IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Marking the 100th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain National Park on Jan. 26, 2015, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry Virts posted this photograph, taken from the International Space Station, to Twitter. Virts wrote, “Majestic peaks and trails! Happy 100th anniversary @RockyNPS So much beauty to behold in our @NatlParkService.”
Image Credit: NASA/Terry Virts
GOOD NEWS
Sara Cavallo, along with co-authors Joann Lynch and Peter Scull (Colgate University), recently published a paper in the Journal of Urban Technology titled, “The Digital Divide in Citizen-Initiated Government Contacts: A GIS Approach.”
Clio Andris and Guido Cervone have contributed chapters 13 and 14, respectively, to the book, “Computational Approaches for Urban Environments.”
Andrew Carleton, Adrienne Tucker, and Jase Bernhardt each gave talks at the recent annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), held in Phoenix, Arizona.
NEWS
A new, environmental understanding of human development and behavior is emerging from the life sciences. Rather than treating the body as a bounded, relatively impermeable object that is largely determined by the genes, the new “epigenetic” view is that the body is unbounded and permeable. It is open to and shaped by myriad environment influences—and environment itself is considered both social and natural. Epigenetics specifically studies how environmental factors influence the expression of genes without changing the DNA sequence.
- 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.
- Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.
- The lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4:00 p.m.
- Coffee Hour To Go
- Next Week: February 13 Andrea Tapia
Reefs, research and a refinery: EMS science course takes undergrads to Curacao
Off the coast of Curacao, Penn State geosciences student Liz Andrews scuba dives 30 feet underwater, pulls out a tape measure and counts fish and algae along the coral reef. By comparing with past counts from the same spot, she can determine if the health of the reef is declining.
Women still a minority in film industry
Female students who want to make their mark in the film industry still face an uphill battle. So says a new study from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, which looked at the top 250 domestic grossing movies of 2014 and found that women occupied only 17% of leadership roles in the industry — the same percentage as they did in 1998. … Megan Ruffe (B.A. ’13), a 2013 Penn State alumnus who double majored in film production and geography, noticed during her cinematography and editing classes in college that there were few women in these particular areas. Instead, she said, the women often congregated in the production classes.
DOG OF THE WEEK
Who is this dog? Who is his human?
Send your answer and/or a photo of your dog to geography@psu.edu for our mystery dog of the week!