News
Columbia history professor William R. Leach’s interests cross over many fields—and meadows too. As a lifelong butterfly collector, Leach has traversed open fields, streambeds and orchards in pursuit of the flying insects whose metamorphosis from fuzzy caterpillar to beautiful winged creature has inspired generations of artists and poets. Now he has parlayed his experience into a book showing how butterfly collecting was at the heart of America’s enthusiasm for the natural world in the decades after the Civil War.
Large earthquakes from distant parts of the globe are setting off tremors around waste-fluid injection wells in the central United States, says a new study. Furthermore, such triggering of minor quakes by distant events could be precursors to larger events at sites where pressure from waste injection has pushed faults close to failure, say researchers.
Psychologists and criminal defense attorneys have long argued that the adolescent brain is different from the brain of a child or an adult. The only problem? They couldn’t prove it. Now, with the help of advances in technology, a team of experts—including Columbia Law School Professor Elizabeth S. Scott—has set out to answer questions about how adolescent brain functioning differs from that of adults and how such differences may affect behavior and decision making. What they learn may have huge implications for the way the legal system determines adolescent culpability and punishment. Scott,…
Professor Adam Galinsky is power hungry. For more than a decade, he has studied the role of power as a psychological force, both its behavioral effects and the practical implications of having power and feeling powerful.
Looking at how sensory information is processed in rats, Dr. Randy Bruno found that signals are processed in two parts of the cortex simultaneously rather than in series—almost as if there are two brains.
Classic authors and digital technology clicked at an April celebration marking the 75th anniversary of the undergraduate Core Curriculum course, Literature Humanities.
A new initiative at Columbia University Medical Center is focused on improving physical and mental health care for gay, lesbian, bisexual and especially transgender individuals.
Merit E. Janow is a leading expert in international trade and investment with extensive experience in academia, government and business, with life-long experience in the Asia-Pacific region.
For American colleges and universities, today’s Supreme Court ruling in "Fisher v. University of Texas" is most significant for its reaffirmation of the educational value in preserving our decades-old ability to assemble racially and culturally diverse student bodies that advance our mission.
When scientists talk about climate change, they usually mean significant changes in the measures of climate over several decades or longer. Climate variability generally refers to seasonal changes over a year or so.
Most archives are designed to accumulate material. One collection at Columbia is working to give some of its holdings away. Columbia’s Center for Ethnomusicology is returning a rare trove of traditional music to a Native American community.
Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger and Lee Goldman, dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine, announced today that Christian S. Stohler, DMD, DrMedDent, has been named dean of the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine and senior vice president of Columbia University Medical Center, effective August 1, 2013.