Tag: Penn Today

Behavior Change for Good unveils effective strategies to boost vaccination rates | Penn Today

The Behavior Change for Good Initiative (BCFG) at the Wharton School and the School of Arts & Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit, today released findings from two of the largest-ever research studies aimed at increasing vaccine adoption. Conducted with Walmart and two regional health systems—Penn Medicine and Geisinger—these studies reveal that simple communications that reminded individuals...

Out with the dust, in with the new | Penn Today

Oosouji, the traditional New Year's cleaning, begins in mid-December in Japan. (Image: jet dela cruz on Unsplash)
Oosouji, the traditional New Year’s cleaning, begins in mid-December in Japan. (Image: jet dela cruz on Unsplash)

“The idea, very generally, is that daily life pollutes the environment and pollutes you—not just physically, but also metaphysically and spiritually,” says Penn’s Ayako Kano, professor of Japanese studies. “Every once in a while, you need to clean it out and purify in order to welcome the deities of the new year.”

Cave discovery holds clues to earliest Homo sapiens in Europe | Penn Today

Excavations in Initial Upper Paleolithic Layer I at Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria. Four Homo sapiens bones were recovered from this layer, along with a rich stone tool assemblage, animal bones, bone tools, and pendants. (Pre-pandemic image: Tsenka Tsanova, MPI EVA Leipzig, License: CC-BY-SA 2.0)
Excavations in Initial Upper Paleolithic Layer I at Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria. Four
Homo sapiens
bones were recovered from this layer, along with a rich stone tool assemblage, animal bones, bone tools, and pendants. (Pre-pandemic image: Tsenka Tsanova, MPI EVA Leipzig, License: CC-BY-SA 2.0)

Ancient DNA from 46,000-year-old bone fragments and a tooth reveals this group likely overlapped with Neanderthals f