The world was mesmerized by Colossal Biosciences’ recent announcement that they had cloned dire wolf pups, a species of canine that’s been extinct for more than 10,000 years. While experts have debated the “de-extinction” of these wolves, which are far more genetically similar to living grey wolf than to the original dire wolf, one thing is certainly true: An undergraduate student at Penn State recently catalogued a jawbone from one of Pennsylvania’s few dire wolf fossils. 

Seeing the “huge juxtaposition” between streams flowing near her childhood home in Lancaster County impaired by pollution from intensive agriculture and the seemingly pristine creeks tumbling down the forested mountains around her family’s cabin in Mifflin County led Bridget Reheard to study how contaminants in waters affect aquatic organisms and aspirations for a career working to protect natural resources.

For the second year in a row, fourth graders in the State College Area School District have been learning about the earth sciences with the help of geosciences experts in the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS).

Three Penn State undergraduate students who participate in the University’s Sustainable Labs Program were invited to Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Janelia Research Campus in April to help make the facility’s research labs more sustainable.