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News

Bala, Agrawal, Pascual elected to arts and sciences academy

Provost Kavita Bala and professors Anurag Agrawal and Dr. M. Virginia Pascual have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced on April 23.

  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Biodiversity
  • Environment
Students look at butterflies displayed in boxes at the Cornell University Insect Collection.

News

Class explores Nabokov as writer and ‘butterfly man’

Writer Vladimir Nabokov’s deep interest in and connection to the natural world and his cross-pollinating interests in the sciences and the arts were the focus of a new seminar, “Nabokov, Naturally,” taught in fall 2023.

  • Entomology
  • Environment
A queen butterfly caterpillar eats from the stem of a milkweed plant.

News

Milkweed species proves beneficial for monarch conservation
Researchers have identified a species of milkweed that holds promise for planting on roadsides to improve conservation habitat for migrating monarch butterflies.
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Entomology
  • Pollinators
sunset with bike

News

A.D. White professors named; fall visit announced

  • Animals
  • Biology

News

Agrawal, Hanson elected to National Academy of Sciences

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...

  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Biology Section
  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
Male and female students sitting on a Zoom call holding up cardboard boxes

Field Note

Semester (un)interrupted: Innovative teaching in the hybrid semester
From navigating social distancing requirements to sending creative, do-it-yourself toolkits to their remote students, the CALS community has continued to persevere in the face of unprecedented challenges. Below, hear from several CALS faculty...
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Biology Section
  • Soil and Crop Sciences Section
An orange and black winged insect

News

Scientists retrace monarch’s toxin-immunity evolution
By editing these genes into laboratory fruit flies using CRISPR technology, scientists have reconstructed evolution and instantly conferred – in the flies – the same toxin resistance enjoyed by monarchs. “We experimentally went back in...
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Animals
  • Biology
A monarch butterfly sits on a milkweed flower

News

Beyond milkweed: Monarchs face habitat, nectar threats
In the face of scientific dogma that faults the population decline of monarch butterflies on a lack of milkweed, herbicides and genetically modified crops, a new Cornell study casts wider blame: sparse autumnal nectar sources, weather and...
  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Entomology