Keith Taylor, professor of Asian Studies, celebrates his 50th anniversary as a U.S. Army veteran this Memorial Day, service to the country that determined his academic career.As a college graduate, after basic combat training Taylor participated in a special intelligence course at Fort Holabird in Maryland vaguely titled “Area Studies.” He and his cohort went through months of intensive training…
“Egypt’s Nile,” the final episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series’ fourth season, considers what the Nile River means to Egypt. This season the podcast asked "What Does Water Mean to Us Humans?" and showcased the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and water.
“To many Egyptians, the Nile is so intimately intertwined with…
Gretchen Ritter ’83, professor of government, has been appointed executive dean and vice provost of the Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences. The appointment, effective Aug. 1, 2019, is for a five-year term.Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences is the largest of its colleges, with 38 academic departments and schools and more than 20 centers and institutes, with more than 17,000…
Gravitational waves, first detected in 2016, offer a new window on the universe, with the potential to tell us about everything from the time following the Big Bang to more current events in galaxy centers.And while the billion-dollar Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detector watches 24/7 for gravitational waves to pass through the Earth, new research shows those waves…
Fake news is a threat to American democratic institutions, whether through online election interference or, in extreme cases, inciting violence. It also can destroy a person’s reputation and career. Social media companies are spending huge amounts of money to combat the problem but with little success.New research published April 30 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers a…
“Clean Water,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explains the impact of clean, piped-in water on women and girls in India. The podcast’s fourth season -- "What Does Water Mean to Us Humans?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and water.“Imagine how much water you use a day, and then imagine having to carry…
The College of Arts and Sciences has announced a new postdoctoral fellowship program aimed at supporting early-career scholars of outstanding talent, initiative and promise.The Klarman Fellowships, the first of their kind at the college, will create a cohort of elite postdocs who pursue leading-edge research across departments and programs, including researchers in science and math disciplines,…
A creative “arms race” has raged in recent years, transforming the traditional black pentagons and white hexagons of soccer balls with new graphics and seam patterns. On April 11, mathematical artist David Swart explored the latest soccer ball designs and spherical geometry in the 2019 Math Awareness Month lecture, sponsored by the Department of Mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences. A…
“Interstellar Water,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, examines the origin of our planet’s water. The podcast’s fourth season -- "What Does Water Mean to Us Humans?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and water.
“Carbon and water are each essential to all life on this planet. But how did carbon make…
“A Water-Filled Journey,” the new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, examines Odysseus’ complex relationship with water. The podcast’s fourth season -- "What Does Water Mean to Us Humans?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and water.“In Homer’s Odyssey, the story of the hero’s journey home, the waters of the ocean…
Chris Hoff ’02 and Sam Harnett, co-creators of the 90-second public radio show and podcast, “The World According to Sound,” will be artists in residence this fall as part of Cornell’s multidisciplinary Media Studies Initiative.In advance of their residency, Hoff and Harnett will give an audio presentation May 1 at 8 p.m. in Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium, Klarman Hall. The event is free and open to…
“Water Rights,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explores the critical question of who owns our planet’s water. The podcast’s fourth season -- "What Does Water Mean to Us Humans?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and water.“None of us can survive without water. If an individual, a corporation or a country…
Ghosts, sacrifices, visions –Seneca’s ancient tale of the aftermath of the fall of Troy, “Troades” (“The Trojan Women”), is a Roman tragedy in the grand tradition. On April 21 and 24 Cornell classics students will stage the play in the original Latin (with English supertitles), demonstrating both the power of Seneca’s language and the vigor of Cornell’s living Latin program. “Troades” is a Roman…
Excitement about exoplanets skyrocketed when rocky Earth-like planets were discovered orbiting in the habitable zone of some of our closest stars – until hopes for life were dashed by the high levels of radiation bombarding those worlds.
Proxima-b, only 4.24 light years away, receives 250 times more X-ray radiation than Earth and could experience deadly levels of ultraviolet radiation on…
What does it mean to be a “human” animal? In conversations that roam over vast realms of human thought – from Descartes to Noam Chomsky, Socrates to Steven Wise – Cornell philosopher Laurent Dubreuil and primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh explore the theoretical and practical dimensions of being human in their book, “Dialogues on the Human Ape” (2018, University of Minnesota Press).The book…
“Water Connections,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explores the critical role the oceans have played in Southeast Asia. The podcast’s fourth season -- "What Does Water Mean to Us Humans?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and water.“I would describe myself as a historian of water, and how water, open…
“The Need for Trees,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explores the critical role trees play in the earth’s water cycle. The podcast’s fourth season -- "What Does Water Mean to Us Humans?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and water.“We pass laws to protect our water sources like lakes and reservoirs, but…
The quantum laws governing atoms and other tiny objects seem to defy common sense, and information encoded in quantum systems has weird, baffling properties like “quantum entanglement.”Physicist John Preskill will explain quantum entanglement, and why it makes quantum information fundamentally different from information in the macroscopic world, in the spring Hans Bethe Lecture, April 10 at 7:30…
Daniel Gaibel, information technology manager for the Language Resource Center (LRC) for 18 years, died March 30 of metastatic melanoma. He was 45.“His love for people, cultures, technology, and music was evident in everything he did. We will miss him dearly,” said Angelika Kraemer, LRC director. She noted that according to Gaibel, "fortune favors the bold" and the glass was always full. Gaibel…
NASA’s new Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is designed to ferret out habitable exoplanets, but with hundreds of thousands of sunlike and smaller stars in its camera views, which of those stars could host planets like our own?
TESS will observe 400,000 stars across the whole sky to catch a glimpse of a planet transiting across the face of its star, one of the primary methods by…
“Waterways of Venice,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explains the influence of water on European Renaissance culture. The podcast’s fourth season -- "What Does Water Mean to Us Humans?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and water.“Venice, situated on the Adriatic Sea, [has] access to Asia as well as to…
Historian Judith Cohen, Chief Acquisitions Curator of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington DC, will visit Ithaca March 24-25. The visit is hosted by the Ithaca Descendants of Holocaust Survivors and co-sponsored by Cornell’s Jewish Studies Program in the College of Arts & Sciences. Additional sponsors include Ithaca College Jewish Studies and the Ithaca Area…
Women make up the majority of the field of science communications (in some Cornell courses in the field, up to 90 percent), but until it became a professional field practitioners were more often male. “Science communication is now lower status, lower paid and has all the ghettoizing characteristics of other gendered professions,” said Professor Bruce Lewenstein at the recent Association for the…
Stepping into the shoes of a god isn’t easy, as historian Barry Strauss makes dramatically clear in a new book that traces the biographies of 10 of the men who succeeded Julius Caesar, deified by the Roman Senate.But megalomania may have been an asset as well as the defining characteristic of Rome’s emperors. In “Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors From Augustus to Constantine,” Strauss details the…
The first international event marking the 70th anniversary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, held Feb. 25 at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy in Switzerland, featured a panel discussion with Matthew Evangelista, the President White Professor of History and Political Science in the Department of Government in the College of Arts & Sciences. The panel included prominent legal and military…
Freedom on the Move (FOTM), an online project devoted to fugitives from slavery in North America, is enlisting the help of the public to create a database for tens of thousands of advertisements placed by enslavers who wanted to recapture self-liberating Africans and African-Americans.The ads were placed in newspapers by enslavers trying to locate fugitives and by jailers wanting to return…
The second season of the Antiquitas: Leaders and Legends of the Ancient World podcast, “The Death of Caesar,” launches Feb. 11, in a new collaboration with the Cornell Broadcast Studios. The season will feature interviews with experts who will illuminate the life and death of one of history’s most famous leaders.The podcast is hosted by Barry Strauss, the Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in…
Picture yourself in a virtual reality simulator, atop the spinning Earth, the moon and all its phases just beyond, the stars surrounding you in glorious 3D. In this simulation, you have no body; there’s nothing between you and the universe but light saber-like controls shining in front of you – and a set of quiz questions.The simulation, “Learning Moon Phases in Virtual Reality,” is part of a…
The complex dynamics between rural and urban life have profound implications for America’s future, from the economy to the environment and beyond.A new Rural Humanities scholarly initiative, funded for four years by a million-dollar grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will leverage Cornell’s position in central New York to reinvigorate thinking about – and active engagement with – rural…
Scientists rely on animal models to gain insight into how humans learn language, but it turns out that one of their favorite models, the zebra finch, has been entirely misunderstood.New research reveals that these birds don’t simply learn their songs by imitating adults: They learn by watching their mothers’ reactions to their immature songs. In “Female Social Feedback Reveals Non-Imitative…
Are you a night owl? Then you likely prefer relaxing, low-intensity music. Same thing if it’s wintertime.Our music choices are influenced by time of day and season, and differ by gender, age and geography, according to a Cornell-led study offering insights into the temporal dynamics of human emotion.The study found that people of every culture listen to more relaxing music late at night and more…
Thousands of people – many of them children – are hurt or killed by land mines each year, so finding these devices before they explode is critical.There is a surprising champion of detection: the African giant pouched rat. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, the pouched rats are large – they can grow up to 3 feet long, including the tail – but are still too small to set off the land mines. They have an…
Katherine Kinzler has been appointed Dean’s Fellow for Public Engagement in the College of Arts & Sciences, a three-year term that began January 1. Kinzler is chair of the Department of Psychology; she will work closely with the college’s communications team to serve as a conduit for faculty to identify areas of opportunity to raise the college’s public profile and broaden faculty engagement…
The George Jean Nathan Award Committee has named John H. Muse of the University of Chicago and arts journalist Helen Shaw as winners of the 2017-18 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, citing “their invigorating and perceptive theatrical analyses.” The Nathan Award committee comprises the heads of the English departments of Cornell, Princeton and Yale universities and is administered…
Building at the nanoscale is not like building a house. Scientists often start with two-dimensional molecular layers and combine them to form complex three-dimensional architectures. And instead of nails and screws, these structures are joined together by the attractive van der Waals forces that exist between objects at the nanoscale.Van der Waals forces are critical in constructing materials for…
Faculty and students participating in a physics lab course redesigned through the Active Learning Initiative (ALI) lauded the experience at the December poster session displaying the students’ final projects. Professors described the students as being engaged and enthusiastic; students said they gained confidence and discovered the pleasure of experimentation.The Physics 2218 course, with three…
“Fail State,” a new documentary executive produced by Dan Rather, features government professor Suzanne Mettler. The film investigates the dark side of American higher education, chronicling the decades of policy decisions in Washington, D.C. that have given rise to a powerful for-profit college industry. Director Alexander Shebanow contacted Mettler in 2015, having read her 2014 book “Degrees of…
The study of the history of capitalism at Cornell is fueled by insightful, big-picture questions, many of which were raised during the Nov. 15 roundtable discussion, “From Slavery to Trade, From Segrenomics to the Gig Economy: Approaches to the History of Capitalism at Cornell.”“Can democracy and capitalism survive? Can the economy be based on something besides extraction, besides enslavement,…
Sabrina Karim, assistant professor of government, has been awarded a Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) grant to assess the barriers affecting women's participation in eight selected United Nations peacekeeping troop and police contributing countries. The $294,843 award will cover a post-doc position for 18 months, a research assistant, and time for Karim to conduct the study.The project…
The resonant strains of a Quranic recitation filled the Near Eastern Studies (NES) lounge as the students in the Listening to the Middle East course sat silent and intent. The live recitation was an impromptu demonstration by Shahzaib Saleem ’19, an NES student who had memorized the entire Quran starting in high school, and the curious students were teachers from local schools.The NES course, a…
“Love Bonds,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explores what influences who we find attractive. The podcast series’ third season -- "What Do We Know about Love?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and love.Love is a bond that often involves physical attraction. “How do the groups with which we’re bonded…
New research by an international team raises questions about the timing and nature of early interactions between indigenous people and Europeans in North America.The European side of first contact with indigenous people and settlement in northeast North America is well known from European sources. Until now it’s been assumed that the finds of dated European artifacts provide a timeline for the…
“Science of Love”, a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explores the biological basis of attraction. The podcast series’ third season -- "What Do We Know about Love?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and love.“Perhaps one of the greatest challenges we face is explaining why and how we interact with each other,…
Fabrication of the Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope-prime (CCAT-p), a powerful telescope capable of mapping the sky at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths, has now begun, marking a major milestone in the project.The 6-meter aperture telescope will be installed near the top of Cerro Chajnantor, a peak in Chile’s Atacama Desert. CCAT-p will provide insights into “cosmic dawn” – when the…
In an on-line poll of more than 600 philosophers, the Sage School’s Philosophical Review has been voted the best general journal of philosophy by a wide margin -- 371-165 over its nearest rival.This is not the first time the Philosophical Review has received this recognition. “Our journal has probably been the best in the U.S. in philosophy for at least 70 years, if not longer,” noted Derk…
Image: Artist's rendering of Kepler 10b. Credit: NASA/Kepler Mission/Dana Berry
NASA’s Kepler spacecraft transformed our understanding of the universe, turning science fiction fantasy into scientific reality. The mission discovered more than 2,500 planets, with another 2,000 awaiting confirmation, revealing that planets outnumber stars in the galaxy.
Natalie Batalha, astrophysicist and…
“Love and the Goddess” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explores marriage between girls and a goddess in South India. The podcast series’ third season -- "What Do We Know about Love?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and love.“Love must be given freely, we imagine. Authentic love should have ‘no strings…
To mark the 100th anniversary of some women in the United Kingdom gaining the right to vote, the National Theatre London showcased “Magda, Jo, Isabella,” a play co-written by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, associate professor of English, Aoise Stratford, visiting assistant professor of performing and media arts and Ithaca College professor Saviana Stanescu. The performance, held on Nov. 16, was part…
A new podcast, Antiquitas: Leaders and Legends of the Ancient World, combines story-telling and scholarship to bring to life the ancient world’s most engaging personalities, real and mythical. The first season, “Gods of War,” contains eight episodes chronicling war stories of ancient Greece and Rome, from Achilles and Helen to Julius Caesar.“The stories of the past open the door to the stories of…
“Courtly Love” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explains how the invention of courtly love helped prevent warfare in medieval Europe. The podcast’s third season -- "What Do We Know about Love?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and love.“One of the things that has always fascinated me is the claim I’d often…
