The experimental realization of ultrathin graphene – which earned two scientists from Manchester, U.K. the Nobel Prize in physics in 2010 – has ushered in a new age in materials research. What started with graphene has evolved to include numerous related single-atom-thick materials, which have unusual properties due to their ultra-thinness. Among them are transition…
Cosmic Source Found for Mysterious ‘Fast Radio Burst’
Cornell University researchers and a global team of astronomers have uncovered the cosmological source of a sporadically repeating milliseconds-long “fast radio burst.” Once thinking these bursts had emanated from within the Milky Way galaxy, or from cosmic neighbors, the astronomers now confirm that they are long-distance flashes from across the universe – more than 3…
New Robot Has a Human Touch
Most robots achieve grasping and tactile sensing through motorized means, which can be excessively bulky and rigid. A Cornell University group has devised a way for a soft robot to feel its surroundings internally, in much the same way humans do. A group led by Robert Shepherd, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and…
Saturn’s Bulging Core Implies Moons Younger than Thought
New Tool Uses UV Light to Control Inflammation
Bacterial Mechanism Converts Nitrogen to Greenhouse Gas
Study Challenges Model of Alzheimer’s Disease Progression
Colorado River’s Dead Clams Tell Tales of Carbon Emission
Scientists have begun to account for the topsy-turvy carbon cycle of the Colorado River delta — once a massive green estuary of grassland, marshes and cottonwood, now desiccated dead land. “We’ve done a lot in the United States to alter water systems, to dam them. The river irrigates our crops and makes energy. What we…
Nanoparticles Called C Dots Show Ability to Induce Cell Death in Tumors
Nanoparticles known as Cornell dots, or C dots, have shown great promise as a therapeutic tool in the detection and treatment of cancer. Now, the ultrasmall particles – developed more than a dozen years ago by Ulrich Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering – have shown they can do something even better: kill…
A Miniaturized Sensor that Can Measure Chemistry on a Chip
By combining expertise in photonics – manipulating light beams in nanoscale waveguides on a chip – and materials science, Cornell researchers have laid the groundwork for a chemical sensor on a chip that could be used in small portable devices to analyze samples in a lab, monitor air and water quality in the field and…