You’re walking with a friend on a trail beside the gorge and you see a stick spread across the path. You recoil, thinking it’s a snake, but your friend stays calm. Why do two people react differently to the same stimulus?

Vincent T. Foss once said, “One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.” Too many of us college students know this to be true. Saving our work until the last minute, we frantically rush to submit our work minutes before it is due.

Health care is big money. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that health care represents America’s largest industry, providing roughly 14 million jobs. The Bureau goes on to mention that seven of the 20 fastest growing occupations are health related. Here at Cornell, medical research is a huge deal, producing shiny new buildings like Weill Hall, and attracting top professors from around the country. And our top students have always been lured towards medicine as an attractive, stable, intellectually stimulating career option.

But question: Jobs and investments aside, is this approach to medicine effective? Does it produce a healthy, productive society in the most efficient way possible?

For Phillip Krasicky, physics, science education is about one thing: demonstration.

In the basement of Rockefeller Hall, Krasicky’s office is filled with fascinating objects. A piece of metal foil floats in the air, while a holograph of a shark hovers in a frame.

They are not hippie communes. They are not even about “living off the grid.” Largely unknown and misinterpreted, ecovillages are communities striving to “integrate a supportive social environment with a low impact way of life” according to the Global Ecovillage Network.

In discussions of sustainability, the environment often takes center stage while issues of social equity and economic sustainability are either relegated to the background or are not present at all. The Bioneers Conference — held from Oct. 16 to Oct. 18 on the Ithaca College campus — made inquiries into a more sustainable future from five perspectives: sustainable economy, our clean energy future, fortifying our food sheds, earth stewardship and health and well-being.

Food is the body’s source of energy and nutrients, without which the human body would cease to function. Most Americans are reminded of this fact three times a day, thanks to the extensively evolved agricultural system that has developed since our transition from hunter-gatherer ways 10,000 years ago. However, the delicate state of the environment leaves the future of food production uncertain, particularly for developing nations.

While most students were packing up in preparation for Fall Break, 1,000 ticket-holders joined National Public Radio’s Ira Flatow in Bailey auditorium for a live broadcast of Science Friday to millions of listeners across hundreds of NPR affiliate stations. Science Friday is a weekly science talk radio program entering its 19th year of hosting expert panel discussions and listener call-ins on current issues in science, nature and technology.

Art and film are everywhere. But how does the brain really perceive art and cinema? Prof. James Cutting, psychology, has been working on this question for over two decades. His research in perception ranges from optics to depth perception to cinema.

In a volatile oil market, automobile producers are scrambling to gain an edge on their competitors using technology considered purely futuristic until recently. Mike Schweizer and Rasheq Zarif of Mercedes Benz USA, LLC, gave a lecture during the energy seminar series for engineers last Friday on recent progress in the field of sustainable transportation. According to Zarif, the purpose of Mercedes’ intensive $1.7 billion research project has been to “accelerate the paradigm shift” between fuel-based and cleaner technologies.