Roxanne Shanté, considered by some to be a queen of hip hop, got Warner Music to pay for her PhD in psychology. Except, a Slate investigation says it never happened. [more inside]
posted by movicont on Sep 2, 2009 - 72 comments

"I can see the audience tonight, so I can see also from the size of it that there must many of you here who are not thoroughly familiar with physics, and also a number that are not too versed in mathematics- and I don't doubt that there are some who know neither physics nor mathematics very well. That puts a considerable challenge on a speaker who is going to speak on the relation of physics and mathematics- a challenge which I, however, will not accept: I published the title of the talk in clear and precise language, and didn't make it sound like it was something it wasn't- it's the relation of physics and mathematics - and if you find that in some spots it assumes some minor knowledge of physics or mathematics, I cannot help it. It was named." The Feynman Messenger series at Cornell has been made available online for the first time thanks to Bill Gates.
posted by hindmost on Jul 15, 2009 - 125 comments

The Cornell Historical Math Monographs archive has a great many famous papers, including works by De Morgan, Hamilton, Descartes (warning: French) and of course Lewis Carroll. [more inside]
posted by DU on Jun 15, 2009 - 7 comments

Our project is a fart intensity detector which ranks fart magnitude on a scale from 0-9 according to sound, temperature, and gas concentrations. Two Cornell EE students built a Fart Intensity Detection Station as a final project for Introduction to Microcontroller Programming. [more inside]
posted by clavicle on May 10, 2009 - 57 comments

"To make off with hubby's fortune, yea, I think I heard of that happenin' once or twice around L.A. And… you want me to do what exactly?" He found the paper bag he'd brought his supper home in and got busy pretending to scribble notes on it, because straight-chick uniform, makeup supposed to look like no makeup or whatever, here came that old well-known hard-on Shasta was always good for sooner or later. Does it ever end, he wondered. Of course it does. It did. Thomas Pynchon's next novel, the 416-page Inherent Vice, is described by Penguin Press as "part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon — private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog." While we wait for its August 4 publication, we can read an essay on the dystopian musical he co-wrote at Cornell or watch a clip of that movie they made of Gravity's Rainbow. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 6, 2009 - 76 comments

He holds a degree in jam-making. His stepmother is a former stripper by the name of Kandy Caine. He once appeared in a Backstreet Boys video. He's Senator Julian Polonius Foley Marcos DeWiki III, and he's running for President. (more) (via)
posted by Horace Rumpole on Oct 8, 2008 - 22 comments

Maybe you saw Minesweeper: The Movie. It's typical of Elephant Larry' s sweet, savvy sketch comedy. If you like the parody preview genre, don't miss out on Gummi Bears: The Movie. If you don't, try the short film "Baby, Fix That Fusebox!" or perhaps Tall Cop, Short Cop, which is directed by none other than John Landis. My personal favorites are WHIT Radio and the audio (and stage) sketch Francophone. And guess what? If you live in LA, you can see them for free tonight at the Comedy Central Stage.
posted by YoungAmerican on Sep 25, 2007 - 11 comments

In 1999, at the age of 93, legendary theoretical physicist Hans Bethe delivered three lectures on quantum theory to his neighbors at the Kendal of Ithaca retirement community (near Cornell University).
posted by panoptican on Feb 8, 2007 - 12 comments

RavenViewer. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers free sound analysis software that allows you to simultaneously listen to and watch spectograms of animal communication, such as the uncanny mimicry of a lovesick Satin Bowerbird or the chilling call of the Common Loon. If birds aren't your bag, there's lots of other animal sounds (and stunning video) to explore.
posted by melissa may on Dec 13, 2006 - 13 comments

Joseph Cornell was enamored with ballerinas and starlets, the subject of many of his celebrated boxes. "He handed them, personally, to his most loved ballerinas. And they were almost uniformly sent back. He was rejected, laughed at, and, in one unfortunate case, tackled." Anecdotes about Cornell and his muses, via robot wisdom. [more]
posted by madamjujujive on May 24, 2006 - 52 comments

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a great source for all kinds of information on our feathered friends. The bird identification section is particular useful. There are also NestCams.
posted by sciurus on Sep 26, 2005 - 6 comments

Quantum physics made relatively simple. Personal and historical perspectives of Hans Bethe, who has died at 98.
posted by liam on Mar 7, 2005 - 12 comments

Bridging the rift. A joint Israeli/Jordanian biological research centre straddling the border between the two nations is set to become operational in the near future. Scientists from Cornell and Stanford are involved as well. See what it'll look like (big PDF), and learn why studies of biosalinity and other forms of extreme biology are important.
posted by greatgefilte on Mar 4, 2005 - 9 comments

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you for your musical enjoyment: Intelligent MIDI Sequencing with Hamster Control
posted by NotMyselfRightNow on Feb 25, 2005 - 9 comments

Art In A Box! : Modern artist Joseph Cornell made a name for himself by creating minature collaged works in boxes back in the 1930s when collage was still a relatively new art form. While his works and life story are often romanticized, the fact remains that he was both incredibly creative and incredibly strange. Certainly one of American Art's finest. (see old mefi post from 9/02)
posted by grapefruitmoon on Jan 21, 2005 - 10 comments

Sustainable oil? Over the past few years there's been a growing theory that oil is not created from the decaying remains of ancient biological life but is in fact a product of the Earth's geological processes and that the current estimated oil reserves may be off by a factor of 100. This theory was made popular by Thomas Gold at Cornell way back in 1992 and has led to much more recent research (warning: heavy scientific conent) which supports the theory.
posted by PenDevil on Jul 15, 2004 - 31 comments

Sea-creatures in glass. In the late 19th Century, Dresden-based glass-artist Leopold Blaschka, together with his son, Rudolf, made scores of beautiful and intricate glass models of marine invertebrates. [First link via an e-mail from Alex Vaughan.]
posted by misteraitch on May 9, 2004 - 10 comments

What do big city women want.. men with money
posted by stbalbach on Jun 7, 2002 - 21 comments