Electron microscopy has allowed scientists to see individual atoms, but even at that resolution not everything is clear.The lenses of electron microscopes have intrinsic imperfections known as aberrations, and special aberration correctors – “like eye glasses for your microscope,” said David Muller, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering in the Department of Applied and Engineering Physics…
Fuel cells could someday power numerous devices – automobiles and mass transit systems, buildings, and virtually any type of portable electronic device.
Unlike batteries, which eventually run out of power (and thus need to be recharged), a fuel cell will continue to generate electrical energy as long as it has a fuel – usually hydrogen – and oxygen or some other oxidant necessary for the…
Assistant professors Ilana Brito, Michael Niemack and Marcos Simoes-Costa are among 50 scientists under the age of 40 named Young Scientists 2018 by the World Economic Forum.These scientists, according to the WEF, are honored for their contributions to advancing the frontiers of science, engineering and technology. They are selected from all regions of the world and from a wide range of…
Héctor Abruña, the Emile M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Susan McCouch, Barbara McClintock Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics, School of Integrative Plant Science, are among 84 new members elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the academy announced May 1.The elections of Abruña and McCouch bring to 62 the number of Cornell…
Jerrold Meinwald, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Chemistry Emeritus and a 2014 winner of the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for achievement in science and engineering, died April 23 in Ithaca. He was 91.Born in 1927 in New York City, Meinwald attended Brooklyn College and Queens College, then served in the U.S. Navy as an electronics technician (1945-46). He received his Ph…
Twelve assistant professors from Cornell’s Ithaca and New York City campuses have been recognized with National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program awards, given annually to support junior faculty members’ research projects and outreach efforts.
All awards are for five years and approximately $500,000 (minimum), and all projects have an outreach component,…
In the three-dimensional world, all fundamental particles must fall into one of two categories – those that behave like the photons that make up light, and those that behave like the electrons and protons that make up matter.In a hypothetical two-dimensional world, however, there would be an infinite number of additional options, referred to as anyons. These theorized particles are characterized…
Enzymes are nature’s best nanoscale catalysts, and often show what’s known as catalytic allostery – that is, reactions at one site affecting reactions at another site, typically a few nanometers away, without direct interaction between the reactants.
Nanoparticles of various materials, such as metal, can also act as catalysts for chemical transformations on their own surfaces, and their…
Approximately 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, but only 2.5 percent of that is fresh water, and less than half of that is easily accessible. Efficient desalination, therefore, is crucial for sustaining life now and in years to come.But a challenge in developing bioinspired synthetic purification systems lies in deciphering the complexity of natural systems like aquaporins …
On Sept. 5, 2017, President Donald Trump said his administration would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, enacted by executive action in 2012 by his predecessor, Barack Obama.Attorney General Jeff Sessions also announced a six-month winding-down period for DACA. That period concluded March 5, and legislative inaction combined with multiple court orders have rendered…
A tree will drop hundreds of seedlings over the course of its lifetime, but only a small fraction will ever get to grow into the forest canopy like their progenitor. And studies have shown that dominant female birds can produce up to 95 percent of the offspring within a group.Why are those things true? Can one seedling, or one female bird, be so superior to the rest that it will inevitably become…
Assistant professors Brett Fors, Karthik Sridharan and Jin Suntivich have been named recipients of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellowships. These awards support early-career faculty members’ original research and broad-based education related to science, technology and economic performance.Fors teaches in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology; Sridharan is in the Department of Computer…
Say you’re the coach of a basketball team that’s trailing by two points in the dying seconds of a game. Your team has the ball and you call a timeout to set up a play.Or imagine your football team has just scored a touchdown with three seconds to play to pull to within one point. Instead of immediately sending out the placekicker for the point-after, you call your final timeout to discuss your…
The oncogene RAS is the most frequently mutated gene of its type in human cancer. Active mutants are found in 60 to 90 percent of cases of pancreatic cancer, and a significant portion of colorectal and lung cancers.Among all RAS-driven cancers, the most frequently mutated gene is KRAS. Two variants of this gene – K-Ras4A and K-Ras4B – also have important signaling functions and can promote cancer…
In 2016, Yimon Aye, Howard Milstein Faculty Fellow and assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, introduced the world to “T-REX” – a chemical method for targeting and modulating single proteins to analyze and screen for specific oxidation-reduction (redox) events, which are vital to many basic functions of life.But while T-REX has unlocked previously inaccessible…
An electricity-conducting, environment-sensing, shape-changing machine the size of a human cell? Is that even possible?Cornell physicists Paul McEuen and Itai Cohen not only say yes, but they’ve actually built the “muscle” for one.With postdoctoral researcher Marc Miskinat the helm, the team has made a robot exoskeleton that can rapidly change its shape upon sensing chemical or thermal changes in…
An unfortunate church dinner more than 100 years ago did more than just spread typhoid fever to scores of Californians. It led theorists on a quest to understand why many diseases – including typhoid, measles, polio, malaria, even cancer – take so much longer to develop in some affected people than in others.It’s been known for more than 60 years that the incubation periods of numerous diseases…
Fundamental processes that occur along strands of DNA, including RNA transcription and DNA replication, commonly encounter obstacles – or “roadblocks” – that can impede progress and ultimately result in mutations and/or DNA damage.The bacterial protein Mfd (mutation frequency decline) is best known for its ability to free a stalled RNA polymerase (RNAP) in transcription-coupled repair. And there…
The Keck Foundation announced in early July that it had awarded $1 million to a Cornell cross-campus collaboration of professors in engineering and physics aimed at turning theory into reality – namely, creating a specific topological superconducting material that could help pave the way to quantum computing.The idea that sparked the group’s winning proposal came out of the group led by Eun-Ah…
Imagine walking through the Northwest wilderness, camera phone at the ready, hoping to catch at least a faint glimpse of Bigfoot, and instead returning home with an Ansel Adams-quality picture of the mythical beast as he lumbers past you.That’s kind of what a team led by physics professor Paul McEuen has done in research into the optical properties of single-atom-thick layers of graphene…
Hailing the retention and creation of 250 jobs as one of its most important benefits, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul formally announced Nov. 15 that the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), a National Science Foundation-supported facility, is the recipient of a $15 million grant from the New York State Upstate Revitalization Initiative.The funding announcement was held before a gathering of…
How does the Japanese tree frog figure into the latest work of noted mathematician Steven Strogatz? As it turns out, quite prominently.“We had read about these funny frogs that hop around and croak,” said Strogatz, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics. “They form patterns in space and time. Usually it’s about reproduction. And based on how the other guy or guys are croaking,…
Until last week, if students in Itai Cohen’s research group wanted to perform advanced measurements on a fluid – such as applying both rotation and sinusoidal oscillations to gauge whether the flow disruption was hydrodynamically or contact-mediated – they’d have to drive 330 miles east.Now, thanks to a loan from instrument manufacturer Anton Paar, Cornell has a state-of-the-art rheometer that…
Radiation therapy has been proven effective for the treatment of cancer, but its side effects can be severe depending on the patient and the location of the tumor.Targeted alpha therapy (TAT), introduced within the last 15 years, involves injecting alpha-emitting radionuclides into the body. These metal ions are attached to tumor-seeking molecules by a process known as chelation. The molecules…
The concept of “valence” – the ability of a particular atom to combine with other atoms by exchanging electrons – is one of the cornerstones of modern chemistry and solid-state physics.Valence controls crucial properties of molecules and materials, including their bonding, crystal structure, and electronic and magnetic properties.Four decades ago, a class of materials called “mixed valence”…
Just as two heads are better than one when trying to solve a problem, two metals are better than one when trying to catalyze a chemical reaction.
Compared with their monometallic counterparts, bimetallic nanoparticles often show enhanced catalytic activity at the interface of the two component metals. These nanoparticles are important in heterogeneous catalysis, such as when a mix of precious…
“Think differently” – it’s been a central theme at Cornell for more than 150 years and a driving force behind numerous educational initiatives including the new Cornell Tech campus, which opened this fall on Roosevelt Island in the heart of New York City.While Cornell Tech is separated from Cornell’s Ithaca home by four hours and more than 200 miles, an increasingly digital world is bringing the…
Conventional wisdom has said that when molecules known as monomers band together to create a polymer chain, that creation takes place steadily as the chain forms, like spaghetti out of a pasta maker. But a Cornell research collaboration shows that’s just not the case.In what one reviewer called a landmark study, a group led by Peng Chen, the Peter J.W. Debye Professor of Chemistry and Chemical…
A cellular biology “mystery” is closer to being solved, thanks to sleuthing in the lab of Jeremy Baskin, assistant professor and Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology.Last year, Baskin and doctoral student Timothy Bumpus reported on a new method for imaging the…
Cephalopods – marine invertebrates such as the octopus, squid and cuttlefish – are unique for a number of reasons, not least of which is their ability to quickly change their color and shape.A group led by Rob Shepherd, assistant professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is using the cephalopod as inspiration for a method to morph flat surfaces into three-dimensional…
The Cornell Center for Materials Research – which through research and education is enhancing national capabilities in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and materials research at all levels – has been has been granted $23.2 million for the next six years from the National Science Foundation.The funding represents a 26 percent increase over the center’s 2011 award. The CCMR is one of…
One of the goals of personalized medicine is to be able to determine which treatment would work best by sequencing a patient’s genome. New research from the lab of Yimon Aye, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology, could help make that approach a reality.Using her group’s novel chemical procedure dubbed “T-REX,” along with a patent-pending targeting molecule also developed in her…
The devil on your right shoulder is telling you, “Go ahead, grab that candy bar! You know you want it!”Meanwhile, the angel on your left is gently saying, “The apple is a much healthier option, isn’t it?”There you stand, conflicted. People make these types of choices every day, but what exactly is the process by which an individual reaches his or her decision?Melissa J. Ferguson, professor and…
Solitary waves – known as solitons – appear in many forms. Perhaps the most recognizable is the tsunami, which forms following a disruption on the ocean floor and can travel, unabated, at high speeds for hundreds of miles.By definition, a soliton retains its shape while propagating at a constant velocity. But what happens when two, or more, solitons interact? The general consensus from past…
Assistant professors Jeremy Baskin, from the College of Arts and Sciences, and Pamela Chang, from the College of Veterinary Medicine, are among eight assistant professors across the nation to be named a Beckman Young Investigator, a prize is given to promising young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the chemical and life sciences.The main purpose of the award, given…
Clifford J. Earle, professor emeritus of mathematics, whose nearly 40-year tenure at Cornell included three years as chair of the math department, died June 12 at Hospicare in Ithaca. He was 81.Born Nov. 3, 1935, in Racine, Wisconsin, Earle earned his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College in 1957, and his master’s (1958) and doctorate (1962) from Harvard University.Earle joined the Cornell…
Mathematicians often struggle with the idea of communication – to the rest of the world, and even with each other – but a recently secured grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will help math “evangelist” Steven Strogatz and his colleagues tackle that problem.The NSF this spring awarded Cornell a five-year, $2.5 million grant under its Research Training Group (RTG) program, which…
Next-generation solar cells made from organic compounds hold great promise in meeting future energy needs, but researchers are still striving to gain a deep understanding of the materials involved – including the efficiency with which they convert light into mobile charge, known as photocapacitance.A Cornell research group led by John Marohn, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical…
Water is the Earth’s most abundant natural resource, but it’s also something of a mystery due to its unique solvation characteristics – that is, how things dissolve in it.“It’s uniquely adapted to biology, and vice versa,” said Poul Petersen, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology. “It’s super-flexible. It dissipates energy and mediates interactions, and that’s becoming more…
For several years, scientists have known that SIRT6 – one of seven sirtuins, a family of mammalian proteins with important biological functions, including promoting longer, healthier life – is a tumor suppressor. It has been studied in many different types of cancer, but the reasons for its tumor-suppression ability haven’t been understood.A Cornell group led by Hening Lin, professor in the…
Yimon Aye, a Howard Milstein faculty fellow and assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences with a secondary appointment at Weill Cornell Medicine, is one of six winners of this year’s Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research, which supports New York-based scientists exploring innovative avenues in the fight against cancer…
Geoffrey W. Coates, the Tisch University Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, is one of 84 new members elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the academy announced May 2.Coates’ election brings to 60 the number of Cornell professors past and present – including Nobel laureates Hans Bethe (physics), Roald Hoffmann (chemistry) and Harold Varmus (Weill Cornell…
Robert E. Hughes, Ph.D. ’52, who taught chemistry at Cornell for 16 years and was co-founder of the University of Pennsylvania’s Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM), died at his home in Round Hill, Virginia, April 2. He was 92.A native of New York City, Hughes enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II, serving from 1942 until 1946. He completed his bachelor’s degree at…
The experimental realization of ultrathin graphene – which earned two scientists from the University of Manchester, U.K., the Nobel Prize in physics in 2010 – has ushered in a new age in materials research.What started with graphene has evolved to include numerous related single-atom-thick materials, which have unusual properties due to their ultra-thinness. Among them are transition metal…
Three years ago, Steven Strogatz, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, helped a group from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology identify the “shareability” of cab service in New York City.The group found that, indeed, the vast majority of the city’s 150 million taxi trips per year were shareable, and even by sharing a fraction of…
When Geoffrey Coates, the Tisch University Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, gives a talk about plastics and recycling, he usually opens with this question: What percentage of the 78 million tons of plastic used annually for packaging – for example, a 2-liter bottle or a take-out food container – actually gets recycled and reused in a similar way?The answer, according to the Ellen…
Assistant professors Ilana Brito, Guillaume Lambert, Kyle Lancaster and Nilay Yapici have been named recipients of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellowships that support early career faculty members’ original research and broad-based education related to science, technology and economic performance.
Brito is the Mong Family Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow in biomedical engineering. Lambert is the…
Cornell assistant professors Yimon Aye and Robert Shepherd are among 33 scientists selected from among 360 applicants to receive Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program (YIP) awards, which support early-career academic scientists and engineers.The program awards a total of $16 million in three-year grants; the typical award is $170,000 per year.Aye, from the Department of Chemistry…
Kurt Gottfried, emeritus professor of physics and a recognized expert on nuclear arms control, has been awarded the 2016 Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Gottfried, who has been at Cornell for 52 years, was honored by AAAS “for his long and distinguished career as a ‘civic scientist,’ through his advocacy for arms…
Using a novel chemical procedure developed in her lab, Yimon Aye and her group are helping to blaze a trail in the emerging field of precision medicine by targeting and modulating single proteins to achieve desired responses.The procedure, targetable reactive electrophiles and oxidants – dubbed “T-REX” by the group – involves the use of a photocaged (light-activated) precursor that, when turned…
