Author: Sarah Foust
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PIT in a Pit: A Guide to Rockefeller’s Most Interactive Resource Center
Deep in the bowels of The Rockefeller University, through a maze of underground hallways and fickle elevators, is a set of unremarkable brown double doors. A doorbell on the wall glows with a tempting light, beckoning you to press it. Doing so summons a mysterious underground creature known as an “engineer,” a term usually whispered…
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The Music & Medicine Orchestra: A Resounding Revival
“At this time last year, this orchestra was a three-person group chat,” announced Adrian Rogers, conductor of the Music & Medicine Orchestra. It was May 2025 at St. Bartholomew’s Church, and Rogers was speaking to an audience of over 500 people. Behind his podium was a full-sized orchestra of nearly eighty musicians. In a triumphant full-circle…
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Finding Community on the Field with Columbia
It’s easy to get caught up in the grind of grad school—endless deadlines, research setbacks, and, now, growing uncertainty around funding. It can feel isolating, even suffocating, like you’re in it alone. That’s exactly why the Graduate Student Executive Council (GSEC) at Weill Cornell has been prioritizing community-building events that bring students together. As vice…
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From Patronage to Policy
Scientific research is and always has been deeply entangled with politics, culture, and the broader currents of society. Like most human endeavors, doing science requires materials and manpower, both of which come with a price tag. Thus, funding becomes one of the most direct and potent forces influencing not just what kind of science gets…
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Compliance or Complicity?
On February 24, I received an email from someone in Rockefeller’s Human Resources (HR) department requesting that I remove an article from our website archives. The article in question, published in February 2007, was titled “The Minority Report” and catalogued contemporary trends in the participation of underrepresented groups in science, as well as some of…
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Music & Medicine Spring Concert
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Come join us on Saturday, May 3 for the spring Tri-I Orchestra Concert at the beautiful St. Bart’s Church in the Upper East Side, featuring works by Haydn, Sibelius, and more! This concert will also feature Rockefeller PhD student Giacomo Glotzer as soloist, performing a cello concerto with the orchestra. The Tri-I Orchestra was a…
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Breaking the Cycle
When we think of the New Year, it often serves as a time for reflection and renewal—a moment to pause and consider the significance of new beginnings. It is common for people to hit a proverbial “reset button” and establish New Year’s resolutions that reflect the physical, emotional, mental, or social changes they wish to…
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Not With a Cherry on Top!
Those cherries on top of Grandma’s holiday treat may have been poisoned. Yes, those syrupy, gooey bursts of flavor are, in fact, toxic. The culprit is… red food dye. On January 15, 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a statement prohibiting the use of Red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs.…
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A Mostly Incorrect History of Biology and Medicine
Tribute to James Iry 1670: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek developed the first microscope. Microscopes would gain much popularity among academics, as they justified the statement: “This thing is so obvious, can’t you see?” 1859: After an expedition on the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin proposed his evolutionary theory. Reviewers at the time were not pleased with the…
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How to Make the Most of Spring Migration in New York City
If you asked anyone to name the first thing that came to mind when you said “New York City,” very rarely would you hear words like nature or birds. Contrary to popular assumptions, however, New York City serves a crucial role in the migration of birds during the spring and winter. Life is a Flyway…
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The Quest to Un-Muddy the Waters of Scientific Publishing
In most academic environments, retractions are a taboo topic. They are only mentioned as break room gossip or in cautionary tales meant to scare early-career scientists away from research misconduct. Ivan Oransky is determined to change that. Oransky is a professor of medical journalism at New York University and editor-in-chief of The Transmitter—the editorially independent…
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Breaking News: Government Defunds Ducklings
Sparking controversy nationwide, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced this week on X that it will further restrict the terms of federal research funding, prohibiting the purchase of “mental wellness animals” using NIH and NSF funds. This announcement has been widely seen as a response from the Trump administration to a report written by…