Artificial intelligence enters a new era
Computers that can see the world and understand our language are taking on new challenges Continue Reading →
Category: 2017-18
Going quantum to unlock plants’ secrets
By Kevin McElwee When it comes to green living, nobody does it better than plants. When plants convert light into fuel through photosynthesis, not a single particle of light is wasted. If we could unlock Continue Reading →
Money matters: An economist on the Fed, the banks and the future
By Catherine Zandonella IT’S BEEN NINE YEARS since the start of the Great Recession, and economies are still recovering worldwide. Economists are still debating — not about the causes of the crisis, which involved shoddy Continue Reading →
Going green: What we can learn from a little alga
By Yasemin Saplakoglu WE ARE CONCERNED, rightly so, about the amount of carbon dioxide accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere. But to most plants, which use carbon for photosynthesis, the amount we have is not enough. Continue Reading →
Jane Cox on LEDs, lighting design and the role of light in storytelling
By Catherine Zandonella WHEN PRINCETON’S NEW LEWIS ARTS COMPLEX was under design, Jane Cox was one of the primary advocates for going all-LED in the new theatrical performing spaces. “It was a risk to go Continue Reading →
Coming home to document a rapidly changing China
By Catherine Zandonella SOCIOLOGIST Yu Xie is the director of Princeton’s Paul and Marcia Wythes Center on Contemporary China, which aims to conduct research on Chinese society through an interdisciplinary approach. ON A VISIT TO CHINA in Continue Reading →
John Pardon on math’s power to distract and divert
By Yasemin Saplakoglu GETTING A TIRED and hungry 12-year-old to hike another mile up a steep mountain is a daunting task. But John Pardon’s parents quickly figured out a simple solution that saved many of Continue Reading →
Princeton project explores past ties to slavery
By Catherine Zandonella “TO BE SOLD AT PUBLIC VENUE on the 19th of August next all the personal effects of Revd. Dr. Samuel Finley, consisting of two Negro women, a Negro man, and three Negro children, Continue Reading →
Diamonds’ flaws hold promise for new technologies
By Yasemin Saplakoglu DESPITE THEIR CHARM AND ALLURE, diamonds are rarely perfect. They have tiny defects that, to assistant professor Nathalie de Leon, make them ever so appealing. These atom-sized mistakes have enormous potential in Continue Reading →
Let it flow: The ideas, the creativity, the findings, the impacts, the benefits to society
By Yasemin Saplakoglu THE RESEARCHERS in Princeton’s Complex Fluids laboratory are sometimes inspired by a cup of coffee or a permanent marker. Such everyday items may seem like odd subjects of inquiry in a lab Continue Reading →
Lights, camera, action – of genes in development
By Yasemin Saplakoglu MOLECULAR BIOLOGIST MIKE LEVINE likes to recall his childhood when he talks about the reason he came to Princeton. “I grew up near Hollywood and I always loved movies as a kid, so Continue Reading →
A challenge to help kids
By Yasemin Saplakoglu A collaborative approach to sociology aims to target fundamental and perhaps overlooked issues to improve policies that affect the lives of disadvantaged children. The effort, called the Fragile Families Challenge, brings together Continue Reading →
New arts complex opens
By Staff The new 22-acre Lewis Arts complex includes spaces for the creation and performance of dance, theater, music and more. The new multi-building Lewis Arts complex on the south edge of campus significantly expands Continue Reading →
New journal highlights student research
By Yasemin Saplakoglu This spring marked the debut of the Princeton Undergraduate Research Journal, a peer-reviewed publication where students can publish original research findings. “The entire goal of research is to communicate new discoveries to Continue Reading →
Self-powered system makes smart windows smarter
By Sharon Adarlo A new solar cell technology could make it inexpensive to create and install smart windows that automatically vary their tint to augment lighting, heating and cooling systems in buildings. The new transparent Continue Reading →
Probing the genetic basis for dog-human relationships
By Pooja Makhijani A new study has identified genetic changes that are linked to dogs’ human-directed social behaviors and suggests there is a common underlying genetic basis for hyper-social behavior in both dogs and humans. Continue Reading →
Bound in wedlock: Professor of history explores slavery’s shackles on black families
For her new book, Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century (Harvard University Press, 2017), Tera Hunter, a professor of history and African American studies, meticulously researched court records, legal Continue Reading →
Emily Carter awarded Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics
PHOTO BY DAVID KELLY CROW Emily Carter, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been named the recipient of the 2017 Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics of the American Physical Society. Continue Reading →
At Home in the World: Women Writers and Public Life, from Austen to the Present
Authors: Maria DiBattista, Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English, professor of English and comparative literature; and Deborah Epstein Nord, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature and professor of English Publisher: Princeton University Press, Continue Reading →
Designing San Francisco: Art, Land and Urban Renewal in the City by the Bay
Author: Alison Isenberg, professor of history Publisher: Princeton University Press, September 2017 Designing San Francisco is the previously untold story of the formative postwar decades when U.S. cities took their modern shape amid clashing visions Continue Reading →
Peter and Rosemary Grant receive Royal Medal in Biology
PHOTO BY DENISE APPLEWHITE Peter Grant, the Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology, Emeritus, and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, emeritus, and B. Rosemary Grant, senior research biologist, emeritus, and a senior biologist in Continue Reading →
Historian of religion Elaine Pagels awarded National Humanities Medal
PHOTO BY MARK CZAJKOWSKI Elaine Pagels, an authority on the religions of late antiquity and the author of The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, received the 2015 National Humanities Medal. Continue Reading →
New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity During the Great Migration
Author: Judith Weisenfeld, the Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion Publisher: New York University Press, February 2017 When Joseph Nathaniel Beckles registered for the draft in the 1942, he rejected the racial categories Continue Reading →
Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy and Security
Author: Brian Kernighan, professor of computer science Publisher: Princeton University Press, January 2017 Computers are everywhere. Some of them are highly visible, in laptops, tablets, cellphones and smart watches. But most are invisible, like those Continue Reading →
Eight win Guggenheim Fellowships
PHOTO CREDITS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: TOP ROW: JOHN LUCAS, RICHARD SODEN, PETER HURLEY, HANNAH DUNPHY BOTTOM ROW: DAVID BROWN, NINA KATCHADOURIAN, DENISE APPLEWHITE, JILL DOLAN Eight Princeton faculty members have received 2017 Guggenheim Fellowships Continue Reading →
Tracy K. Smith named U.S. Poet Laureate
PHOTO BY DENISE APPLEWHITE Tracy K. Smith has been named the Library of Congress’s 22nd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, for 2017-18. Smith is the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor in the Humanities and a Continue Reading →
Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation
Author: Sarah Rivett, associate professor of English and American studies Publisher: Oxford University Press, October 2017 In 1664, French Jesuit Louis Nicolas arrived in Quebec. Upon first hearing Ojibwe, Nicolas observed that he had encountered Continue Reading →
Charles Fefferman awarded 2017 Wolf Prize in Mathematics
PHOTO BY WILLIAM CROW Charles Fefferman, the Herbert E. Jones, Jr ’43 University Professor of Mathematics, has been selected to receive the 2017 Wolf Prize in Mathematics awarded by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. Fefferman, Continue Reading →
The Little Book of Black Holes
Authors: Steven Gubser and Frans Pretorius, professors of physics Publisher: Princeton University Press, October 2017 Black holes, predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity more than a century ago, have long intrigued scientists and Continue Reading →
Better decision-making for the planet
By Yasemin Saplakoglu We might think we have control of the mix of decisions we make during the day. But it turns out that our brain gives us subconscious nudges, preferring some choices over others. Continue Reading →
How cancer stem cells evade the immune system
By Yasemin Saplakoglu When Daniel D. Liu first encountered the world of research, he saw giants in white lab coats shaking flasks and squirting liquids into small vials. He was 4 years old, and his Continue Reading →
Historian and neuroscientist team up for podcast
By Yasemin Saplakoglu When history professor Julian Zelizer and neuroscientist Sam Wang started the podcast Politics and Polls prior to last year’s presidential election, they never dreamed it would still be going a year later. Continue Reading →
Egyptian translation highlights the beauty of hieroglyphs
By Catherine Zandonella Since he was in fourth grade, Tom Hare has been fascinated with Egypt. Although his career as a professor of comparative literature has focused mainly on Japanese works, he never forgot his Continue Reading →
Discovery provides a path to safe, clean, plentiful energy
By John Greenwald Fusion — the energy-producing reaction that powers our sun and most stars — can be a safe, clean and virtually limitless source for generating electricity on Earth, ending reliance on fossil fuels and Continue Reading →
Professor reflects on growing up undocumented and the power of books
By Jamie Saxon When Dan-el Padilla Peralta was 4, he and his parents left the Dominican Republic and traveled to the United States for better medical care for his mother. Although his father returned to Continue Reading →