Awais Khan, associate professor of plant pathology and plant-microbe biology at CALS, led research that examines the role of soil, weather, fungi and bacteria in recent cases of rapid apple decline. He found that severe cold followed by drought could have weakened the trees, leaving them susceptible to pathogens or boring-insect infestation.

Ray Jayawardhana, an astrophysicist and dean of the college of arts and sciences at Cornell, reflects on yesterday’s unveiling of the first image of a real-life black-hole. “The transformation of the black hole from a mathematical oddity, emerging from Einstein’s theory of general relativity, to an observable fixture of the cosmos is a testament to humanity’s collective intellectual prowess, relentless curiosity and dogged perseverance,” he writes.

“What could possibly be the most optimistic, best-faith reason for an employer to know how many high-risk pregnancies their employees have? So they can put more brochures in the break room?” asks Karen Levy, an assistant professor at Cornell Tech who has researched family and workplace monitoring. “The real benefit of self-tracking is always to the company,” Levy says.

“She got roundly criticized by the left for going too far, and roundly criticized by immigration hawks by not going far enough,” explains Steve Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School. “I don’t wish that job on anybody,” he says.

One of the study's authors, Kyle Horton, a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University, calls Chicago, Houston and Dallas "hotspots of migratory action," adding, "they are sitting in this primary central corridor that most birds are moving through spring and fall."

“After the white dwarf cools down further, we have shown that such a planet could maintain balmy conditions for billions of years,” explains Lisa Kaltenegger, director of Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute. "Instead of a hot dry zombie planet, you could get a planet where life could potentially start all over again," she says.

Almost every shift in partisan control of Congress after a unified government has been followed by a wave of congressional investigations, and that’s especially true in intensely polarized times, says Douglas Kriner, a government professor at Cornell University. “Democrats have a lot of opportunities to score political points, just the way Republicans had a lot of opportunities in investigating Obama,” he says

“It’s a dilemma that’s becoming more and more frequent as the population that was once driven down has come back,” explains Kevin McGowan, an ornithologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Bald eagles are back in a big way in places that hadn’t had them in a half-century.”

There’s a “lack of investment on the part of the government in finding out what’s in the fluid they encourage us to feed our babies,” says Kathleen Rasmussen, a professor of maternal and child nutrition at Cornell University. 

Cornell University agricultural economics professor Andrew Novakovic believes a plan like SMISA is “a bridge too far. [Government] wants to help farmers but not at the expense of consumers, and I don’t think society has an obligation to make it profitable for anyone to be a dairy farmer.”

Cornell University Law School Professor Robert Hockett discusses Bayer’s decision to keep defending its weed killer Roundup after losing a second trial over claims it causes cancer.

Dr. Edward Dubovi, director of the virology laboratory at the Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University, says the possible introduction of this strain to the continent is emblematic of a larger problem: animal rescue organizations with good intentions aren’t always aware of the viruses and illnesses these canines carry.