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Onions being chopped with a knife.

News

One solution for preventing pungent aerosols from ejecting into the air: Cut onions slowly with a sharpened blade.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Food
Close up of hands clapping with chalk

News

With high-speed cameras, researchers measured the physical forces involved in a handclap, with potential applications in bioacoustics and identification, whereby a handclap could be used to identify someone.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Behavior
Close up of a green leaf with water droplets

News

New research elucidates a raindrop’s impact on a leaf - the equivalent in mass of a bowling ball hitting a person - and the physical dynamics that help the leaf survive.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Biology
  • Plants
A bumblebee on campus

News

An antidote to pesticide poisoning in bees shows promising early results in tests done with common eastern bumblebees.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Department of Entomology
  • Agriculture
CALS professor Sunghwan (Sunny) Jung collaborates with a student on the design of the strawberry pruning robot

News

Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) students at Cornell took a course assignment to the next level, competing in a national showdown in which their strawberry-pruning robot faced off against others from across the country.
  • Agriculture
  • Digital Agriculture
  • Biology
A fox jumps headfirst into snow.

News

When hunting for mice in winter, red and artic fox are known to plunge headfirst into snow but their sharp noses reduce the impact force and protect them from injury, according to a new study.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Animals
A group of green leaves in a pile.

News

Cornell researchers have used high-speed cameras to analyze what happens when raindrops hit a leaf of a wheat plant infected with rust – a pathogenic spore that has decimated crops globally.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Breeding and Genetics Section
Three men and a woman gather around a robot demonstration in a laboratory.

News

Inspired by a small and slow snail, scientists have developed a robot protype that may one day scoop up microplastics from the surfaces of oceans, seas and lakes.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Environment
Headshot of Professor Sunghwan “Sunny” Jung.

News

President Martha E. Pollack announced the recipients of the 2023 Stephen H. Weiss Teaching Awards, which honor faculty members who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to teaching and mentoring undergraduate students.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Global Development
Anonymous snorkeler swimming in azure seawater

News

New research in biomechanics measures the impact of head-first, hand-first and feet-first diving and the likelihood of injury at different diving heights.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Biology
  • Health + Nutrition
3D printable mask

News

A new 3D-printable mask design, inspired by animal noses, promises easy breathing for users while maintaining similar levels of protection against pathogens found in N95 and surgical masks.
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Animals
  • Biology
A moth with water splashing off of its wing

Multimedia

News

For moths and butterflies, getting hit by a fast-falling raindrop is like a bowling ball falling on a person. Now, new research shows how natural surfaces break up the raindrops to deflect potential damage.
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Plants
  • Biology
A graphic showing face masks and their relation to the animals they were designed after

News

The team has been awarded a special one-year, $200,0000 RAPID grant; co-principal investigator Sunghwan “Sunny” Jung, associate professor of biological and environmental engineering, will receive $75,000 of the total to design the mask. The...
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Animals