsylvania and the considerable harm it is inflicting on agricultural crops. For that reason, he readily accepted an invitation to join a multistate, interdisciplinary task force of more than 80 university, regulatory and agricultural industry representatives assembled to fight the looming threat, led by Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

Eight graduate students in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences are among the 101 recipients of fellowships from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).

Lack of "cute factor" aside, what athletic field managers, golf course superintendents and homeowners find most repulsive about these tiny beetle larvae is their voracious appetite for grass roots, and the insidious way they go about satisfying their craving, feeding below the surface, undetected for months.

Drinking water from wells in rural north central Pennsylvania had low levels of pharmaceuticals, according to a study led by Penn State researchers. Partnering with volunteers in Penn State Extension's Pennsylvania Master Well Owner Network, researchers tested water samples from 26 households with private wells in nine counties in the basin of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. All samples were analyzed for seven over-the-counter and prescription pharmaceuticals: acetaminophen, ampicillin, caffeine, naproxen, ofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim.

Communicating the intricate structure of pollinator communities can be a difficult task, but thanks to a collaboration between the School of Visual Arts and the Center for Pollinator Research at Penn State, there is a new tool that could have success both inside and outside of the classroom.

Poor mental health ranks as one of the costliest forms of sickness for U.S. workers and may sap billions of dollars from the country's income growth, according to a team of researchers. In an analysis of economic and demographic data from 2008 to 2014, the researchers found that a single extra poor mental health day in a month was associated with a 1.84 percent drop in the per capita real income growth rate, resulting in $53 billion less total income each year, said Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural and regional economics, Penn State, and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development.

High bitter-taste sensitivity is associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer in older British women, according to researchers who conducted a unique study of 5,500 women whose diet, lifestyle and health has been tracked for about 20 years.

How forests respond to elevated nitrogen levels from atmospheric pollution is not always the same. While a forest is filtering nitrogen as expected, a higher percentage than previously seen is leaving the system again as the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, say researchers. "I think what we've described is a new example of how forests respond to high atmospheric inputs," said Jason Kaye, professor of biogeochemistry at Penn State.