3-23-2023 entire issue hi res

Congressmen Confer

Former representatives Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Max Rose (D-N.Y.) discussed centrism at a Tuesday panel. |

Examining Exoplanets

In a new study, Cornell astronomers explore the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres.

B.J. Novak Shares Stories, Refects on Comedy Career

Te producer, writer and star of "Te Ofce" visited campus on Sunday for a live Q&A in Barton Hall

By ISABELA PEREZ Sun Staff Writer

Over 1,300 Cornellians gathered in Barton Hall on Sunday for “An Evening with B.J. Novak,” a live, student-run event with the actor. Novak, who is best known for producing, writing and starring in “The Office,” visited Cornell to discuss his career, past projects and experiences as a Jewish-American working in the entertainment industry.

The night consisted of a 30-minute moderated question and answer session led by senior lecturer Elliot Shapiro, who teaches Jewish Studies 2790: Jewish Films and Filmmakers: Hollywood and Beyond, followed by another half-hour of questions from the audience. Student volunteers from the show’s co-sponsors — Cornell University Programming Board and Cornell Hillel — helped coordinate and facilitate both portions of the event.

CUPB is a student-run organization that brings speakers, comedians, athletes and other public figures to campus. As their biggest of the year, Novak’s event required months of planning, including hiring an outside professional production company to build a temporary stage. CUPB also gathered 40 student volunteers to check tickets, usher in audience members and work security detail.

Natalie Baker ’25, one of the student volunteers who worked the event, has been a member of CUPB since September. She was stationed at the front door on Sunday and checked attendees’

tickets until the show began.

“I had an awesome time working as a volunteer. It was exciting to see so many different student organizations come together to work on the show, and satisfying to watch so many people’s hard work come to fruition,” Baker said. “As for B.J. Novak himself, he was hilarious and put on a great show. It was overall a very positive experience.”

Throughout the event, Novak rewatched clips from one of the “The Office” episodes that he wrote — such as “The Fire” — and spoke about his experience on the show. He recalled memories of working with the cast and reflected on how his writing process has developed since the show aired.

Although Novak is a widely-known actor, student organizers worried that the event would struggle to attract enough students to fill Barton Hall’s seats. Miriam Canter ’24, CUPB executive chair, commented on the difficulties of achieving a significant turnout to campus events.

“There’s an attention economy at Cornell,” Canter said. “There are so many people who are so busy doing their own thing and so much activity on this campus that often our biggest hurdle is just getting people to know about the event.”

To help spread the word and get more campus involvement, CUPB often partners with other clubs to co-sponsor the events.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

First Woman Census Director Bryant '47 Remembered as Pioneer

By AIMÉE EICHER Sun Assistant Managing Editor

Barbara Everitt Bryant ’47 fulfilled many roles throughout her lifetime — Cornell student, mother, friend and, notably, first woman director of the United States Census Bureau.

Following her passing on March 3 at age 96, Bryant’s former colleagues and friends shared praises and stories of her accomplishments.

“I am sad to share the news of the passing of Barbara Everitt Bryant, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau and the first

woman to hold that office, at age 96,” wrote current Census Director Robert Santos in a blog post on March 3. “Dr. Bryant was a trailblazer and a champion of quality survey methods.”

Bryant is survived by her three children, as well as her eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Bryant was born on April 5, 1926 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She went on to study physics at Cornell — the same school her parents, 1920 graduate William L. Everitt and 1923 graduate Dorothy Wallace, also attended — with hopes of becoming a science writer.

After earning her B.A., she served as an editor for McGraw Hill’s “Chemical Engineering” magazine in 1947 before becoming a science journalist for the University of Illinois in 1948.

In 1949, Bryant decided to leave the workforce. She started a family with her husband, John H. Bryant, with whom she remained married for 48 years.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

COURTESEY OF SENECA 7 / MAP DATA ©GOOGLE 2023

Runners Gear Up for Seneca 7 Relay Race

By JIWOOK JUNG and ANNINA BRADLEY Sun City Editor and Sun Contributor

The number “seven” has been a constant for Seneca 7, an annual distance relay race. On April 23, over 300 teams of seven runners will convene at 7 a.m. in downtown Geneva, New York to run a 77.7 mile race looping around Seneca Lake.

At the start line, some teams will don unique costumes — dressed as matching chickens or Dr. Seuss characters — while others will sport the Cornell Running Club racing jersey.

“We usually get somewhere between 2,000 to 2,500 people,” said Jackie Augustine, one of the two co-founders of Seneca 7 race, Geneva city councilor for 16 years and former instructor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. “This year we’ll have about 2,300 racers, making for about 330 teams.”

Along with co-founder Jeff Henderson, Augustine originally began working with Hobart and William Smith College students in 2011 to establish the race, aiming to grow Geneva’s tourism. Her initiative to showcase Seneca Lake’s beauty and fuel local economic growth has mushroomed since then. This fall, the race registration, with an entry fee of $577.77 per team, sold out on its first day.

“[We wanted] to put together some kind of event that would merge those interests between community, economic development and sustainable race practices,” Augustine said.

Besides making for a picturesque race course, Seneca Lake is the main drinking water source for the immediate region surrounding Geneva, according to Augustine.

Boba Bonanza Stacey Roy '25 reviews four bubble tea classics at Toni Morrison Hall's Crossings Café.

Remembering Bryant | Barbara Bryant '47, the first woman to direct the U.S. Census Bureau, testifies before a House panel in 1990. She was praised by colleagues following her passing on March 3.

Office aficionado | B.J. Novak tells stories of writing and starring in "The Office" in Barton Hall.

LENOX CAO/ SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Aimée Eicher can be reached at aeicher@cornellsun.com.

Isabela Perez can be reached at iperez@cornellsun.com.

Daybook

Thursday, March 23, 2023

A LISTING OF FREE CAMPUS EVENTS Today

Waiting for the People: The Idea of Democracy in Indian Anticolonial Thought

11:25 a.m. - 12:40 p.m., Virtual Event

An Introduction to Intuitive Eating 3 p.m. - 4 p.m., Virtual Event

Jewish Histories of the Modern Middle East: “The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship Across the Modern Mediterranean” 5 p.m., 110 White Hall

Wells Chandler: Artist Talk

5:15 p.m., Abby and Howard Milstein Auditorium, Milstein Hall

Visas After Graduation

5:30 p.m., Virtual Event

Tomorrow

From College to Beyond: Tech Sector Noon, 429 Rockefeller Hall

Anna Zivarts: Nondrivers Are Right — Why Those of Us Waiting for the Bus Are Tomorrow’s Transportation and Climate Leaders

12:25 p.m., Abby and Howard Milstein Auditorium, Milstein Hall

Brazilian Cinema: “Aquarius” by Prof. Carolyn Fornoff, Romance Studies

12:25 p.m., G08 Uris Hall

An Interactive Introduction to Southeast Asian Manuscripts at Cornell 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m., 2B48 Kroch Library

Topics in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Accessibility 4:30 p.m. - 6 p.m., 401 Warren Hall

Congressmen Champion Centrism

Guest lecturers emphasize importance of bipartisanship

By JONATHAN MONG Sun News Editor

In an effort to bring civility and centrist-minded politics to America’s doorstep, former House representatives Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.) visited campus on Tuesday for a lecture called “Searching for the Center.”

The Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy sponsored the event as part of its Learning and Leading Through Difference Initiative, which the Cornell Roosevelt Institute co-sponsored. Arranged by No Labels — an organization seeking ballot access to run a bipartisan “unity ticket” in 2024 if both parties select nominees that are too extreme — the panel was moderated by Liz Morrison, No Labels’s co-executive director.

Upton represented Michigan’s fourth congressional district from 1987 to 1992 and its sixth congressional district from 1993 to 2022 before retiring, while Rose represented New York’s 11th congressional district from 2018 to 2020 before losing to Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) in 2020 and again in 2022.

While in Congress, Upton served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and was its chairman from 2010 to 2016. Rose, who was in the Army from 2010 to 2014, served on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs and the House Committee on Homeland Security during his lone term in office.

Both Upton and Rose were ranked as moderate to centrist by Govtrack, a website that tracks legislators’ political ideologies. They served together on the Problem Solvers Caucus during

Rose’s term.

Following a brief introduction in which both representatives explained their paths to Capitol Hill, Upton and Rose launched into a discussion about political polarization in the United States, occasionally guided by questions from Morrison or from the audience.

Early in the lecture, Rose highlighted what he called the “TMZ-ification” of American politics as a reason why members of Congress were becoming more extreme than in the past, adding that members of Congress now needed to have brands of their own and market themselves to capitalize on financial opportuni-

Kim ’01 Awarded Again For Technical Achievement

said. “It’s 435 independent contractors, each with significant egos and each with significant purpose. And each with relatively thin skin and a big, big megaphone.”

Recalling his own experience voting on bills during the COVID-19 pandemic, Upton then pointed out that representatives often did not encounter each other for long periods of time due to proxy voting, which impacted personal relationships and isolated members. Republicans have since eliminated proxy voting — in which representatives had the ability to authorize another representative to vote on their behalf based on specific instructions — after gaining control over the House in the 2022 midterm elections.

By MARIAN CABALLO Sun Assistant News Editor

From Hogwarts’s sorting hat to Buzz Lightyear’s spacesuit, Theodore Kim ’01 has helped bring iconic creations to life on the big screen. A former computer science undergraduate and postdoctoral associate at Cornell, Kim received his second Technical Achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Feb. 24 SciTech award ceremony in Los Angeles.

Business Manager Katie Chen ’25

ties prior to leaving office.

“So many members are motivated by these different forces that don’t have anything actually to do with legislative progress. They have to do with, how many retweets did you get? How many small-dollar donations?” Rose said. “There are these weird, perverse incentives pushing people along each and every day. You don’t get on TV for passing bold legislation nearly enough. You get on TV for dividing, for saying things that are incendiary.”

However, Rose went on to highlight Congress’s bipartisanship in recent years, though he hedged his statements by saying that congressional business often revolves around personal politics and relationships.

“[Politics] isn’t a normal business where people ‘get it,’” Rose

“The last vote that I cast was to keep the government open on Dec. 27 with a couple of trillion dollars, because it is called the omnibus appropriation bill,” Upton said. “More than half of my colleagues who voted… on that bill voted by proxy. They weren’t there in person, because [proxy voting] was allowed because of COVID.”

Following the moderated portion of the lecture, Upton and Rose answered questions from the audience on a variety of topics — ranging from how to bring people on both ends of the political spectrum together, to the barriers that they have seen affecting female and minority members of Congress, to questions about their staffers.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

Kim, now an associate professor of computer science at Yale University, was awarded alongside former Pixar Animated Studios collaborators David Eberle, Fernando de Goes and Audrey Wong for designing and developing the Fizt2 elastic simulation system.

Fizt2 — which stands for “physics tool version 2.0,” according to Kim — is an improved iteration of an earlier Pixar program called Fizt, a physics-based cloth simulator co-developed by David Baraff Ph.D. ’92. Fizt2 was developed to model the dynamics of clothing and other soft materials with more complexity, making animations believable in situations that deviate from reality.

“If you only simulate the clothing of characters [with Fizt], and the animator is given control of the body, the animator can do all sorts of things with the body that actually can’t happen in real life,” Kim said.

Defying the laws of physics in a physics-based simulator, however, causes some undesired outcomes.

“[Animators] would then try to push those animated characters through the cloth simulator, and a lot of times it would just explode. The physics simulator starts to

work against you,” Kim said. Among various improvements, Kim specifically helped incorporate volume simulation capabilities into Fizt2. According to Kim, volume simulation helps Fizt2 realistically model complex interactions between objects like fingers and cloth, especially in difficult situations where parts of animated characters self-intersect. This technology assists animators like Wong, one of Kim’s fellow honorees and Fizt2 co-developers, in more efficiently exercising creativity and physical realism. According to Kim, before Fizt2, Wong would have to go back to her animation and fix the cloth by hand.

Unlike those receiving other Academy Awards, projects receiving scientific and technical honors can be developed in years prior. Winning projects must demonstrate significant contributions to the movie-making process. From Woody’s pull string in “Toy Story 4” to flowy skirts in “Coco,” Kim’s technology has been used to enhance realism in many recent popular animated movies — including “Cars 3,” “Turning Red,” “Onward,” “Lightyear” and “Incredibles 2.”

“We went out [to Los Angeles] last April to present to the Science and Technology council what our contribution [to the moviemaking process] is,” Kim said, noting that the team started work on the project in 2015. “Our technology was used in nine movies before we even applied.”

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

E-MAIL sunmailbox@cornellsun.com

“People didn’t really care if I had an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ next to my name. …They just want the job done.”

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.)

Jonathan Mong can be reached at jmong@cornellsun.com.

Marian Caballo can be reached at mcaballo@cornellsun.com.

Seneca 7 Relay Race Plans to Hit the Ground Running

and stewardship.”

Each year, Seneca 7 race organizers put together a course guide that highlights points of ecological advocacy regarding lake and watershed health.

“[Seneca Lake] has been subject to many threats and challenges in recent years. [For example], there was a huge Bitcoin mining operation on Seneca Lake,” Augustine said. “We just want people to see the area not just for beauty, but [to] understand how critically important it is ecologically and to have a sense of ownership

In a statement to The Sun, Rebecca Barr, a sophomore at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and president of the school’s running club, reflected on Seneca Lake’s year-round importance to local students.

“[Seneca Lake is] a place where students can gather and spend time during the summer, a time for relaxation and fun,” Barr wrote.

This year, Augustine said Seneca 7 is partnering with twenty-five charitable organizations and local businesses, including Habitat for Humanity, Family Counseling of the Finger

Lakes and the Geneva Family YMCA. These charities volunteer at the relay’s 20 exchange points, serving water and cheering on runners. The race’s proceeds, which usually reach approximately $20,000, are then equitably donated to the partner organizations.

“[Henderson and Augustine] are always very community-minded and think about supporting the local organizations that serve our shared community,” said Mary Bakogiannis, executive director of Geneva Family YMCA, which has worked with Seneca 7 since its inaugural year. “All donations that we get are very very important to our annual operations here. They help support the programs and services that we offer to the people that we serve in the community — children and seniors.”

In just a few weeks, teams will travel from as far as Canada and Colorado to complete the 77.7-mile race course. Cornell Running Club plans to send three teams this year. Julia Allen ’23, the club’s co-president, woke up early on last year’s Halloween morning to secure 21 race spots.

Cornell Running Club has participated in Seneca 7 for the last several years, including in 2020 when the race was made virtual. Co-president Jack Lynch ’23 recounted his participating in the virtual race from his hometown of Evanston, Illinois.

Between their respective race legs, he and his teammates conversed over a Zoom call. As soon as the runner preceding him re-appeared on screen, Lynch immediately stepped outside to run his leg through his hometown neighborhood. Even across a laptop screen, Lynch said, the Seneca 7’s community building persisted.

Now, the race is back in full swing for its second year in person after COVID-19. Augustine, who now works as the executive director of the non-profit Blueprint Geneva, said she felt the Seneca 7 would benefit from a fresh perspective, leading her to seek out a new organizer for the race. She and Henderson recently handed the leadership baton off to Ian Golden, an Ithaca local and owner of Finger Lakes Running Company.

“I really wanted to make sure that [the race] was going to be in the hands of someone who shared those core values of commitment to the community, sustainability, and appreciation of natural resources,” Augustine said. “Ian … really impressed me with his spirit of service and his personal values … I felt like I was really leaving [the race] in good hands.”

Seneca 7 continues to champion environmentally friendly practices. Race T-shirts are domestically produced with ecologically sensitive inks by Ithaca resident Kaya Donaj-Keys. Seneca 7 also encourages teams to sign up with biking groups, in which racers bike as a team to and from their relay legs, rather than using a team car. Biking teams save parking space at exchange zones and help reduce the race’s carbon footprint.

Yet, team cars, decorated with window markers and race-day spirit, remain a special part of Seneca 7 for many runners.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

Ad Desker Stella Wang ’24

Managing Desker Aimée Eicher ’24

Associate Desker Noah Do ’24

Deskers Eric Reilly ’25

Hu '24 Science Desker Tenzin Kunsang ’25 Dining Desker Kyle Roth ’25

Photography Desker Julia Nagel ’24

Working on today’s sun

Dining Guide

Crossings Café’s Bubble Tea Cross it O f Your List

By STACEY ROY Sun Contributor

On one fateful evening, I was channeling my inner lofi anime study girl on the first floor of Toni Morrison Hall when a psychedelic rainbow sign near the Crossings Café order kiosks caught my eye:

“Now Serving Bubble Tea Available Near You!”

I was intrigued. Like the average Cornell boba rat, I enjoy a good bubble tea here and there but seldom find the time for a trip to U-Tea or Kung-Fu Tea. Now that it was available in the convenience of my dorm building on campus, I wanted to test how four flavors of the new bubble tea in Toni Morrison Hall’s Crossings Café would size up to the popular classics I order most frequently in Collegetown.

Taking a leap of faith, I decided to spend 16 BRBs to try the Thai, taro, Japanese green tea and strawberry boba flavors.

At first glance, it is nearly impossible to differentiate between most of the drinks. The barista who prepared my order was gracious enough to place them in the same order as the receipt, but otherwise, you really wouldn’t be able to discern a Japanese green tea from a Thai milk tea. The Japanese green tea was more golden than green, while the taro looked gray more than anything.

On to my opinions on the flavors:

TARO: 5/10

The first sip hit me with that all too familiar starchy and saccharine wave of taro flavor, similar to what they use at U-Tea or Kung Fu — no complaints there. Yet, something was amiss. Did they use rice or soy milk this time instead of whole?

The more I sipped, the sooner I realized… there wasn’t any milk in the base. The taro flavor was one of the more concentrated milk teas I tried, which isn’t saying much. My dearest friends, it only goes downhill from here.

JAPANESE GREEN TEA: 3/10

A watery, murky mess. The subtle, earthy notes of green tea were lacking and left to the consumer’s imagination. The drink was overwhelmingly watery, but where there were hints of the green tea powder, the bitterness was overpowering. This drink would have been significantly better with the addition of a sweet and thicker base such as oat or evaporated milk to bring out the softer flavor notes.

THAI: 2/10

A good Thai milk tea is sweet and complex, bringing out a blend of herbs unique to Assam black tea such as pandan leaf, cardamom and cinnamon. Yet, it’s hard for me to describe the taste of this drink because I found it difficult to taste… anything.

I am biased because Thai milk tea is my favorite drink, and to bastardize it in this way brings

tears to my eyes, but it tasted as though someone had whispered the words “Thai Milk Tea” into the drink instead of infusing the beverage with the actual flavor.

STRAWBERRY: 7/10

While advertised as a milk tea on the order kiosks, the Strawberry Milk Tea resembled a Starbucks fruit tea refresher, which I wasn’t complaining about. Although it was a refreshing contrast from the flavorless concoctions I had sampled for the last ten minutes, the drink was pure sugar. It was extremely concentrated, fruity and, in my professional opinion, a good mixer for other special drinks you may have at home (wink wink). Yet, throughout the mediocrity of the drinking experience, there was one common denominator that exponentially worsened the entire taste-test. Absolutely nothing could have prepared me for the tapioca.

Compared to how tapioca is conventionally soaked in syrup, honey or brown sugar, the bubbles tasted as if they were simply boiled in water and stirred into the drink. The complete lack of sweetness in conjunction with the chewiness of the pearls made for a downright nightmarish textural experience. Overall, I did not enter this review with the highest expectations for Crossings Café. I’m very loyal to my girlies in Collegetown and I wouldn’t trade the quality of a Dirty Milk Brown Sugar for anything concocted in the bowels of North Campus.

Rather, I came into this tastetest expecting that the Crossings’ boba could at least serve as a desperate girl’s substitute — that when I have completely slept through my morning alarms and missed the mandatory class I’ve already accumulated three absences for, in my slumberful confusion, I could

temporarily quench my desolate thirst with a cold and comforting classic Thai milk tea awaiting downstairs. Alas, what a terrible fool I was!

In my professional opinion, the two simple acts of using an authentic milk base and soaking the boiled tapioca for at least thirty minutes in a sugar syrup would make a universe of difference for the quality of the drink. Unfortunately, I cannot say with any amount of honesty that these drinks in their current state are worth the Big Red Bucks, and I don’t know if I can ever financially recover from this. Do not be fooled by the convenient allure of the Crossings Café bubble tea — you’re better off making the trip to C-Town.

Stacey Roy is a sophomore in the College of Industrial and Labor Relations. She can be reached at sr855@cornell.edu

PAREESAY AFZAL ’24 Senior Editor

Letter to the Editor

Re: “Ignoring Cornell’s COVID Critics is Unforgivable”

To the Editor:

Last week, Cullen O’Hara ’23 wrote a Letter to the Editor claiming that two Cornell Daily Sun journalists, in their article “Three Years Since COVID-19 Lockdown, Cornellians Reflect on Pandemic,” failed to fairly represent the beliefs of the Cornell population. I would like to argue against O’Hara’s claims and articulate a defense for these two journalists.

O’Hara argues that these two journalists intentionally shed a positive light on Cornell’s COVID-19 policies and failed to include opposing viewpoints. However, in accordance with journalistic standards, Eicher and Rubinson conducted interviews through random sampling. On a campus that is composed of a liberal majority these two writers penned an article that is representative of the beliefs of Cornell’s population — even if it is not the view that O’Hara aligns with.

O’Hara also focuses on a quote from CeCi Rodriguez ’26, conveying why she believes that the mask mandate should be reinstated. O’Hara states, “Ceci Rodriguez ’26, made demonstrably false assertions in a ludicrous argument for reinstituting masking, but Eicher and Rubinson made no attempt to contextualize or disprove her claims.” Eicher and Rubinson clearly provide the proper context for Rodriguez’s quote in two ways. First, the quote is included in the section of the article called “The Aftermath,” which discusses the later phases of the pandemic (including protecting immunocompromised individuals). Second, it’s stated that Rodriguez has three autoimmune conditions causing her to suffer immensely from viruses like the common cold. With this context, it makes perfect sense that Rodriguez would be in favor of masking in all buildings on campus. The focus of Eicher and Rubinson’s piece was to highlight Cornellians’ pandemic experiences, not to assess the merits of Cornell’s COVID-19 policies.

O’Hara’s agenda is not only to criticize Cornell’s COVID-19 policy, rather he is critiquing free speech and viewpoint diversity on campus (and he does this through attacking The Sun). He implies that The Sun does not represent the viewpoints of the conservative minority on campus. The Sun has published multiple pieces that criticize or disagree with the university’s pandemic policies. In fact, The Sun’s willingness to publish O’Hara’s article represents The Sun’s commitment to viewpoint diversity.

O’Hara goes on to lament the “victims” of “Cornell’s COVID-19 regime” who he believes are the class of 2020 “who lost their commencement ceremony and senior spring semester” and the students “who were made to mask, test and isolate continuously.” What about the approximately 7 million people that died of COVID-19? What about the person who had to say their final goodbyes to their loved ones over a computer screen? What about the people left without the grandparents, parents, siblings and friends who died of COVID-19? aThe victims of COVID-19 are not the Cornell students who didn’t get to live the normal college experience. If anything, Cornell students were particularly lucky to live on campus during a time when most colleges functioned remotely. O’Hara states that “Ignoring the critics is unforgivable,” but the only unforgivable thing is the ease with which he reduces human life to something meaningless. Prioritizing human life is never regrettable.

Rebecca Sparacio ’24

Isaac Chasen Cut

False Equivalency and Campus Politics

In the vast majority of countries across the world, universities are places where faculty, students and staff are free to study and pursue whatever passions most drive them. They are where students are prepared to enter the fields of their choosing and to make themselves and the world around them better. In general, universities, especially ones that stand for values like Cornell’s, are places where the free exchange of ideas must thrive.

As a result, Cornell must also be a place where students learn to advocate for their ideas in a civil, compassionate, respectful space. We need to become better at communicating our ideas on the merits of the ideas themselves, rather than as vehicles for personal grievances. So I wanted to talk about a trend that I’ve been noticing in our campus politics, one that increasingly threatens that civil exchange of ideas: Whataboutism and false equivalency.

Whataboutism, in the context of politics, is the practice of responding to an idea or question by creating a completely unrelated question or accusation about the other person, group or party. For example, if you were to say something like, “Joey hates pizza, so he doesn’t know anything about food — his opinion should not be trusted,” whataboutism would be if I were to respond, “well, what about Johnny, who hates ice cream?” There would’ve been so many better ways to respond to your point, other than lobbing an unrelated accusation about someone else. It can also be described as false equivalency, in which one makes a faulty comparison between two unrelated subjects in an inconsistent attempt to equalize them.

Unfortunately, whataboutism and false equivalency are used in much more serious contexts than the discussion of who likes pizza and ice cream. It has been used to justify violence and political persecution in autocratic nations like Russia and China, who have deflected from their human rights abuses by pointing to perceived issues in other nations. It has also been used to inflame partisanship here in the United States and at Cornell.

But most importantly, whataboutism prevents any sort of accountability from taking root in our political systems. It allows folks in campus politics, on all sides of the political spectrum, to avoid responsibility for incendiary words and actions, and permits people to deflect from half-truths and falsehoods by pointing out unrelated ones on the other side. And if people are not made to answer for their damaging behavior, they will believe it is acceptable, and they will

continue to engage in it.

In recent years, whataboutism and false equivalency have played a significant role in the deterioration of our campus politics. The lack of accountability for rampant falsehoods, half-truths and inconsistencies has led to a rise in partisanship, including hate and harassment of students for their beliefs, and even attempts to force Cornell to take unilateral action against students simply exercising their right to free speech.

It has contributed to unwarranted personal attacks against students taking stands on complex, multifaceted issues for the purpose of scoring cheap political points. This is unacceptable, especially in a place that prides itself on the values of free expression, academic freedom and the right to assemble and demonstrate on campus.

It’s time for change in our campus politics. Let’s start by calling out whataboutism and false equivalency when we see it and forcing ourselves to engage in discussions on the merits of our ideas, rather than through personal grievances. This will help create accountability in our campus politics, and create accountability across the Cornell community.

Additionally, let’s stop assuming the worst in our political leaders. If both sides stop assuming the other has bad intentions, we no longer have an excuse to engage in this damaging behavior. We do not have to agree on everything, but we must respect each other despite our differences.

We have all seen no shortage of commentary saying that we are a divided people, and that our politics have become increasingly all-consuming. I would respond that it is our responsibility, as individuals and within the Cornell community, to take accountability for that division, rather than deflect with whataboutism and false equivalency. Only then can we reject hate and division, and build a campus community of trust, responsibility and free expression.

But most importantly, whataboutism prevents any sort of accountability from taking root in our political systems.

ESPIONNAGE

Fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1-9 exactly once. Each number in the solution therefore occurs only once in each of the three “directions,” hence the “single numbers” implied by the puzzle’s name. (Rules from wikipedia.org/wiki/ Sudoku)

Bear with Me

26 APARTMENT FOR RENT

We have availability for the 2023-2024 school year beginning June 1st at Hudson Heights apartments. These studios include electric, heat, water, garbage and parking. Coin-operated laundry facilities available on site. Prices start at $850/month for a 12 month lease, with options for 10 month leases with different rates. If you have any questions or would like to schedule a tour contact us by email: renting@ithacaLS.com. Please visit our website www.ithacalivingsolutions.com for photos and more information.

1 Bedroom Apartment Downtown

Available Aug. 1 (or as early as June 1) Ideal for grad, staff or working professional. Upstairs apartment with full bath, living room, kitchen, bedroom and porch overlooking street. Quiet downtown area on Cascadila St. Bus stop in front of house to Commons, then CU campus. No undergrads, no smokers, no pets. References required. $1025/mo plus util. Info or appointment: email gm27@cornell.edu

Johnny Woodruff

Johnny Woodruff

Johnny Woodruff

SC I ENCE

New Research From Weill Cornell Identifies Key Difference Between Human, Mouse Tumor Cells

By KAITLIN CHUNG Sun Contributor

Twelve researchers at Weill Cornell, along with numerous colleagues from across the United States, published a study earlier this month identifying a critical metabolic difference between human and mouse lung tumor cells, which explains a discrepancy in previous findings and suggests new pathways for developing cancer treatments.

Their work focuses on lung adenocarcinoma, a common cancer that affects the outer edges of the lungs and is difficult to treat because of its aggression. Researchers have traditionally used mouse models to study lung adenocarcinoma pathology. However, previous work found that tumor growth in mouse models does not always align with clinical observations in human patients. This study explains the divergence by identifying a specific gene mutation with different effects on tumor development in humans and mice.

In patients with lung adenocarcinoma, the three most common independent mutations that occur are in genes called LKB1, KRAS and TP53. Benjamin Stein — a cancer biology instructor at Weill Cornell and co-lead

author of the paper — found a disconnect in the role that these genes play in regulating lung cancer metabolism in humans versus mice. Metabolism is the process by which cells create energy to fuel growth, signaling and other functions. In cancer cells, metabolism is dramatically increased to support rapid proliferation.

Clinical data showed that LKB1, KRAS and TP53 mutations rarely co-occurred in humans. Two of the mutations would commonly occur together but rarely all three at once. This led scientists to believe that once a tumor acquired two of the mutations, acquiring a third would be disadvantageous for rapid growth.

When testing this hypothesis on mice models, researchers discovered that the combination of all three mutations created a highly aggressive cancer, which contradicted the initial hypothesis. This discrepancy influenced Stein to begin a new project at Weill Cornell.

Stein partnered with co-lead author Dr. John Ferrarone, a medical oncology instructor at Weill Cornell, to further study the effects of LKB1, KRAS and TP53 mutations in mouse models and human cell cultures.

Specifically, Stein and

Ferrarone focused on LKB1, a master kinase that regulates how a cell responds to metabolic stress. A kinase is a protein that phosphorylates other proteins, creating a signaling cascade. They looked at tumors with natural KRAS and TP53 mutations and then disrupted LKB1 to study the LKB1-signaling pathway.

The researchers applied a variety of scientific technologies to study the effects of LKB1 — such as CRISPR-Cas9, a genetic engineering tool, and mass spectrometry, an analytic technique for observing changes in a set of proteins in a cell.

“The power of mass spectrometry is that you can ask very broad questions with high precision. We looked globally at the proteome and substrates of kinases in metabolism,” Stein said. “Using genetic tools like CRISPR-Cas9 in concert with these global technologies allows us to control the biology and make precise changes to specific cells and ask how that single change is affecting metabolism globally.”

The methods revealed a critical difference in the LKB1-driven regulation of metabolism in humans and mice, which can be attributed to differences in how humans and mice regulate the metabolic enzyme triose phos-

phate isomerase. This enzyme catalyzes glycolysis, a process that creates energetic compounds from sugar in the early stages of metabolism.

In mouse models, mutating LKB1 had a positive effect on the regulation of TPI1, offering a metabolic advantage that accelerated proliferation. In human cell cultures, however, mutating LKB1 in the same context inhibited the ability of tumor cells to regulate TPI1 and metabolism.

These findings explain why the LKB1, KRAS and TP53 mutations rarely co-occur in human cancer — the co-occurrence of all three mutations is detrimental to rapid cell growth.

According to Stein and Ferrarone, the study results point to methods for improving the accuracy of mouse models and novel pathways to treat lung adenocarcinoma by targeting the LKB1 signaling cascade.

“Our study highlights that either LKB1 or its downstream proteins, which are called the salt-inducible kinases, can be therapeutically targeted,” Ferrarone said. “The next step is to develop small molecule inhibitors for both targets to further test their therapeutic potential.”

C.U. Astronomers Reveal Chemistry of Exoplanet Atmospheres Using James Webb Space Telescope

By AFSHEEN ALVI Sun Contributor

Cornell astronomers Jake Turner grad, Yu-Cian Hong grad and Research Associate

Laura Flagg published a paper on Jan. 9 revealing a broad-wavelength atmospheric transmission spectrum of gas giant exoplanet WASP-39b. The paper also revealed the James Webb Space Telescope’s sensitivity to a diversity of exoplanet compositions and chemistry — meaning astronomers can now detect active chemical processes happening

in an exoplanet’s atmosphere.

JWST conducts infrared astronomy through high-resolution and high-sensitivity instruments, which capture and relay data to be interpreted via mediums such as the transmission spectrum, a graph of a planet’s apparent change in size as a function of wavelength of light from the host star. Transmission spectrums can provide information on gaseous particles, haze and clouds in atmospheres of exoplanets, which are planets that orbit outside of the solar system.

“We’ve been asking ques-

tions about exoplanet atmospheres for a long time and JWST is now the best tool we have to answer them,” Turner, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Sciences, said.

WASP-39b’s wide radius, low surface gravity and relatively clear skies make its atmosphere ideal for analysis. In 2018, the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes revealed water on WASP-39b, while JWST detected carbon dioxide in its atmosphere in 2022. The new observations from JWST offer a more accurate understanding of the planet’s atmosphere — such as the presence of carbon monoxide, sodium, potassium and sulfur dioxide.

Flagg explained that the team expected to just detect water and carbon dioxide but also found sulfur dioxide.

The presence of sulfur dioxide also revealed photochemistry happening in the exoplanet’s atmosphere. Photochemistry refers to chemical processes that occur in the presence of light, as sulfur dioxide forms from a series of chemical reactions when hydrogen sulfide interacts with high-energy ultraviolet light particles and hydrogen atoms.

“Everything we’re doing now is really cool, and it’s leading to some of the most interesting questions you can ask,” Flagg said. “But we’re also building to the bigger picture by making sure we refine our techniques and really understand the data before we get down to planets with weaker signals, which are harder to detect.”

The data from JWST allows astronomers to look at the light of a star as it passes through gasses in the atmosphere of the planet, accessing a wide range of colors of light — including the infrared, which are low energy electromagnetic radiations.

When a planet crosses directly between its star and Earth, it may block a portion of the light from its star, causing it to dim. In order to measure the percentage of the star’s light that the planet blocked and the time it took for the planet to cross the star’s disk, the astronomers plotted a graph of the brightness of the respective star as the time passed. The types of gasses released on the planet are then identified by measuring absorbed wavelengths of a star’s transmitted light.

“By looking at the different

types of gasses that are present in the atmosphere, we get clues as to where the planet formed,” said Emily Deibert, a postdoctoral science fellow at the Gemini South Observatory in Chile.

If a planet is formed away from its star, it has a different composition of gasses compared to if it develops closer to the star. Planets and their atmospheres come from the same material as their parent star, which forms from a giant cloud of dust and gas.

A planet’s atmosphere also obstructs more light at some wavelengths and less light at other wavelengths. Studying the differences between them can reveal information about the composition, size and density of the planet’s atmosphere.

The images taken by JWST are expected to clarify these differences, allowing astronomers to better understand terrestrial planets beyond the solar system.

“There is going to be so much more coming from James Webb,” Deibert said. “We are expecting to learn a lot more from spectral signatures of other exoplanets.”

Gas giant | Astronomers illustrate WASP-39b based on studies conducted on the solar system and its planets. Afsheen Alvi can be reached at aa2293@cornell.edu.

Kaitlin Chung can be reached at khc73@cornell.edu.

Mouse under lens | This stain of lung tissue is derived from genetic mouse models and tests tumor burden after the loss of a metabolic enzyme.

COURTESY OF BENJAMIN STEIN / WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE