Explorations
Recent reports on research as it happens.
A Martian landscape on Earth (April 2007)
Join Irene Schneider for photos and narration from a two-week expedition to a Martian landscape on Earth.
What lies beneath (March 2007)
Join Sridhar Anandakrishnan for a narration of his seismic experiment in Antarctica.
South Pole Diary (December 2005)
Physicist Doug Cowen discusses construction of the South Pole's "Ice Cube" Telescope in this audio diary.
Secrets of ancient Iceland (July 2005)
Writer Nancy Marie Brown joins anthropologist Paul Durrenberger in the field as he digs into the Viking Age.
Provides a ground-level (and underground) view of archaeologists at work and the thousand-year-old secrets
they are laboring to reveal.
Swift in Space (November 2004 - January 2005)
Every day, deep in space, a black hole is born. And now a new space observatory called Swift
will help researchers track these phenomena. Join science writer Barbara Kennedy and Penn State
scientists at Kennedy Space Center, while Dana Bauer reports from Mission Control in State College.
Dispatches from Turkey: Digging for Energy in Distant Lands (October 2004)
A graduate student explores new ways to fuel the demands of her rapidly modernizing country. Suzan Erem reports from Turkey.
Penn State Road Rules: Industrial Revolution and Beyond (June 2003)
Follow what happens when sixteen students and three faculty members abandon the formality of the classroom for a chance to live and learn together in the real world. Their mission: to chart the significant role that energy resources have played in the transformation from the West's 18th-century rural economy to the post-industrial economy of the 21st century.
A Storm is Born (June 2002)
Where does a storm come from? What brings it on? Last month in Oklahoma — where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain — reporter Dana Bauer and a team of Penn State meteorologists worked as part of the 2002 International H2O Project. The mission: to understand the when, where, and how of a storm's formation.
Discovering Students (April 2002)
What did you learn lately? Writing students teamed up with photography students to produce this report from the Undergraduate Research Fair.
Notes from the Deep (December 2001 - January 2002)
A mile and a half below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, hydrothermal vents — underwater hot springs — are home to some of the world's most exotic creatures. In December 2001, writer Joanna Lott joined Penn State biologist Charles Fisher and his students on a 23-day research cruise to explore hydrothermal vent sites and the communities that survive there.
A Season in Antarctica (November 2001)
What are the forces that formed Antarctica? In November of 2001, freelance-writer John Pollack joined a team of Penn State geoscientists on a project to better understand the crust and mantle beneath the Transantarctic mountains, the range that splits the continent into east and west.
A Taste of Italy (July 2001)
What better place than Italy to study the science of food? In July 2001, our roving associate editor, David Pacchioli, joined Penn State nutrition professor, Claudia Probart, as she led a team of students through the markets, gardens, and restaurants of Rome. The object: To better grasp both the science of food and food's many-layered role in society and culture.
Catching the Melting Bug (February 2001)
Amy Barnes, an NSF fellow at Penn State, gives writer Dana Bauer a crash course in the science of glass making.
All for a Good CAUSE (February 2001)
In an effort to find "technological solutions" to global warming, students in the CAUSE (Center for Advanced Undergraduate Study and Experience) 2000 seminar traveled from Colorado to California to examine our energy choices for the new millennium. By Gina Cancelliere.
Plants Without Borders (June 2000)
In June 2000, intrepid reporter David Pacchioli traveled to Trinidad to join Penn State associate professor of plant molecular biology, Mark Guiltinan, and his team of researchers as they kicked off "Plants Without Borders," a project aimed at sharing some of the latest technology for growing one of the world's favorite crops — cocoa.
