An avalanche of digital data, combined with sophisticated algorithms to analyze it, heralds a technological transformation as important as the emergence of the internet, said panelists at the launch of the Cornell-r4 Applied AI Initiative, held Dec. 6 at Cornell Tech.
The Cornell-r4 Applied AI initiative will bring together cross-disciplinary scholars and industry experts to help solve business and societal problems.
Two minutes into Jason Schmitt’s documentary “Paywall: The Business of Scholarship,” a pop-up window flashed across the screen, demanding payment. At the free Nov. 29 screening at Cornell Cinema, the gag coaxed uneasy laughs from students, professors and scholars all too familiar with running into paywalls during their research. The screening was followed by a discussion.
The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies has awarded seed grants to three faculty members to support new collaborative research efforts on international topics, and small grants to three more to help fund conferences, workshops or other activities.
In the early 1980s, Peter Gabriel sang “Shock the Monkey.” But about 15 years ago, the English musician became more interested in jamming with apes instead.Bonobos, specifically.“I had always been fascinated to see how we might interact musically,” said Gabriel. “I was blown away at the obvious intelligence of the beings that I was sharing the space with.”
A Cornell startup is working toward a day when harmful carbon dioxide in automobile exhaust vanishes into thin air – for good.The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has granted $1.7 million to Ecolectro to accelerate production of hydrogen – a green fuel of the future. Ecolectro is based at the McGovern Family Center for Venture Development, a Cornell business incubator.
Innovative research with great impact is one of Cornell’s hallmarks, and to recognize some of the best examples of that work, the Office of the Provost has established an annual award that highlights the depth and breadth of the university’s research efforts.The inaugural Provost Research Innovation Awards recognize midcareer faculty from engineering, the humanities, life sciences, social sciences and physical sciences.
The opportunity to send a science experiment into orbit drew dozens of children and their families to Space Night at Case Middle School in Watertown, New York, Nov. 9. Student teams from after-school programs in Jefferson County, many of whom worked with scientist advisers at Cornell, presented their proposals for experiments that could be delivered to the International Space Station next summer.
Twenty-six Cornell graduate students have won more than $42,000 in fall 2018 Research Travel Grants, which provide students up to $2,000 to conduct thesis or dissertation research away from campus. In a typical year, 70 to 80 students receive these competitive grants from the Graduate School. More grant winners will be announced in the spring.
Renowned naturalist Wesley Newcomb scoured the Hawaiian Islands in the 1850s in search of living treasure: land snails and their intricate, domed shells. The specimens he assembled in Hawaii and around the world would form a vast collection of mollusks, with numerous species that would become critically threatened and, in some cases, extinct.
After cruising for 205 days over 301 million miles, NASA’s InSight spacecraft – a mission designed to probe beneath the surface of Mars – landed flawlessly Nov. 26 at Elysium Planitia.
Nine Cornell faculty members have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society.
Forget those shepherding moons. Gravity and the odd shapes of asteroid Chariklo and dwarf planet Haumea – small objects deep in our solar system – can be credited for forming and maintaining their own rings, according new research in Nature Astronomy.
Is the fabric of our civilization being torn by identity politics, nationalism and populism? Are Americans ignoring character and competence in an “us vs. them” political landscape? Political analyst Jonah Goldberg examined divisiveness in U.S. politics and discuss possible solutions in his talk, “Suicide of the West” Thursday, Nov. 29, at 5:15 p.m. in Klarman Hall’s Rhodes-Rawlings Auditorium. His lecture was free and open to the public.
How will the rise in sea levels due to climate change affect the fiscal health of U.S. cities? Can virtual reality help architects “try out” a building’s design before construction has even started? How do social processes affect artificial intelligence in high-stakes areas such as sentencing for criminals and job applications? These are a few of the questions Cornell’s social science faculty are exploring this fall, thanks to funding from the Institute for the Social Sciences (ISS). The ISS’s Fall 2018 Small Grant Awards are designed to support faculty as they develop new research and seek external funding.
The symposium identified themes for Cornell’s Global Grand Challenge 2019-20, a yearlong dedication to a topic through new curricular, scholarly and engaged work across campus.
Professor C. Richard Johnson discussed the techniques he innovated using X-rays and algorithms to analyze works of art in his Nov. 9 talk at the A.D. White House, “Studying Vermeer’s Canvases and Rembrandt’s Papers: Two Examples of Computational Art History.”
When rains fell on the arid Atacama Desert, it was reasonable to expect floral blooms to follow. Instead, the water brought death.An international team of planetary astrobiologists has found that after encountering never-before-seen rainfall three years ago at the arid core of Peru’s Atacama Desert, the heavy precipitation wiped out most of the microbes that had lived there.
It’s a little-known fact of U.S. history that in the early 1800s, while most African-Americans were enslaved, freed black men in some states had the right to vote.
Experts in gender and research on plant breeding tools will gather at Cornell Nov. 10 to address that topic in public talks, 9:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. in B75 Warren Hall. RSVP here.
Humans share 98.8 percent of their DNA – as well as tool use and systems of communication – with bonobos and chimpanzees. Yet human activity threatens these “next of kin” great apes with extinction. In “Apes and Sustainability,” a forum on Nov. 15, activists, scholars, scientists and humanists will explore new perspectives on preserving nonhuman great apes in sustainable ways. The event will be held in the A.D. White House’s Guerlac Room 4:30-6:30 p.m., followed by a reception.
Drawing a picture of wonder with words, images and animations, Dean Jayawardhana shared his enthusiasm for astronomy exploration as keynote at this year's Trustee-Council Annual Meeting.
Three neuroscientists discussed how birds learn to sing, an RNA editing approach to potentially cure the autism spectrum disorder Rett Syndrome, and the latest progress in functional imaging of human brains at the third annual Cornell Neurotech Mong Family Foundation Symposium, Sept. 27 in the Biotechnology Building.
After a half-century singing songs you know, the Cornell Hangovers offer a harmonic convergence to celebrate their golden anniversary. The group’s Fall Tonic concert will be Nov. 10 at 8 p.m. at Bailey Hall
What are the biggest threats facing inhabitants of Earth in the 21st century? A two-day symposium will bring together people from across the university for a dialogue on the “grand challenges” of a world that’s both more connected than ever and increasingly fractured.
When the tantalizing scent of chocolate chip cookies wafts by, how does your mind know what it means? Nobel laureate Richard Axel will explain in his talk, “Scents and Sensibility: Representations of the Olfactory World in the Brain,” in Cornell’s annual Ef Racker Lecture in Biology and Medicine Thursday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m. in Call Alumni Auditorium, Kennedy Hall. A reception will follow in Kennedy Atrium. The talk is free and open to the public.
Chemist Geoffrey Coates will be part of the $120 million, five-year second phase of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), an interdisciplinary project aimed at realizing next-generation batteries.Coates and his team will investigate the polymerics that go into batteries.“By designing and building new polymers with molecular precision, we will enable
On Oct. 25, Cornell’s Department of Mathematics unveiled a strange, shiny object that’s made from one material, has uniform density, and always rests on the same side no matter how it’s rolled or set down.
The Cornell University Glee Club, the university’s oldest, continuously operating student organization, will celebrate its sesquicentennial with a free concert. The group will sing pieces from different eras Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. in Sage Chapel. The event is open to the public.
C. Richard Johnson will speak about the field of computational art history and discuss preserving and authenticating the works of Vermeer and Rembrandt Friday, Nov. 9, at 5 p.m. in the Guerlac Room of A.D. White House, followed by a buffet dinner. His talk, “Studying Vermeer’s Canvases and Rembrandt’s Papers: Two Examples of Computational Art History,” is part of the Milstein Program in Technology & Humanity Speaker Series.
Héctor D. Abruña, the Emile M. Chamot Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, has been working to promote underrepresented minorities in the sciences at Cornell for more than 30 years.
Researchers in the lab of Charles Danko at the Baker Institute for Animal Health have developed a new tool to study genetic “switches” active in glioblastoma tumors that drive growth of the cancer. In a new paper in Nature Genetics published Oct.
Four Cornell researchers have received grants from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of a $218 million federal push to advance quantum information science.
Studied by scholars of English and American political thought and by Cornell students in particular, Isaac Kramnick’s books form a sizable collection on the shelves of Cornell University Library. Now, through a tribute by Elisabeth Boas and Art Spitzer – both from the Class of ’71 – his name has been emblazoned on a prominent place surrounded by books and scholarship: the Isaac Kramnick Faculty Research Study in Olin Library.
Sandra E. Peterson ’80 will speak on “Reconstructing Leadership: Why Economics and Empathy Matter in Equal Measure,” Thursday, Nov. 1, at 4:30 p.m. in Alice Statler Auditorium as Cornell’s 36th Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education.
Ray Jayawardhana, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts & Sciences and professor of astronomy, has been awarded the 2018 Dwight Nicholson Medal for Outreach by the American Physical Society (APS).
“Where’s your spine?” is often said to stiffen someone’s resolve, but what role do such metaphors play in the politics of “refusal” – the rejection of authority?
A panel discussion, “Celebrating 150 Years of Ezra Cornell’s Promise: Reflections on What ‘... Any Person … Any Study’ Means,” will be held Monday, Oct. 29, at 4 p.m. in Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall. The event is open to the public.
It is the centerpiece of one of the world’s subtlest rituals. It is swilled by thirsty workers at truck stops and construction sites. It is a pick-me-up and a sign of refinement, a bracing tonic and a sugary treat. It is sold in hawker stalls and high-end shops, often on the same city block. It is, after water, the most popular drink on the planet. It is, of course, tea.
When Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Forman Jr. was a public defender in Washington, D.C., in the 1990s, he defended a 15-year-old named Brandon, who was charged with possessing a small amount of marijuana and a gun.
The maelstrom surrounding the nomination and subsequent confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court was to be expected, when one justice’s vote could change the country’s moral compass for generations. But looking at the high court over a period of decades, have political leanings been its strongest barometer?
