University Of Pennsylvania Faculty

"The Corn Belt is a gift of the gods—the rain god, the sun god, the ice god and the gods of geology. In the middle of the North American continent the gods of geology made a wide expanse of land where the rock layers are nearly horizontal. The ice gods leveled the surface with their glaciers, making it ready for the plow, and also making it rich. The rain god gives summer showers. The sun god gives summer heat. All this is nature's conspiracy to make man grow corn. Having corn, man feeds it to cattle and hogs, and thereby becomes a producer of meat."

"Is it that we think the brain too small a place to hold more than one language at a time? That room for Spanish or Navajo will leave too little room for English? Is it that we fear that other ways of speaking will lead to an understanding of other ways of life, and so weaken commitment to our own? Is it perhaps that command of languages is assigned to a sphere of culture reserved for girls and women, something not suitable for boys and men?Whatever the reasons, the United States is a country rich in many things, but poor in knowledge of itself with regard to language."

"Each person acts on the assumption that more money will bring more happiness; and, indeed, if he does get more money, and others do not (or get less), his happiness increases. But when everyone acts on this assumption and incomes generally increase, no one, on the average, feels better off. Yet each person goes on, generation after generation, unaware of the self-defeating process in which he is caught up."

"In the seventh century the Arabs created a new world into which other peoples were drawn. In the nineteenth and twentieth, they were themselves drawn into a new world created in western Europe. This of course is too simple a way of describing a very complicated process, and the explanations of it can be too simple too."

"Defeat goes deeper into the human soul than victory. To be in someone else’s power is a conscious experience which induces doubts about the ordering of the universe, while those who have power can forget it, or can assume that it is part of the natural order of things and invent or adopt ideas which justify their possession of it."

"When trees build wood, is incorporated. It takes a long time to decompose ... It’s a smaller scale in . Some of the material they make can be almost woody. The is tough to decompose. The cell walls stay in the soil, microscopically. ... It adds up to a lot ... twice as much carbon in the soil as in the , and much of that is in [fungi]."

"Nitrogen (N) enrichment is an element of that could influence the growth and abundance of many s. In this , I synthesized responses of microbial to N additions in 82 published field studies. I hypothesized that the biomass of , bacteria or the microbial community as a whole would be altered under N additions. I also predicted that changes in biomass would parallel changes in soil CO2 emissions. Microbial biomass declined 15% on average under , but fungi and bacteria were not significantly altered in studies that examined each group separately. Moreover, declines in abundance of microbes and fungi were more evident in studies of longer durations and with higher total amounts of N added. In addition, responses of microbial biomass to N fertilization were significantly correlated with responses of soil CO2 emissions. There were no significant effects of biomes, fertilizer types, ambient N deposition rates or methods of measuring biomass. Altogether, these results suggest that N enrichment could reduce microbial biomass in many ecosystems, with corresponding declines in soil CO2 emissions."

"In this commentary, I advocate for more detailed incorporation of in , to improve our projections of . Current Earth system models display relatively low predictability of stocks, which limit our ability to estimate future climate conditions. A more explicit incorporation of microbial mechanisms can increase the accuracy of ecosystem-scale models that inform the larger-scale Earth system models. Of the numerous microbial groups that can influence soil C dynamics, AM fungi are particularly tractable for integration in models. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are globally abundant and perform critical roles in , such as augmentation of net and soil C storage. Moreover, AM communities exhibit relatively low diversity within ecosystems, compared to other microbial groups. In addition, global datasets of AM ecology are available for use in model development. Thus, AM communities can be readily simulated in next-generation trait-based models that link microbial diversity to ecosystem function. Altogether, we are well-poised to incorporate the dynamics of individual AM taxa in ecosystem models, which can then be coupled to Earth system models. Hopefully, these efforts would advance our ability to predict and plan for future climate change."

"I asked whether —applies to microbes. I conducted a synthesis of empirical studies that tested relationships among microbial traits presumed to define the competitive, stress tolerance and ruderal, and other ecological strategies. There was broad support for Grime's triangle. However, the ecological strategies were inconsistently linked to shifts in under environmental changes like nitrogen and phosphorus addition, warming, , etc. We may be missing important ecological strategies that more closely influence microbial community composition under shifting environmental conditions. We may need to start by documenting changes in microbial communities in response to environmental conditions at fine spatiotemporal scales relevant for microbes. We can then develop empirically based ecological strategies, rather than modifying those based on . Synthesis. Microbes appear to sort into similar ecological strategies as plants. However, these microbial ecological strategies do not consistently predict how community composition will shift under environmental change. By starting ‘from the ground up’, we may be able to delineate ecological strategies more relevant for microbes."

"Psychological science has a great deal to contribute to social welfare in all societies, because the world's most pressing social problems are behavioral in nature—, hunger, , , low worker productivity, poor educational outcomes, and so forth. Thus, psychological research can inform to improve approaches to these important s. The relationship of psychological science to public policy is often troubled, however, by misunderstandings about the role of science in the policy making process. Many scientists fear that their research results will be “misused” by others whose values differ from those of scientists. Thus, psychologists are reluctant to publish research results that can be used to support policies contrary to their own values and hesitate to ask research questions that can generate politically incorrect results. In this article, I argue that psychological science has a primary responsibility to ask dangerous questions and to report results honestly, without fear of their use; that research is not translated directly into public policies; and that psychological science should not be perverted either by fear of political consequences or by compromising truth in a quest for power. Three research examples are given to illustrate the different faces of temptation to pervert psychological science in a misguided hope that scientists' own values will be reflected in public policies."

"This study examines the responses of mothers of girls about similarities and differences of their and . After these measures had been completed and scored, the investigator obtained zygosity diagnoses of the twins made by extensive blood‐group analyses. Of the 61 pairs of twins, 11 were misclassified by their mothers. Despite these mothers’ erroneous beliefs about the zygosity of their twins, they described the twins as having similarities and differences appropriate to their true degree of genetic relatedness."

"Sensory data are filtered through the knowing apparatus of the human senses and made into perceptions and s. The human mind is also constructed in a , and its knowledge is in part created by the social and cultural context in which it comes to know the world. Knowledge of the world is therefore always constructed by the human mind in the working models of reality in the sciences. Fleeting impressions of criminal behavior are elaborated by individuals into complete accounts that they believe to be "true." The wrong people are identified as the criminals, and events are construed in ways that are consistent with the observer's emotions and prejudices. Scientific theories are judged by their persuasive power in the community of scientists. They advance and decline through discussions among scientists. In social and developmental psychology, most of the models specify about human interactions have variables with neither temporal nor directional priorities that can escape challenge."

"Gothic art affords the greatest number and the best representations of animal forms. The great cathedrals, especially those of the Isle of France, where sculpture reached its highest point of excellence, are a sort of encyclopedia of the knowledge of the time."

"The research shows that juniors don’t know anything special about AI: they use it first, but they don’t learn specialized knowledge from using it."

"Seniors are actually the best able to use AI because they have the expertise, and they can get a sense very clearly of when the AI knows something or if it’s making it up."

"Nobody knows. We don't know what o1's good or bad at yet, no one knows anything about models on release. The question I always ask is: “How is your business figuring out what o1’s useful for?”"

"You have to incentivize it. If employees are worried colleagues will lose respect for them for using AI, or the bank won’t reward them for using AI, or they will get let go because they’ve got AI to do 90% of their tasks, then they’ll never show you how they use it. AI access helps, sharing helps, some education/training helps, as well as showing support at the highest levels of the organization."

"Actual end user adoption has been insanely high, certain surveys that show 65% of marketers, 60% of coders are using Gen AI. But businesses don’t necessarily capture all of that value – that requires rethinking processes and approaches. If I increase everyone’s productivity by 20%... that’s awesome, but how do I as a firm actually collect on that? One way is to fire people, but if you fire people they won’t show you how they’re using AI."

"I was a graduate student teaching and research assistant, in my opinion the best position for a graduate student because it provides the most intensive and closest exposure to the discipline which a student is pursuing."

"My academic study was in experimental, sensory psychology and my professional career was in vision research, both as a researcher and a laboratory manager."

"When I consider the faculty, students, staff, the alumni and the community engagement I see so many ways in which the University is a model for higher education nationwide, and possibly internationally. I find that exciting, and feel that efforts along those lines will continue because of the good results to date."

"I would like to see all alumni of the University consider how they can continue the enrichment of the University for the future benefit of humanity. There are a number of mechanisms in place now to encourage continued engagement, but some which reach out to very new alumni, even before they are in a position to make significant financial commitments, would be effective in promoting continued involvement."

"Contact tracing is an activity that is commonly done to interrupt transmission of communicable diseases, or diseases that are passed from one person to another. It is critically important in interrupting transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19."

"Alternatively, exposure notification is usually conducted completely digitally on an opt-in basis. This process involves the use of smartphones to create a log of potential close contacts."

"These two terms are commonly confused. Contact tracing is a very specific method for public health intervention that requires in-depth investigation of potential exposure, risk for severe disease, and risk for transmission of the virus to others."

"Burrow (1972) notes the existence of a word for the horse which is found only in Tamil and Brahui (DED 500: Tamil ivuli, Brahui (h)ullī, and which therefore must have existed in the earliest Dravidian [...] McAlpin suggests that this early Dravidian word probably referred to the Asian wild ass, Equus Hemionus, which is native to South Asia, rather than to the domesticated horse, Equus Caballus."

"The research and development of new vaccines is an expensive and risky process. They require heavy investment of time and resources, with no guarantee of success."

"we work to strengthen vaccine capacities, by developing new formulations and optimizing production methods to make vaccines more accessible and affordable."

"The private sector may also be reluctant to invest in research into diseases that mainly affect poor countries, as the return on investment is perceived as low due to these countries’ low purchasing power. In addition, the financial risks are high."

"it is important to understand the many obstacles that research institutes face in financing their vaccine research, particularly in developing countries."

"Crypto proponents complain about 'regulation by enforcement,' but enforcement is necessary when many in the industry will use any colorable claim to avoid or delay compliance."

"The debate about the long-term value and utility of crypto will continue. Better regulation shouldn't turn on that debate, nor on partisan lines."

"... there's an argument that the Standard Model plus gravity is all there is, and the has nothing to do with nature. And that argument is that the properties of the world, the properties of particle physics in particular, are determined partly ... largely? ... by a ."

"... a very special type of falsehood common in explanations of physics for nonexperts ... a physics fib or, more simply, a phib. Phibs are often found in articles and books about the universe. They arise when well-intentioned physicists, faced with a nonexpert's question, are trying to concoct a short, memorable tale to serve as a compromise between giving no answer at all and giving a correct but incomprehensible one."

"... Are we thinking about the wrong? Are we thinking about quantum field theory wrong? Are there particles at the Large Hadron Collider that are hiding from us? ... It's true that the Large Hadron Collider has vast data sets. And when you have a gigantic amount of data, if you don't ask exactly the right question, you might not see what's actually in there. So, we have to be very thoughtful about all the different questions that we should ask of this data."

"What physics explains the enormous disparity between the gravitational scale and the typical mass scale of the elementary particles?"

"We have defined colonialism as the forcible takeover of land and economy, and, in the case of European colonialism, a restructuring of non-capitalist economies in order to fuel European capitalism. This allows us to understand modern European colonialism not as some trans-historical impulse to conquer but as an integral part of capitalist development."

"Only inspired insight guided by faith in the simplicity of nature somehow revealed the interplay of the concepts of energy and entropy."

"At the end of the third millennium the strong flow from the Sarasvatī dried up... This [the drying up of the Sarasvatī towards the end of the third millennium] carries with it an interesting chronological implication: the composers of the Rgveda were in the Sarasvatī region prior to the drying up of the river and this would be closer to 2000 BC than it is to 1000 BC, somewhat earlier than most of the conventional chronologies for the presence of the Vedic Aryans in the Punjab."

"Over the course of the third and second millennia, the Sarasvati dried up."

"It seems that during the Indus Age the Sarasvati was a large river and that water that now flows in the Yamuna and/or Sutlej Rivers made it so. Over time these waters were withdrawn and the Sarasvati became smaller, eventually dry. The agency for these changes was the tectonic reshaping of the doab [interfluve] separating the Yamuna from the rivers of the Punjab."

"The term 'Early Harappan' as opposed to 'Pre-Harappan' has gained acceptance for a number of reasons. The principal reason is the evidence for cultural and historical continuity between the Early and Mature Harappan as well as the premise that the process of change was primarily autochthonous. It involved the peoples of the Greater Indus Valley itself, without significant or out-of-the-ordinary, external influence . . ."

"Of relevance here is Possehl's observation (1977) of the "extraordinary 'empty spaces' between the Harappan settlement clusters," as well as "the isolated context for a number of individual sites" (546). He proposes that "pastoral nomads, or other highly mobile (itinerant) occupational specialists filled in the interstices," since such spaces are un- likely to have been unoccupied. He goes so far as to suggest that "pastoralists formed the bulk of the population during Harappan times since there do not seem to be any settled village farming communities there" (547). Pastoralists and farmers coexisted "not . . . as isolated from one another, but as complementary subsystems: two aspects of an integrated whole. One relied on the intensive exploitation of plants and arable land, the other on the extensive exploitation of animals and pastures" (547). Moreover, "the presence of pastoralists makes very good sense if we see them as the mobile population which bridged the gap between settlements as the carriers of information, as the transporters of goods, as the population through which the Harappan Civilization achieved its remark- able degree of integration" (548)."

"Race as it was used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been totally discredited os a useful concept in human biology…. There is no reason to believe today that there ever was an Aryan race that spoke Indo-European languages and was possessed with a coherent and well-defined set of Aryan or Indo-European cultural features."

"Where are the burned fortresses, the arrow heads, weapons, pieces of armor, the smashed chariots, and bodies of the invaders and defenders."

"But it was shabby archaeology: U.S. archaeologist George P. Dales proved in 1964 that the owners of The said skeletons had lived in different periods; moreover, neither weapons nor any signs of war were found at the supposed sites of the “mythical massacre,” as he called it: “Despite the extensive excavations at the largest Harappan sites, there is not a single bit of evidence that can be brought forth as unconditional proof of an armed conquest and the destruction on the supposed scale of the Aryan invasion.”"

"There is no destruction level covering the latest period of the city, no sign of extensive burning, no bodies of warriors clad in armor and surrounded by the weapons of war … Despite the extensive excavations at the largest Harappan sites, there is not a single bit of evidence that can be brought forth as unconditional proof of an armed conquest and the destruction on the supposed scale of the Aryan invasion. (Dales, 1964: 43, 38)"

"…we cannot even establish a definite correlation between the end of the Indus civilization and the Aryan invasion. But even if we could, what is the material evidence to substantiate the supposed invasion and massacre? Where are the burned fortresses, the arrowheads, weapons, pieces of armor, the smashed chariots and bodies of the invaders and defenders? Despite extensive excavations at the largest Harappan sites, there is not a single bit of evidence that can be brought forth as unconditional proof of an armed conquest and the destruction on the supposed scale of Aryan invasion. It is interesting that Sir John Marshall himself, the Director of the Mohenjo-daro excavations that first revealed the "massacre" remains separated the end of the Indus civilization from the time of the Aryan invasion by two centuries. He attributed the slayings to bandits from the hills of west of the Indus, who carried out sporadic raids on an already tired, decaying, and defenseless civilization. The contemporaneity of the skeletal remains is anything but certain. Whereas a couple of them definitely seem to represent a slaughter, in situ, the bulk of the bones were found in contexts suggesting burials of sloppiest and most irreverent nature. There is no destruction level covering the latest period of the city, no sign of extensive burning, no bodies of warriors clad in armor and surrounded by weapons of war. The citadel, the only fortified part of the city, yielded no evidence of a final defence. …..Indra and the barbarian hordes are exonerated."

"“Indra and the barbarian hordes are exonerated” (Dales 1964: 43)"

"Where are the burned fortresses, the arrow heads, weapons, pieces of armour, the smashed chariots and bodies of the invaders and defenders?... Despite the extensive excavations at the largest Harappan sites, there is not a single bit of evidence that can be brought forth as unconditional proof of an armed conquest and the destruction on the supposed scale of the Aryan invasion."