At a dinner not so long ago I got into an interesting conversation with a third generation academic. She complained about her father giving her advice on how to do her PhD. I joked that this was bound to be Thesis Whisperer Jnr’s fate, but I couldn’t help contrasting her stories with my own experience. […] … learn more→

Are you a faculty member or administrator who thinks that the latest technologies are finally going to enable us to teach our students well, or do you at least hope that’s the case? If so, you should reconsider, because the vaunted elements of the latest technologies have been around for some 100 years. It isn’t […] … learn more→

If you have an exercise bike in the back room, you could be the small selection of people that use it everyday to get fit. But then again, you could be one of many more who bought it in the hope of regular practice but were unable to make it part of your routine. The […] … learn more→

At the end of September I attended and spoke at a conference at the United States Consulate General in Florence, Italy on \”Piracy and Counterfeiting in a Digital Environment: U.S. and Italian Experience.\” I recognize fully how fortunate I am to attend these events and am deeply grateful to Cornell University, which supports these efforts […] … learn more→

Marine cloud brightening: it’s a concept that has been floated in climate engineering discussions for some time. But what are the moral implications of this geoengineering technology, and how likely is it to be implemented? What is cloud brightening? Cloud brightening is the idea that we could increase a cloud’s albedo (reflectivity) to reflect a […] … learn more→

Ozone has a dual personality best described as “good up high, bad nearby”: the atmospheric gas is both vital – and potentially fatal – for our health. High in the stratosphere, the gas filters sunlight and protects us from the damaging effects of ultraviolet light. At ground level, however, it causes respiratory problems and damages […] … learn more→

The steady measured progress of innovation in higher education has been replaced with an explosion of new ideas. The change is both exhilarating and frightening. Each day there are new innovations, as more and more experts explain where these changes might take us. New ideas are flourishing around Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs, badging, […] … learn more→

As a politics professor, I feel I should know something about health policy, but it is mostly dread that made me sign up for Ezekiel Emanuel’s class, Health Policy and the Affordable Care Act, through Coursera. Word is that higher education is about to be disrupted by online providers, like Coursera and Udacity, and their […] … learn more→

Cute things are popular worldwide. Japan is known as a country filled with cute fancy goods. Various kinds of anime and character items, such as Hello Kitty and Pokémon, are produced and exported to many countries. The word kawaii (a Japanese word which is a rough equivalent of cute) is becoming an international word. However, […] … learn more→

The colorful leaves piling up in your backyard this fall can be thought of as natural stores of carbon. In the springtime, leaves soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, converting the gas into organic carbon compounds. Come autumn, trees shed their leaves, leaving them to decompose in the soil as they are eaten by […] … learn more→