May 3, 2021
Anurag Agrawal, the James A. Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Maureen Hanson, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics (CALS, Arts and Sciences), have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the academy announced April 26.
The election of 120 members – 59 of whom are women, the most elected in a single year – brings the total number of active members to 2,461.
“The historic number of women elected this year reflects the critical contributions that they are making in many fields of science, as well as a concerted effort by our Academy to recognize those contributions and the essential value of increasing diversity in our ranks,” Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), said in a statement. “I am pleased to welcome all of our new members, and I look forward to engaging with them in the work of the National Academies.
April 29, 2021
Maureen Hanson, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Bernice Grafstein, the Vincent and Brooke Astor Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine, have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced April 22.
They are among 252 newly elected members – 55% of whom are women – honored for individual achievements in academia, the arts, business, government and public affairs.
“We are honoring the excellence of these individuals, celebrating what they have achieved so far and imagining what they will continue to accomplish,” said David Oxtoby, president of the academy. “The past year has been replete with evidence of how things can get worse; this is an opportunity to illuminate the importance of art, ideas, knowledge and leadership that can make a better world.
Date Time
Early breeding reduced harmful mutations in sorghum
When humans first domesticated maize some 9,000 years ago, those early breeding efforts led to an increase in harmful mutations to the crop’s genome compared to their wild relatives, which more recent modern breeding has helped to correct. Nadia Shakoor/Provided
The image shows variation in flower head architecture of the different sorghum races, including (from left to right) bicolor, guinea, caudatum, kafir and durra.
A new comparative study investigates whether the same patterns found in maize occurred in sorghum, a gluten-free grain grown for both livestock and human consumption. The researchers were surprised to find the opposite is true: Harmful mutations in sorghum landraces (early domesticated crops) actually decreased compared to their wild relatives.
December 21, 2020
The Earth’s soils contain more than three times the amount of carbon than is found in the atmosphere, but the processes that bind carbon in the soil are still not well understood.
Improving such understanding may help researchers develop strategies for sequestering more carbon in soil, thereby keeping it out of the atmosphere where it combines with oxygen and acts as a greenhouse gas. Angela Possinger, Michael Zachman, Barnaby Levin/Provided
Scanning electron microscope image of an aggregate of soil used in this study.
A new study describes a breakthrough method for imaging the physical and chemical interactions that sequester carbon in soil at near atomic scales, with some surprising results.
I grow an apple called
Hudson s Golden Gem and I do so for one reason. Yes, this apple s russeted, golden skin is beautiful. But it s the flavor that puts it above the rest.
When you buy apples at the store or orchard, your choice is limited to the dozen or so varieties that have been chosen because they look pretty, ship well, store well and have flavor with broad appeal.
We gardeners, on the other hand, can plant any of more than 5,000 apple varieties that strike our fancy. And we can plant and harvest without regard to a variety s appearance, shelf-life or other commercial attributes.