One of the dreams of both science fiction writers and practical robot builders has been realized, at least on a simple level: Cornell University researchers have created a machine that can build copies of itself.
Some people are never satisfied. First, nanotechnology researchers at Cornell built a device so sensitive it could detect the mass of a single bacterium - about 665 femtograms. Then they built one that could sense the presence of a single virus - about 1.5 femtograms. Now, with a refined technique, they have detected a single DNA molecule, weighing in at 995,000 Daltons - a shade more than 1 attogram - and can even count the number of DNA molecules attached to a single receptor by noting the difference in mass. (May 18, 2005)
Events on campus this week include: a walking contest, Emerging Artists, former Brazilian president, poet Paul Muldoon, Union Days, museum reception, urban agenda, Glissant and sustainability month.
An international team of eight "satellite hunters," astronomers who pluck tiny specks of light out of the distant solar system, has discovered four new outer moons of Saturn orbiting at least 15 million kilometers from the surface of the giant planet.
Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what one Cornell University agricultural scientist calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.
It's so common that it's almost a cliché: To start a high-tech company, you need to team a scientist with a business person. Associate Professor Rajit Manohar has found a way to increase the speed of computer chips. When he described his idea to business consultant and neighbor John Lofton Holt, Achronix Semiconductor was born. (December 14, 2005)
Cornell will enhance its graduate programs by offering 80 new fellowships, primarily in the sciences, to bring its total number of fellowships in these areas to 100 in the 1998-99 academic year, President Hunter Rawlings announced today (Oct. 1).
Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers have for the first time detected light from confirmed planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. (March 23, 2005)
Shortly before the Memorial Day weekend, NASA's mission to orbit and study a distant asteroid presented researchers with a glimpse of the birth of the solar system.