Yonath linked widespread use of antibiotics to increased human life expectancy. Her work on ribosomes has offered insight into helping researchers understand antibiotic resistance.

Yonath won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009 for her work determining the structure of ribosomes using cryo-crystallography, which freezes cellular components so they can be viewed with X-rays. Yonath and her research team developed the technique in conjunction with the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), a powerful synchrotron X-ray facility.

Their technique was shown to measure down to 0.39 ångströms or 0.039 nanometers (one-billionth of a meter).

Guinness World Records has officially recognized the Cornell collaboration’s achievement, listing it alongside such notables as Robert Pershing Wadlow (at 8 feet, 11.1 inches, the world’s tallest human) and Lee Redmond (longest fingernails, with a combined length of 28 feet, 4 inches).

Cobalt oxide nanomaterials, in particular Co₃O₄ nanoparticles, are promising candidates for use in batteries, supercapacitors, and as electrocatalysts. The Robinson Group, in the Materials Science and Engineering department at Cornell University, has discovered important insights into methods to produce Co₃O₄ nanoparticles in a simple air oxidation process [1]. The nanoparticles have a high ratio of {110} surface planes making them ideal for use as catalysts.

The furnace is based on a design originally brought to G1 by John Hart’s group (MIT, then at University of Michigan) to study fabrication and kinetic effects in carbon nano-tube forests. The furnace uses highly doped, single-crystal silicon as the sample stage and heater. The temperature response is fast (~100C/second), accurate, and results in relatively little sample motion from thermal expansion. The furnace can be operated in air or under gas flow, and exchanging samples is straightforward and fast.

The new glovebox provides users with an air and moisture free environment to store and prepare air sensitive samples for measurement at CHESS. Currently the glovebox provides a dry nitrogen environment; however, future upgrades will allow users to select nitrogen, argon, or helium environments dependent upon experimental needs. During the fall x-ray running period the glovebox was installed and commissioned MBraun and tested by two local Cornell experimental groups.

This note describes a sequence of upgrades to CHESS and the CESR source that culminate in a 100,000-fold increase in spectral brightness and a 1000-fold increase in flux, on par with the best continuous duty hard x-ray sources world-wide. The spectral brightness and the flux through a pinhole 30m from the source for this sequence of upgrades and other leading sources are shown in the following figure.

When Lora Hine, director of educational programs at the Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-Based Sciences and Education, asked me to co-coach a FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team this past fall, I hesitated. After all, when I was a kid, I would never have joined a robotics team. I had no interest in gadgets, technology or computer programming. I didn't even like science, which seemed to be all about memorizing facts.

It replaces the original (30 year old) CHESS 4-circle, and provides many new capabilities. This system weighs 4600 pounds together with its support table engineered by Alan Pauling, based on an APS Sector 7 design. The table was built for CHESS in New York State, by Keller Engineering in Buffalo.