Cornell engineering

Student Team Crafts Tools to Collect Rocks From Asteroids

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In the ongoing quest for space exploration, an asteroid base like Magneto’s Asteroid M from the X-Men universe seems like a distant dream. If NASA hopes to replicate the sophisticated structures built on the asteroid, it’s going to need tools. Plenty of them.  And there’s one team at Cornell that could certainly engineer a few. Cornell University MicroGravity team, one of Cornell’s newest clubs, is collaborating with NASA to create a ‘Float Sample Grabber’ a device that the team hopes will help astronauts safely and securely retrieve rocks from asteroids.

Trigger Warnings

UGARTE | Trigger Warnings: Wrong place, Wrong Time

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Arbitrarily, the entire premise of college is to expand one’s knowledge of the world and gain new perspective, both of which can be inhibited without open, uncensored dialogue about controversial topics. While such topics can be difficult to digest for many individuals, certain provoking topics such as sexual assault, cancer and war are the brutal realities of the world in which we live. Although it is not innately effortless to immerse oneself in discussion related to such matters, it is vital that students participate to broaden their educations and perspectives. Thus, while professors should be mindful of the ways they expose students to controversial materials (and perhaps caution students of universally graphic material), they should not be required to administer trigger warnings or options to “opt out” of “triggering” topics. College is not the time nor the place to evade disconcerting topics; allowing students to disengage with materials on the basis that they are not rationally capable of handling such discussions is inimical.

asia night

NDLOVU | Highlights of Asia Night: The Journey 2016

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What were you up to this weekend? Besides the occasional mini panic attack over prelim season (which has finally come upon us) and carefully planned procrastination schemes, which I will regret later this week, the highlight of my Saturday night was actually doing something constructive and worthwhile – attending “Asia Night: The Journey” hosted by Cornell Asian Pacific Islander Union’s (CAPSU) in Duffield Hall on March 5th from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. As a freshman, this was my first time attending this annual event dedicated to showcasing diverse Asian cultures. I will definitely be attending Asia Night next year, and so should you! The event was alive with many people in Duffield taking the opportunity to visit the myriad of booths, drink bubble tea, savor different foods and learn more about on-campus organizations such as Business Asia Journal and Cru Cornell. The colorful traditional attires, posters and on-point sound system made Asia Night a memorable event where Cornellians could unite to take pride in and share their heritage.

World Health Organization

World Health Organization Partners With Cornell to Create Public Health Policy

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The World Health Organization has designated Cornell University’s division of nutritional sciences a collaborating center — the organization will partner with the University on the creation and implementation of the public health policy, the University announced last week. Cornell will be one of over 700 WHO collaborating centers in over eighty countries working on areas such as nursing, occupational health, nutrition and health technologies, according to the WHO website. This four-year long partnership will further Cornell’s involvement with the WHO, going beyond the current collaboration, which includes the “Summer Institute for Systematic Reviews in Nutrition for Global Policy Making” — a two-week training program for policy makers that was launched in 2014. “The WHO Center will provide opportunities for Cornell faculty and their students to be more directly involved in assisting the World Health Organizations meet the needs of the member states of the United Nations who seek policy guidance based on rigorous scientific research and evidence evaluation,” said Patrick Stover, director and professor of nutritional sciences. Stover indicated that the University’s role in the partnership will center around addressing issues of global public health.

Cornell University

Cornell Researchers Explain Creation of First Self-Assembling Superconductor

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An interdisciplinary team of Cornell researchers in engineering, physics and chemistry recently created the first self-assembling superconductor. The news of this development came when Science Advances published the group’s research, describing their creation of the three-dimensional gyroidal superconducting structure. The group, led by Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering, Ulrich Wiesner, engaged the expertise of several Cornell faculty and researchers — including Prof. Sol Gruner and Prof. James Sethna, physics, Prof. Francis DiSalvo, chemistry and chemical biology,  Bruce van Dover, chair of the materials science and engineering department  and graduate students Spencer Robbins and Peter Beaucage. All are co-authors to the study. “We had the perfect storm of collaborators,” Beaucage said.