News

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has announced the 2011 winners of the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes for outstanding reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean.

In an ongoing effort to broaden the University’s already extensive international perspective, Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger signed an agreement on Sept. 12 to establish a fifth Columbia Global Center, in Santiago, Chile—the University’s first in Latin America. 

As the city, nation and world pause to remember the 10th anniversary of the destruction and heroism that will forever mark lower Manhattan, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., Columbia University is commemorating the occasion with a range of programs rooted in its mission as a place of learning, research and reflection.

Out of the wreckage of the World Trade Center attacks and the events of 9/11 came some of the first large-scale research of mass trauma. The resulting findings have led to a broader understanding of how post-traumatic stress disorder can affect hundreds of thousands of people, not just individuals.

Dr. Sandro Galea, chair of the epidemiology department at the Mailman School of Public Health, is one of the leading researchers on the topic, having written some 50 articles on the subject of 9/11 and trauma.

Large-scale catastrophes such as war, earthquakes or floods typically occur…

A new study suggests that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans, was using advanced tool-making methods in East Africa 1.8 million years ago, at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The University is open today, Monday, August 29, and staff are expected to report to work.

When the Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns decided to collaborate on a movie about a deadly virus that ignites a global pandemic, they were determined that the film be firmly grounded in scientific fact, not science fiction. So Burns, the writer behind The Bourne Ultimatum, began consulting scientists for guidance. “When I asked who was the best virologist … who could help me create a believable virus and help spin out the ramifications," Burns remembers being told one name "without hesitation": Dr. Ian Lipkin.

Scott Snyder has always loved red wine, and recently his interest has extended well beyond the dinner table. Several years ago, the associate professor of chemistry became fascinated by the “French paradox,” the relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease among the French despite a diet high in saturated fats.

Scott Snyder Image credit: Eileen Barroso/Columbia University

The phenomenon has been linked to red wine consumption, and almost all the evidence points to a chemical called resveratrol. Although scientists have…

In the first study of its kind, researchers have linked a natural global climate cycle to periodic increases in warfare.

The magnitude 5.8 earthquake that shook central Virginia on Tuesday afternoon is one of the biggest earthquakes to hit the East Coast since 1897, and was comparable in strength to a quake on the New York-Canadian border in 1944, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 centered in northern Virginia that has been felt here in New York City, including on Columbia’s campuses.

Special from The Record 

For years, Iranian studies scholar Ehsan Yarshater was frustrated that there was only one comprehensive and reliable reference for his field. It was E.J. Brill’s Encyclopaedia of Islam, which did not cover pre-Islamic Iran.

Professor Ehsan Yarshater discusses the challenges of compiling the Encyclopaedia Iranica in his book-lined office. Image credit: Eileen Barroso/Columbia University

Another encyclopedia was needed, so he decided to create it himself. In 1974, Yarshater began a decades-long…

Researchers returning from a cruise some 250 miles off the coast of Oregon have reported seeing a volcanic eruption on the seafloor that they accurately forecast five years ago—the first successful prediction of an undersea eruption. T

A new study co-authored by Columbia Engineering professor Kartik Chandran and recently published in the journal, Environmental Science & Technology, shows that reducing nitrogen pollution generated by wastewater treatment plants can come with "sizable" economic benefits, as well as the expected benefits for the environment.