All materials found in nature – even the most “perfect” diamond – contain defects, since the atoms inside them are never arranged in perfect order.
Such structural disorder causes complex force distributions throughout the material. Measuring these forces is critical to understanding the material’s behavior, but these force measurements have been impossible to perform through conventional techniques, which only determine average responses to stress.
When cells die, whether through apoptosis or necrosis, the DNA and other molecules found in those cells don’t just disappear. They wind up in the blood stream, where degraded bits and pieces can be extracted.
The enzyme sirtuin 6, or SIRT6, serves many key biological functions in regulating genome stability, DNA repair, metabolism and longevity, but how its multiple enzyme activities relate to its various functions is poorly understood.
In the early 1970s, in the basement of Clark Hall, the Cornell team of professors David Lee and Robert Richardson, along with then-graduate student Douglas Osheroff, first observed superfluid helium-3. For that breakthrough, the catalyst for further research into low-temperature physics, the trio was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in physics.
Jason Lefkovitz invited his high school history teacher, David Miles, to join him at the 28th annual Merrill Presidential Scholars Convocation luncheon.
He also invited Ronald Ehrenberg, the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics, as each of the 33 Merrill scholars was asked to bring to the event two teachers who have made a great impact on their lives, academic and otherwise. Nine of the scholars are Arts & Sciences students.
Once a popular pastime, bee hunting involves capturing and feeding wild bees, then releasing and following them back to their hive.
The practice is little-known today, but bee expert Thomas D. Seeley – the Horace White Professor in Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences and author of several books on honeybees – has just published a book that offers insights into the history and science of bee hunting.
Cornell researchers, working in collaboration with scientists in Switzerland, have identified a strong connection between a protein, SIRT5, and healthy heart function.
Like the gravitational forces that are responsible for the attraction between the Earth and the moon, as well as the dynamics of the entire solar system, there exist attractive forces between objects at the nanoscale.
Just as the single-crystal silicon wafer forever changed the nature of electronics 60 years ago, a group of Cornell researchers is hoping its work with quantum dot solids – crystals made out of crystals – can help usher in a new era in electronics.
Hands and feet are two examples of chiral objects – non-superimposable mirror images of each other. One image is distinctly “left-handed,” while the other is “right-handed.” A simple drinking glass and a ball are achiral, meaning the object and its mirror image look exactly the same.
Cornell assistant professors Yimon Aye and David Mimno have been named recipients of fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which supports early career faculty members’ original research and broad-based education related to science, technology and economic performance.
