Best-selling science writer to talk about epidemics, life expectancy, innovation

New York Times best-selling science and technology writer Steven Johnson will visit campus Sept. 22 and offer a talk to the Cornell community, “20,000 More Days: How We Doubled Global Life Expectancy in Just 100 years.”

Around Cornell

NSF grants $2.5M for seagrass, marine ecosystem research

Cornell-led scientists aim to resolve a wasting disease afflicting seagrass – the ocean’s critical first line of coastal filters – with a $2.5 million National Science Foundation grant.

$25M center will use digital tools to ‘communicate’ with plants

The new Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems, or CROPPS, funded by a five-year, $25 million National Science Foundation grant, aims to grow a new field called digital biology.

Freeze! Researchers develop new protein crystallography tool

Combining state-of-the-art X-ray technology and cryogenics, Cornell physics researchers have developed a new method for analyzing proteins in action, a breakthrough that will enable the study of far more proteins than is possible with current methods.

Scientists harness machine learning to lower solar energy cost

A Cornell-led collaboration received a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to use machine learning to accelerate the creation of low-cost materials for solar energy.

Warming Atlantic forces whales into new habitats, danger

Critically endangered North Atlantic right whales – forced from its habitat, facing ship strikes and fishing peril – now confront extinction.

Bacteria may hold key for energy storage, biofuels

A new study identifies bacterial genes that may make it easier for scientists to engineer a bacteria that takes in renewable electricity and uses the energy to make biofuels.

DPE puts its mission into practice with CURIE Academy

Forty-three high school juniors and seniors teamed up remotely from July 19-23 to build an interconnected system of hardware and software as part of Cornell Engineering’s annual CURIE Academy.

Around Cornell

Geophysicist sprints to monitor quake aftershocks in Alaska

When an 8.2-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Chignik, Alaska, on July 29, geophysicist Geoffrey Abers raced north with a group of collaborators to record its aftershocks.