Chronicle’s Most Read World Microscopy Record in ’21


In 2020, four of the five most read stories in the Cornell Chronicle were related to the pandemic. This year, as of December 1, there was only one COVID-19 story in the top 20 – a reflection of the “new normal” after a year like no other.

Of Chronicle’s 10 best articles in 2021, five were in research, one reported a major giveaway to college, and two low profile Cornelians doing extraordinary things – including a graduate who played a key role in landing the rover Perseverance by. NASA on Mars.

The only story related to the pandemic in the top 20 involved Weill Cornell Medicine’s research on vaccination and pregnant women. It happened at # 17, with almost 11,000 pageviews.

The Chronicle publishes approximately 1,500 articles per year online and in daily and weekly newsletters. As Cornell’s official clearinghouse, the Chronicle shares major administrative announcements, groundbreaking research, student accomplishments and campus events, and documents the university’s impact on the city, state , the nation and the world. Here’s a look at some of the most popular stories from the past 12 months, according to data from Google Analytics.

Best Stories

An astonishing nanoscale investigation topped all stories in 2021 after engineering researchers, led by David Muller, set a world record in triple the resolution a state-of-the-art electron microscope. “It doesn’t just set a new record,” said Muller, Samuel B. Eckert engineering professor. “He has reached a regime that will effectively be an ultimate limit for resolution. Basically, now we can figure out where the atoms are in a very simple way. “

This image shows an electronic ptychographic reconstruction of a crystal of praseodymium orthoscandate (PrScO3), magnified 100 million times.

This story, from May 20, has attracted (so far) over 126,700 pageviews; more than half of those views likely occurred on May 22, when the Chronicle site had over 76,000 pageviews – at least seven times more than usual.

Philanthropy for the world-renowned Cornell Hospitality School placed second in 2021 when the Chronicle announced a historic donation of $ 50 million who created the Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hospitality Administration. The donation will provide scholarships to expand access to education for future generations of hotel business leaders. Nolan’s story has attracted more than 52,400 pageviews since its publication on September 17.

The third most read story, with over 35,000 views, is one of four of the top 20 related to sustainability, a top priority at Cornell. The mid-October article found that over 99.9% of peer-reviewed scientific papers agreed that climate change is mainly caused by humans, according to research co-authored by Benjamin Houlton, Dean Ronald P. Lynch of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Other stories related to sustainable development in the top 20 of 2021:

  • research led by Lynden Archer, Dean of Engineering Joseph Silbert, exploring the use of low-cost materials create rechargeable batteries it will make energy storage safer and more affordable, which reached # 7 with over 14,000 views;
  • research co-directed by Robert Howarth, professor at CALS, explaining why “blue” hydrogen could in fact be more harmful to the environment as some fossil fuels (# 13, nearly 13,000 views); and
  • news from a commitment of $ 30 million by David R. Atkinson ’60 and Patricia Atkinson for naming a new multidisciplinary building on campus, intended to foster innovative and collaborative research in several priority areas, including sustainability (# 14, over 12,000 views). The building will house, among others, the Atkinson Center for Sustainability and the new Masters program in Public Health.

The most read articles # 4 and # 5 on the Chronicle site were both related to campus news – an introduction to class of 2025, which has reached new levels of diversity and is impressive despite the challenges of the pandemic (over 31,300 views); and the announcement of university residences in the residential expansion of the north campus being named in honor of a Nobel laureate, renowned Chinese scholar and the Cayuga nation, whose traditional lands Cornell is located. This story attracted nearly 17,000 views.

Cornell sent five Olympians to Tokyo in 2021.

Two of the remaining top 10 stories, both of which garnered over 14,000 pageviews, featured Cornellians doing amazing things. At n ° 6 is a preview story the five Cornell alumni – Kyle Dake ’13 (wrestling), Tracy Eisser ’12 (rowing), Michael Grady ’19 (rowing), Taylor Knibb ’20 (triathlon) and Rudy Winkler ’17 (athletics) – who visited Tokyo in July for the 2020 Summer Olympics delayed by the pandemic. For the record: Knibb won a silver medal in the mixed triathlon relay, and Dake – the Lansing native and four-time NCAA champion – won bronze in the men’s 74-kilogram freestyle.

And at # 9 was the story of NASA aerospace engineer Swati Mohan ’04, who calmly called the “play-by-play” of the Perseverance rover landing on March 2020. “Touchdown confirmed” was Mohan’s call at around 3:55 pm on February 18th. “Perseverance is safe on the surface of Mars, ready to begin looking for signs of past life. “

The other Chronicle top 10 stories (# 8 & 10) also garnered around 14,000 views and were related to research: An ILR School report indicating that internal applicants who face rejection are almost twice as likely to leave their organization such as those who were hired for an internal job or who had not applied at all for a new job; and research from the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, concluding that even a slight increase in the tax rate on groceries could increase the risk of food insecurityfor many.

Other highlights

Other notable stories from the past 12 months:

Vital friendship: ILR associate professor Adam Seth Litwin has spent more than two years secretly improving his health so that he can donate a kidney to his longtime colleague Ron Ehrenberg. The successful operation was carried out on June 29.

Swati Mohan ’04 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission control on February 18, prior to Perseverance landing.

Heroes: On a hot March afternoon at Taughannock Falls State Park, three undergraduates – Alexander Chung ’21, Anjan Mani ’23, and Felipe Santamaria ’23 – helped save a 62 year old man who had fallen into the 40 degree waters of Cayuga Lake while fishing on a jetty with his two grandsons.

A New Way: A study conducted by the faculty of the College of Veterinary Medicine found that transporting endangered black rhinos upside down by their feet is actually safer than having the animals tranquilized on the side. The research received a Nobel Prize Ig 2021, which recognizes unlikely searches in many categories.

New School: A major donation from Jeb E. Brooks, MBA ’70, with his wife Cherie Wendelken and the Brooks Family Foundation, endowed and named the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, advancing the nascent school’s mission to help solve complex global political challenges. Jeb Brooks is an advocate for socially responsible investing; her late father Earl taught at Cornell.

Maia Dedrick (left), Hirsch postdoctoral researcher at the Cornell Institute of Archeology and Material Studies, and Lori Khatchadourian, associate professor of Near Eastern studies at the College of Arts and Sciences and co-director of the St. James, examine the soil and rocks in a sieve.

Deeper: 2021 stories in the Chronicle looked at the university from different angles. Among them was the story of nine design students who set out to create a design for renovate the old Waterloo organ company and make it an art center in the village in the north of the state; and the story of a multidisciplinary team of Cornell students and faculty joining with community members to lead a archaeological excavations at St. James AME Zion Church in Ithaca, the oldest active “freedom church” in the world and a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Notable passages

Harold “Hal” Bierman Jr.Professor Emeritus Emeritus of Management and Finance Nicholas H. Noyes, who transformed the framing of investment decisions and mentored thousands of MBA students during a 59-year career at Cornell, died on February 12 at the age of 96.

Walter LaFeber, Andrew H. and James S. Tisch, University Professor Emeritus in the Department of History (A&S), who received standing ovations from students for classroom lectures and whose mastery of American foreign relations has guided historians , political scientists and politicians for decades, died on March 9 to 87.

Neil W. Ashcroft, professor emeritus of physics Horace White (A&S) and a leading theorist in condensed matter physics, whose career saw some kind of rebirth after his official retirement in 2006, when he joined the research group of the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Roald Hoffman, died March 15, 82.

Robert “Bob” Buhrman, MS ’69, Ph.D. ’73, Cornell’s second senior vice president for research, who has helped expand Cornell’s emerging science and engineering programs and secure research funding, is died April 13 at age 75.

Arthur “Art” Gensler Jr., B. Arch. ’58, celebrated as a global architect, savvy entrepreneur and founder of a small firm that has grown into one of the largest and most successful firms in the industry, died on May 10 at the age of 85 .

Dr Alexandre de Lahunta, DVM ’58, Ph.D. ’63, Emeritus Professor of Anatomy James Law, considered the founder of veterinary neurology, died on August 17 at the age of 88.

About Mark A. Tomlin

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