Penn Arts & Sciences in the News

“This is the magical thing: It spreads like face cream and grips like sandpaper,” says Douglas Jerolmack, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Endowed Term Professor of Earth and Environmental Science, about mud that has coated all the balls used in Major League Baseball for decades. In a new study, Jerolmack and colleagues found what they consider to be remarkable mechanical properties of this mud.

Simon Martin, an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and a curator at the Penn Museum, comments on the discovery of a previously unknown Maya complex in Mexico. “It is fascinating,” he says. “This demonstrates, to a high degree of confidence, that the landscape was heavily populated everywhere.”
 

In a piece Sarah Bush, Associate Professor of Political Science, wrote with colleague Lauren Prather of the University of California, San Diego, the pair argue that giving greater access and paying more attention to credible, nonpartisan election monitors in the U.S. could increase public confidence in elections.

Jeffrey Kallberg, Deputy Dean and William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music, helped verify the authenticity of a recently discovered unknown work by the famous composer. “The way that Chopin writes clefs, the way that he writes noteheads and stems, the way that he writes dynamics, the color of the ink—all of those immediately said Chopin,” Kallberg says. 
 

Professor of Anthropology Richard Leventhal and Adjunct Assistant Professor Brian I. Daniels are co-leading a new study of museum collections to identify current standards and establish a framework for institutions to model their future practices. “Recent seizures of looted property and calls to decolonise collections force us to reconsider whether acquisitions best serve the missions of museums and the interests of their communities,” Leventhal says. 

“My jaw dropped,” says Jeffrey Kallberg, Deputy Dean and William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music. “I knew I had never seen this before.” Kallberg, a leading Chopin expert, helped authenticate a score that turned out to be an unknown waltz from the late composer. Click through to listen to the piece.

“There’s really been a much greater and much more visible investment in registering new voters and doing get-out-the-vote efforts in Philadelphia this year,” says Professor of Political Science Matthew Levendusky. It could matter, he adds, given the “battle of inches” between the two presidential candidates. 

Daniel Hopkins, Julie and Martin Franklin Presidential Professor of Political Science, discusses the politically strategic reason for bombarding state residents with TV ads. “Candidates are better off when they can persuade voters, because if they persuade a voter, they not only add one to their tally, but they take one out of their opponents tally.”

In an op-ed for The New York Times, Marcia Chatelain, Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies and author of Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, argues that the “McDonaldization” of U.S. politics has a long history—and continues today, as both candidates play up the economic mobility “role” of the fast food chain.

Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science, comments on a new study he was not involved with, saying there’s a weight of evidence that Arctic warming may be impacting the behavior of the jet stream and leading to more extreme weather.

Anthea Butler, Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought, says that faith leaders who are tying Kamala Harris to Jezebel are falsely suggesting that she’s non-Christian, using coded language to communicate she is not an acceptable candidate.

According to Daniel Hopkins, Julie and Martin Franklin Presidential Professor of Political Science, candidates in Senate races no longer solely emphasize their local roots, instead often focusing nationally. “If one candidate benefits from nationalizing, the other candidate usually does not,” Hopkins says.