Agenlaku Indonesia/Unsplash
High-density polyethylene (HDPE) is ubiquitous in single-use applications such as packaging and containers, labeled with the number two inside the triangular recycling symbol.
Plastics are incredible materials with properties invaluable to the functioning of our modern world. They are strong, flexible, versatile, long-lasting and inexpensive. In particular, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) is ubiquitous in single-use applications such as packaging and containers, labeled with the number two inside the triangular recycling symbol.
But the ways HDPE is produced and…
Chris Kitchen
Manipulating the properties of atomic material helps Paul Malinowski understand the fundamental physics of how different quantum phases develop and are related to each other.
The Honduran government announced Tuesday a move to establish diplomatic relations with China, thereby severing relations with Taiwan. The switch would leave Taiwan recognized by only 13 countries.
Kenneth Roberts is a professor of comparative and Latin American politics at Cornell University.
Roberts says: "Honduran President Xiomara Castro is opening negotiations with China to establish…
Defense Visual Information Distribution Service
An MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle parked on a taxiway at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada
Armed drones are neither a “magic bullet” that wins wars nor an inconsequential tool with little impact on the battlefield, according to two Cornell University scholars.
In a March 15 article in the journal Defense & Security Analysis, Sarah Kreps and Paul Lushenko dissect an ongoing debate among military and technology experts about the importance of drones on the modern battlefield…
ABC/Eric McCandless
American Idol's superstar judges all agreed that Amara Valerio '24 is headed for Hollywood.
In 2019, Amara Valerio ’24, then a high school junior, was tapped to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” at her school’s graduation. But the honor turned to horror when a senior stepped to the podium, grabbed the microphone out of Valerio’s hand and sang the national anthem herself.
Three years later, Valerio posted video of the incident on TikTok, where it drew more than 10 million views –…
Cornell University
Students engage in Active Learning
Thanks to a grant from the university’s Active Learning Initiative (ALI), the Department of History will transform multiple courses with active learning innovation.
Active learning methods encourage students to engage in their learning by thinking, discussing, investigating, and creating in their courses.
A committee in the department, led by the previous department chair Tamara Loos,…
Comics journalism and non-fiction comics, which employ visual storytelling to cover news or nonfiction events, have become more popular over the last three decades. In a lecture on Tues., March 28, Andy Warner ’06, an author of nonfiction comics, will explore the power of graphic media to tell true stories. He’ll discuss some of the key issues facing graphic journalism in recent years,…
Cornell Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
From Howard Eugene Stern, class of 1917
Cornell’s founding as a nonsectarian university meant that from the start, students from all backgrounds and religions were welcomed to campus.
So, when Herb Neuman ’53 got off the bus with his suitcase and portable typewriter to begin his studies, he said he didn’t feel discrimination on campus. He remembers that freshman housing was more like a military barracks, all of the male students had…
An all-day Cornell conference open to the public will help hiring professionals and others learn ways to create a more inclusive workforce — thinking beyond the traditional definitions of that phrase.
Speakers will focus on ways that companies and organizations can recruit and retain employees from a variety of marginalized groups — including underrepresented minority groups and those who have…
National Cancer Institute/Unsplash
Human colorectal cancer cells treated with a topoisomerase inhibitor
Carbs are often thought of as something to minimize in one’s diet – but consider that carbohydrate molecules are as important to our bodies as proteins and DNA. All organisms have carbohydrates coating their cells, and these molecules are essential to how cells communicate with each other and how humans can evade pathogens and maintain health.
In the Spring 2023 Aggarwal Lectures, chemical…
Sreang Hok/Cornell University
A student takes a shot at Bartels Hall.
A physics theory that’s proven useful to predict the crowd behavior of molecules and fruit flies also seems to work in a very different context – a basketball court.
A model based on density functional theory can suggest the best positioning for each player on the basketball court in a given scenario if they want to raise their probability of either scoring or defending successfully.
…
Myk Miravalles/Unsplash
Philippines National Museum complex, Manila
In May 2022, Bongbong Marcos won the presidential election in the Philippines with a commanding 59% of the vote, stunning many political scholars.
“How, some asked, could the son of the former autocrat, Ferdinand Marcos, a man who suspended elections, eroded checks and balances, curtailed media freedom, violated human rights and engaged in rampant corruption, win office so convincingly?”…
Cornell University file photo
Cornellians gathered to listen to the Cornell Chimes play Grateful Dead songs on 2017 Grateful Dead Day, the 40th Anniversary of the famous 1977 Grateful Dead concert at Barton Hall.
The Dead are coming back to Barton Hall.
Exactly 46 years since they trucked into Cornell and delivered one of the most iconic and beloved performances of their long, strange career, remaining members of the Grateful Dead will return, as Dead & Company, to play a benefit concert in Barton Hall on May 8 as part of the band’s final tour.
“Cornell 1977 holds a special place in Grateful…
Provided
Participants in the Peace Games consider a nonviolent response to a simulated international crisis. Congressional staff members were invited to the event, sponsored by Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and by the U.S. Institute of Peace.
A unique Cornell University-sponsored event in Washington, D.C. brought together congressional staff to search for nonviolent solutions to a simulated clash between superpowers.
The Peace Games were organized by the Cornell Institute of Politics and Global Affairs (IOPGA) in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the United States Institute of Peace, with support from the…
Cornell alums Scott Ferguson ’82 and Michael Kantor ’83 — Emmy-winning producers of HBO’s “Succession” and the PBS “American Masters” series, respectively — will reflect on their careers in film and television production during a two-day visit to campus March 28-29 as part of the College of Arts and Sciences' Arts Unplugged series.
During a public event, “From the Big Red to the Red…
Cornell’s Summer and Winter Sessions are great times for students to learn American Sign Language outside the busy fall and spring semesters.
Brenda Schertz, a senior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the College of Arts and Sciences, said interest in ASL has grown significantly over the last few years. To meet the demand, Cornell has increased opportunities for students to…
Matt Fern/Phase 7
Jamila Michener, associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, senior associate dean of public engagement in the Brooks School and co-director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity, speaking Feb. 22 at the White House
Drawing on personal experience, a Cornell faculty member urged policymakers at a White House event to consult extensively with beneficiaries of government programs and services and learn from their experiences.
Jamila Michener, associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, senior associate dean of public engagement in the…
The Journal of the History of Philosophy (JHP) has awarded its 2022 best article prize to Cornell philosopher Karolina Hübner for “Representation and Mind-Body Identity in Spinoza’s Philosophy,” which appeared in the quarterly journal in January 2022.
Each year, JHP awards an Article Prize to an article published in the previous year’s volume, and a Book Prize to a book published in the…
The current rate of the expansion of space – called the Hubble constant – is a measure of the age and size of the universe. But recently, a new debate has emerged about the Hubble constant, potentially calling into question the standard model of cosmology.
“For the past 20 years, astronomers have observed the entire universe to be expanding at an increasing rate, pulled apart by a cosmic force…
Jason Koski/Cornell University
Earle (left) with Ed Helms during the actor’s Convocation visit. Earle is holding Andy Bernard’s faux diploma from the set of “The Office,” which he received as a birthday gift from his brother, University Archivist Evan Earle ’02, MS ’14.
Who’s the greatest fictional Cornellian in the history of TV and film? That burning question will be answered this month (March 2023), as Big Red history expert Corey Earle ’07 conducts a bespoke March Madness tournament.
Run through Twitter polling, the contest pits 64 Cornell “alumni” against each other in four divisions: characters from comedy/romance and drama, each split into movies and…
A mathematician and author of best-selling books that speak to math’s societal and technological role in the world will visit campus March 13-17 as an A.D. White Professor at Large.
Jordan Ellenberg, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and author of “How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking,” will offer two free events…
Provided
“Heading into Night,” featuring Cirque du Soleil clown Daniel Passer, explores the unexpected humor and discoveries to be found in the loss of memory.
In the new performance work “Heading into Night: a Clown Ode on…(forgetting),” director Beth Frances Milles ’88, associate professor of performing and media arts in the College of Arts and Sciences, investigates the poignancies of memory.
“This is a piece about joy, loss and searching – for meaning or for your car keys,” Milles said.
The solo clown performance featuring Cirque du Soleil…
Icefin/NASA PSTAR RISE UP/Schmidt/Quartini
The remotely operated underwater vehicle Icefin, developed by a team led by Britney Schmidt, is visible as it is lowered via a 4.3-mm fiber-optic tether through a borehole to start one of three dives beneath the Ross Ice Shelf near Kamb Ice Stream in Dedcember 2019. A tent shelter’s color is reflected in the ice.
High in a narrow, seawater-filled crevasse in the base of Antarctica’s largest ice shelf, cameras on the remotely operated Icefin underwater vehicle relayed a sudden change in scenery.
Walls of smooth, cloudy meteoric ice abruptly turned green and rougher in texture, transitioning to salty marine ice.
Nearly 1,900 feet above, near where the surface of the Ross Ice Shelf meets Kamb Ice…
The College of Arts & Sciences is preparing for this year’s Giving Day, Thursday, March 16 — a day to show your support for our faculty and students. We hope you’ll join in the fun!
Last year, A&S alumni, parents, students, and friends joined together to raise more than $1.29 million for the College of Arts & Sciences on Giving Day.
Your gift allows the College to fulfill its…
A leading literary theorist with expertise in cultural aesthetics, marxism, and psychoanalysis will deliver this year’s Culler Theory Lecture at Cornell’s Society for the Humanities. Anna Kornbluh, professor of English at the University of Illinois Chicago, will address "Immediacy: Some Theses on Contemporary Style" on Tuesday, March 7, from 5 – 6:30 p.m. in the Guerlac Room at the A.D. White…
Provided
A new museum exhibit showcases the Alpha CubeSat project, in which a small, low-cost satellite and light sail will be adorned with holographic art as a means of interstellar communication.
A yearslong effort to launch Cornell-made satellite technology into a neighboring solar system is making a terrestrial stop at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.
The new exhibit, “Postcards from Earth: Holograms on an Interstellar Journey,” which opened Feb. 16, showcases the project, in which a small, low-cost satellite – i.e., CubeSat – will be released into low Earth…
Soontira Sutanont/Cornell University
Kimi Gengo, a poet, literary pioneer and advocate for Japanese Americans who attended Cornell from 1924-1925 and 1928-1930 is one of the changemakers featured in Any Person, Many Stories. Her story is shared by Claire Deng, '22.
What does it mean to belong at Cornell?
This is the central question behind “Any Person, Many Stories: Histories of Exclusion and Inclusion at Cornell,” a new public history digital exhibition hosted by the Center for Teaching Innovation. The project uses storytelling methods to take a closer look at Cornell’s past, and engages students, faculty, alumni, staff and community members in a deeper…
Protesters are taking to the streets across Mexico, claiming that electoral law changes — enacted by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — pose a threat to democracy and could mark a return to the past.
Gustavo Flores-Macias is a professor of government at Cornell University and an expert in Latin American politics. He says the United States has relatively few diplomatic options to push back…
Scanning the first images of a well-known early galaxy taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Cornell astronomers were intrigued to see a blob of light near its outer edge.
Their initial focus, and the infrared observatory’s target, was SPT0418-47, one of the brightest dusty, star-forming galaxies in the early universe, its distant light bent and magnified by a foreground…
For a long time – centuries, in fact – philosophers theorizing about morality didn’t interact much with scientists studying human behavior.
But movement is afoot to inform moral philosophy with psychological research, as well as the other way around, according to John M. Doris, the Peter L. Dyson Professor of Ethics in Organizations and Life in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business…
Sreang Hok/Cornell University
Clinton Foundation Students meet at eHub in Kennedy Hall.
Alex Herazy ’25, a student in the College of Arts and Sciences, knows what the college application process is like for a first-generation student, so he’s been helping other first-gen friends from his high school with applications and scholarships. Now, he’d like to reach even more first-gen students, and has an idea to create a set of videos to explain the process.
“Videos from the…
On Saturday, Nigerians will head to the polls for a fiercely-competitive presidential election in Africa’s largest democracy.
Rachel Beatty Riedl, director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and a scholar of Sub-Saharan Africa political systems, is available for interviews ahead of what she calls “an opportunity of historic turnover.”
Riedl says: “The 2023 elections in…
Aurore Simonnet/LIGO-Caltech-MIT-Sonoma State
An artist’s conception shows two merging black holes similar to those detected by LIGO.
When two black holes collide into each other to form a new bigger black hole, they violently roil spacetime around them, sending ripples called gravitational waves outward in all directions. Previous studies of black hole collisions modeled the behavior of the gravitational waves using what is known as linear math, which means that the gravitational waves rippling outward did not influence, or…
Researchers studying statistics applications in systems biology, next-generation wireless technology and the methods by which vines climb are among the nine Cornell faculty members who recently received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards.
Three College of Arts and Sciences researchers are among this year's recipients from Cornell.
Over the next three to…
Provided/Leslie Babonis
Developing stinging cells (magenta and aqua) in a larva of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.
When scientists disabled a single regulatory gene in a species of sea anemone, a stinging cell that shoots a venomous miniature harpoon for hunting and self-defense shifted to shoot a sticky thread that entangles prey instead, according to a new study.
The research, carried out in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, shows how disabling a gene, called NvSox2, enabled a transition from a…
Provided
Light-sensitive molecules arranged in metal-organic frameworks (MOF) glow different colors under UV light, showing energy diffusion differences.
To develop more efficient next-generation materials for solar energy harvesting, researchers must learn to control the way molecules interact – their “coherence” when they absorb light. And to gain this control, they need methods of evaluation.
Andrew J. Musser and Phillip J. Milner, assistant professors of chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, have…
Jason Koski/Cornell University
Ray Halbritter, left, representing the Oneida Indian Nation, and President Martha E. Pollack, sign documents that repatriate ancestral remains from the university to the Oneida Indian Nation.
With apologies for causing harm and in an effort to right the wrongs of the past, Cornell returned ancestral remains and possessions that had been kept in a university archive for six decades to the Oneida Indian Nation on Feb. 21 at a small campus ceremony.
The remains were unearthed in 1964 as property owners dug a ditch for a new water line on their farm near Windsor, New York. Law…
“Abolish the family? You might as well abolish gravity,” Sophie Lewis writes in her new book “Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation.” She will discuss her work in a lecture titled “Abolish Which Family? Black Familiality, Patriarchal Motherhood, and the Communization of Care” on Wed., March 1 at 5 p.m. in the Guerlac Room of the A.D. White House. Her talk will be followed by a…
Mars photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Atacama photo: Armando Azua-Bustos/Provided
On the left is of the Jezero Crater, on the surface of Mars; the image on the right is the Red Stone Jurassic fossil delta of the Atacama Desert in northwestern Chile, a popular geological analog for Mars.
Current state-of-the-art instrumentation being sent to Mars to collect and analyze evidence of ancient life on the red planet may not be sensitive enough to make accurate assessments, according to an international research team co-led by a Cornell astrobiologist.
In a paper published Feb. 21 in Nature Communications, senior author Alberto G. Fairén, a visiting scientist in the Department…
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, met over the weekend in Munich against the backdrop of growing concern that war between the United States and China could be coming, writes Jessica Chen Weiss, the Michael J. Zak professor for China and Asia-Pacific Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, in an opinion in The Washington Post.
“Given the enormous costs…
Karen Vogtmann, Goldman Smith Professor of Mathematics Emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
Vogtmann is among 120 members and 30 international members who were elected in 2022, in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. With the newest elections, there are now 2,512 active members…
Quartetto di Cremona will perform in the Cornell Concert Series on Thursday, March 2 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall on the Cornell campus. Their program will include works by famed Italian composers Boccherini, Puccini, Respighi and Verdi.
Hailing from Cremona, Italy, the birthplace of the violin, the foursome has toured extensively in Europe, the United States, South America and Asia, appeared at…
February 24 will mark one year since Russian tanks rolled over the border into Ukraine. As it stands there is still no end in sight and the U.S. is facing increasing pressure to provide military aid in the form of high tech equipment such as F-16 fighters and M1 Abrams tanks.
David Silbey is an associate professor of history at Cornell University where he specializes in military history,…
Provided
Jessie Kapstad '24, right, poses with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, during his summer experience last year.
Applications for the Summer Experience Grant (SEG) will open March 1, and advisors in the College of Arts & Sciences will hold an information session from 3-4:30 p.m. on March 10, where they will share information about completing applications, provide tips on completing the budget form and give students a chance to ask questions.
SEG is a collection of summer funding awards that provide…
Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge, part of Global Cornell, has announced the winners of its annual creative writing and art competition and four of the six are students from the College of Arts & Sciences.
With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Just Futures Initiative, the Migrations initiative sponsors this annual competition open to Cornell undergraduate and graduate…
Chris Kitchen
One of the rats in the Brain Computation and Behavior Lab.
A pair of researchers in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior are designing new technology and research methods to discover how brain circuits support learning and memory.
The Brain Computation and Behavior Lab, led by Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz, an assistant professor and Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Azahara Oliva,…
While there may not be a direct connection between an artist’s early life and his art, it is important to start the story of Fong Chung-Ray, a pioneer of modern art in Taiwan, with his war-torn youth, said art historian An-Yi Pan.
Born in China’s Henan Province in 1934, Fong grew up in a family that valued education, even as the Sino-Japanese War and then the Chinese Civil War forced them to…
Angie Torres-Beltran is a doctoral candidate in government from central Florida. She earned her B.A. in international and global studies at the University of Central Florida and now studies how women’s political participation is influenced by gender-based violence and interactions with state institutions under the guidance of Sabrina Karim and Gustavo Flores-Macías at Cornell.
What is your…
Noël Heaney/Cornell University
Taylan Özgür Ercan ’25, left, president and founder of the Turkish Students Association and an economics major, and Majd Aldaye ’25, a computer science major
The refrigerator moved across the room in Majd Aldaye’s family home in Tartus, Syria, when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake on Feb. 6 became one of the deadliest natural disasters of the century.
“My family and friends all woke up terrified at 4 a.m. The earth was shaking strongly for over a minute, the furniture was moving,” said Aldaye ’25, a computer science major in Cornell Engineering and in…
Chris Kitchen
Marten van Schijndel, left, and Helena Aparicio
Two recently-hired faculty in the Department of Linguistics are expanding the use of computer modeling and experimental techniques as they forge new paths of research in the discipline.
Marten van Schijndel and Helena Aparicio, both assistant professors in the College of Arts & Sciences, study how humans perform the incredibly complicated task of understanding and processing language. Van…
