Apocalyptic prophecies have spawned many science fiction movies. In the 2003 film The Core, the Earth loses its protective magnetic field when charged magma in the planet’s interior stops churning about. A mission to the center of the Earth is launched to get the magma spinning and save the planet. While these films are science fiction, some think these stories are set to come off of the screen and into reality in 2012.

To the Editor:

Re: “Professors: Concept of ‘Race’ Biologically Moot,” Science, Feb. 18

In yesterday’s Sun, Erin Sulzman describes a panel of biologists and other scientist discussing race and the fact that race is no longer a viable scientific category, despite the fact that it remains a social category. The piece is informative, but one statement leaps out to me, a graduate student in anthropology, as inaccurate: “While race is standard fare in anthropology classes, it has become an uncommon word in science.”

Okay, so it turns out I wear quite a few hats down at the Sun. Most people happen to know me for the column I write in the opinion section (sex, politics and Palestine… basically). The majority of my time actually working on the paper however is spent working for the design department. And then there’s a little project I started last semester that goes by the name of “The Science Section.”

The story goes like this: one day I was sitting in the gorge sunbathing with Arts Editor Julie Block ’09 and Design Editor Carol Zou ’09. And I turn to them, and say “you know, the Sun needs a science section.” Three weeks, two staff recruiting sessions, three draft proposals and a few all nighters later, well the Sun had a science section.

Prof. Andrew Clark, molecular biology and genetics, studies the molecular basis of deadly diseases by creating models of certain organ systems. Due to the promising nature of his research, the University named Clark the first Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences.

While scientists around the world sweat the steady growth of climate change, Professor Johannes Lehmann, crop and soil sciences, and his researchers have turned up the heat to produce biochar – a fine-grained residue that may simultaneously improve soil health and curb harmful greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Biochar is the organic matter left over after pyrolysis—a slow-burn conducted in the absence of oxygen. This process confines much of the carbon that might otherwise contribute to the formation of carbon dioxide, a prevalent GHG.

President Barack Obama announced the appointment of four members to his science and technology team, a group charged with crafting science policy regarding the life sciences, the environment, health and technology.

“It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient,” Obama stated on his website. The newly elected president emphasized that government officials must provide necessary resources to scientists and work hand-in-hand with them to design effective legislation.

Scientists have recently discovered one of the largest single-celled organisms in the seafloor of the Bahamas. Why should you care? Because it's providing new insights into evolutionary history.

The creature is called Gromia sphaerica, a distant relative of the amoeba. It is only one cell and yet it's the size of a grape. It looks like a mud-covered blob or, as the researchers termed it, a "doo-doo ball." They move by rolling about on the ocean floor.

I’ve been meaning to put these notes up for awhile. About three weeks ago, I wrote the feature story for Eclipse on the culture of stress on Cornell’s campus and some of its root causes. I wrote about some strategies people use to de-stress. What I didn’t get to include in the article was some of the ways stress affects genders.

While everyone is under an immense amount of stress due to the economic crisis, the holidays, being swamped at work, the way it affects the genders has important implications for society at large. One example is women in computer science, which illustrates the ways stress can maintain barriers to entry in certain career fields.

Cornell’s Chem-E Car Team competed this Sunday in the national Chem-E Car competition, taking first place with their shoebox-sized hydrogen fuel cell car. The competition was held at the American Institute of Chemical Engineer’s Centennial annual meeting in Philadelphia.

The cars were designed to transport anywhere between zero and 500 mL of water anywhere between 50 and 100 feet in under two minutes. Right before the competition commenced, an announcement was made that this year’s competitors would need to transport 250 mL exactly 60 feet.

The Cornell team’s vehicle stopped zero inches from the 60-foot marker — the first time a car has ever demonstrated that level of accuracy.

Biologists know death is part of life. Howard Robert Horvitz knows that, for cells, so is suicide.

Horvitz, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine along with research partners Sydney Brenner and John Sulston in 2002, delivered the sixteenth Annual Ef Racker Lecture on Thursday to a packed Call Auditorium. The lecture, “Cell Suicide: Programmed Cell Death in Development and Disease,” outlined the history of modern biology’s understanding of cellular death.