Ray J. Wu, Cornell professor of molecular biology and genetics, who developed the first method for sequencing DNA and some of the fundamental tools for DNA cloning, died at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca Feb. 10.
Surveying aquatic life from the Great Lakes to small ponds, ecologists at Cornell and the Institute of Ecosystem Studies have found that food-chain length — the number of mouths food passes through on the way to the top predators — is determined by the size of an ecosystem, not by the amount of available food energy.
An increasingly popular commercial corn, genetically engineered to produce a bacterial toxin to protect against corn pests, has an unwanted side effect: Its pollen kills monarch butterfly larvae in laboratory tests, according to a report by Cornell University researchers.
Mother Nature had its own April Fools' prank in store for the Northeast -- it took only the first day of this month to record the snowiest April ever for Boston, Worcester, Mass., and Providence, R.I., according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University.
Almost 50 years ago, physicists determined the value of one of the fundamental fixed values of physics, the fine structure constant, using quantum electrodynamics theory -- or did they?
Last winter's mish-mash of weather sent bird-watchers to their field guides as species showed up where they're usually not. Documenting irruptions of seldom-seen species throughout North America.
A few bad actors among the more than 30,000 non-indigenous species in the United States cost $123 billion a year in economic losses, Cornell University ecologists estimate. "It doesn't take many trouble-makers to cause tremendous damage," Cornell ecologist David Pimentel.
For Cornell biologist John P. Berry, knowing the punch line to the joke, "Where does an 800-pound gorilla eat?" is not enough. Certainly, the mountain gorillas he studies in Uganda's Bwindi impenetrable forest eat wherever they want. Whatever, too.
From one ecologist's perspective, the American system of farming grain-fed livestock consumes resources far out of proportion to the yield, accelerates soil erosion, affects world food supply and will be changing in the future.