Brooke Erin Duffy, associate professor of communication, says, “We don’t always know who’s responsible for creating the merch, so it enables everyone to evade responsibility for the circulation of these harmful products and messages.”

This piece mentions the comparative analysis of COVID-19 responses across 18 countries by researchers from Cornell and Harvard. Stephen Hilgartner, professor of science and technology studies and co-leader of the study, provides comments on the U.S.’s response.

“Black people’s bodies are policed more heavily, always, than everybody else,” says Carole Boyce Davies, professor of English and Africana studies.

David Sherwyn, professor in the School of Hotel Administration, says that hotels could make a case for not allowing people to book a room if they knew that they were coming to cause disruption. “But as a practical matter, hotels cannot do that. You’re not asking people for the purpose of why they’re there and then judging why they’re there.”

At the State of the State, Gov. Andrew Cuomo mentioned the launch of a New York Public Health Corps, in partnership with Cornell and Northwell Health, which would hire and train 1,000 fellows for one year of service facilitating vaccination efforts.

Mark Holton, co-director of the Outdoor Education Center, talks about how climbing trees is beneficial for physical exercise and advises on which trees are best to climb.

“Making bitcoin a significant part of your portfolio would increase your risk substantially,” says Eswar Prasad, professor of economics and trade policy. “But a marginal amount seems worthwhile given recent dynamics.”

Sabrina Karim, assistant professor of government, says, “The police might have been complicit because many sympathize with President Trump’s cause, or because many of the insurrectionists are the same people that support the ‘blue lives matter’ counter-movement. They have been supportive of the police, and thus arresting ‘allies’ may not be in the larger interests of the police.”

Researchers from Cornell and the Flatiron Institute have published a paper that measures the rate of the universe’s expansion using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope to determine the age of the universe.

One of the breakthroughs covered in this piece is a Cornell paper on the superhydrophobic surfaces of moth and butterfly wings by Sunghwan “Sunny” Jung, associate professor of biological and environmental engineering.

“This union will have to rely on moral suasion. It won’t be the same as a normal kind of union that has that power to be the official union of Google,” says Louis Hyman, professor of industrial and labor relations.

“This is unprecedented territory,” says Steve Israel, director of the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs. “We’ve never had a former president who is dedicated to the proposition of the failure of his successor.”