Capturing bright ideas is a challenge!

From an Article by Michael I. Kotlikoff, Emmanuel P. Giannelis and Glenn C. Altschuler, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, April 27, 2021

America’s dominance is currently at risk, and a new model is needed now more than ever.

More than a century after Thomas Newcomen, a miner, and John Calley, his plumber assistant, invented the first useful steam engine, the French scientist Sadi Carnot developed the theory of thermodynamics to explain it. And in 1903, the bicycle makers Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first powered flight, but the underlying mathematics of aerodynamic theory were explained by a university scientist — Ludwig Prandtl at Hannover University — almost two decades later.

These examples from The Code Breaker, by Walter Isaacson, convey an important lesson about the relationship between application and theory that is relevant for future technological innovation — and for research in universities in the United States.

Vannevar Bush, the director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development in the 1940s, articulated the inverse relationship between basic and applied research: universities play a critical role in developing the fundamental science that industry deploys to create products. Bush’s linear approach, which led to the establishment of the National Science Foundation, has powered innovation in the United States for decades. But America’s dominance of the innovation economy is currently at risk, and a new model is needed now more than ever.

Bipartisan concern about the erosion of America’s innovation dominance has led Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, and Senator Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana, to co-sponsor the Endless Frontier Act to invest $100 billion in research for emerging technologies. Echoing their apprehensions about “our national research and innovation enterprise,” Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, added his support for “the infrastructure that we need to support technology development.”

To more effectively harness the potential of research universities, whose basic research has enabled the development, among other products, of the iPhone, RNA vaccines and self-driving cars, we need a paradigm shift in higher education.

The new approach begins with an affirmation of the centrality of discovery, but it explicitly recognizes the role of the marketplace in driving innovation and the marked decrease in the timeline between concept and product. It supplements and complements basic research with investments and expertise in feasibility assessment, design and transitions to commercial markets. This model does not treat exploratory (basic) and translational (applied) research as silos but, as Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the National Science Foundation, has proposed, like double-stranded DNA, multidirectional and mutually reinforcing.

Dependent on a shift in culture, hiring and allocation of resources within the academy, as well as a new kind of partnership with government and industry, this model calls for unified discovery and commercialization engines, or “D&CEs.” D&C engines in the university are transdisciplinary teams integrating expertise in physical and biological sciences, social sciences, engineering, humanities, business, and entrepreneurship, and which work with government, corporate and venture capital partners to develop next-generation products. Such teams are essential if we are to address global crises, including climate, energy, food, water, health, inequality and poverty.

In practical terms, the shift should be accompanied by changes in pedagogy and curriculum that expose students to business strategies, intellectual property concepts, patent protocols, marketing and supply chains, and experiential learning in companies.

Catalyzing the development of diversified local economies consisting of start-ups, step-ups and established companies will also yield opportunities for students and drive economic development in university towns and beyond. To encourage companies to stay local, universities should work with government officials to identify tax and other incentives.

As universities encourage collaborations between private companies and innovative faculty members, they need to find new ways, where appropriate, to “share” faculty with companies. Such partnerships retain talented faculty in the academy while providing them with opportunities to fully develop and commercialize their ideas.

Universities must also develop investment funds through a combination of philanthropy and venture capital to support the development of new discoveries, provide incubation space for the early proof-of-concept and de-risking stages, and work to identify co-location space for established companies. Seed and gap funding are crucial for validating early-stage technologies, strengthening intellectual property and bringing technology to the inflection point for further development.

Finally, where appropriate, as it increasingly is in computing and information science and genetics, universities should adopt “translational” achievements as metrics for faculty tenure and promotion and include commercialization as part of Ph.D. theses. This new emphasis will not compromise indispensable institutional values, including independence of thought, dispassionate discovery and transparency. But adapting to the indivisible nature of discovery and application will be necessary to increase the volume and velocity of technology commercialization and start-up creation, nurture the next generation of innovators, catalyze economic development, and provide the wished-for returns on federally funded programs like the aptly named Endless Frontier.

>>> Biographical Sketch — Michael I. Kotlikoff is professor of molecular physiology and provost of Cornell University. Emmanuel P. Giannelis is Walter R. Read Professor of Engineering and vice president for research and innovation at the university, and Glenn C. Altschuler is Litwin Professor of American Studies there and the co-author, with Isaac Kramnick, of Cornell: A History, 1940-2015 (Cornell University Press).

Eagles need clean streams for their fish diet

From an Article by Gustave Axelson, Cornell Chronicle, March 24, 2021

For the past 50 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has been assembling counts of bald eagle nests to track the triumphant recovery of America’s national symbol. But in its new bald eagle population report – tabulated with the help of results using eBird data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology – the USFWS found many more eagles than previously thought to exist in the Lower 48 states. A lot more.

The latest USFWS Bald Eagle Population Update report estimates more than quadruple the eagle population noted in the 2009 report, or 316,708 eagles across the contiguous United States. The rising number of bald eagles undoubtedly reflects the continuing conservation success story that stretches back to the banning of DDT in 1972. But it also represents a major advance in using citizen-science powered supercomputing to generate better estimates for the eagle population.

“Working with Cornell to integrate data from our aerial surveys with eBird relative abundance data on bald eagles is one of the most impressive ways the we have engaged with citizen science programs to date,” said Jerome Ford, USFWS migratory birds program assistant director. “This critical information was imperative to accurately estimate the bald eagle population in the contiguous United States, and we look forward to working with Cornell in the future.”

In addition, the new USFWS report estimates 71,467 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the Lower 48 states, which is double the number of eagle nests noted in the 2009 report – and many multitudes higher than the all-time recorded low of 417 known eagle nests in 1963. Back then, the popular use of DDT pesticides after World War II had decimated the eagle population. In 1967, the bald eagle received protection under the predecessor to the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Then in 1972, the United States banned DDT.

Thanks to legal protections, captive-breeding programs and habitat protection around nests, the bald eagle population rebounded. The USFWS tracked the recovery through counts from states and by aerial surveys every few years, as pilots from the agency’s Migratory Bird Program flew eagle-counting missions over high-density eagle-nesting areas to count numbers of occupied nests.

But for this latest USFWS report, the federal government collaborated for the first time with the Cornell Lab to augment their aerial surveys with a big-data population model generated by eBird.

The computer science that built the eBird model was powered by citizen science. More than 180,000 birders shared data with the Cornell Lab by uploading eBird checklists – tallies of which bird species they saw, and how many, in a single outing. Cornell Lab scientists then developed a model that uses eBird estimates of relative abundance for bald eagles to generate numbers of occupied nesting territories in the areas that USFWS were not able to cover in their aerial surveys.

“One of our main objectives was to see if population modeling based on eBird data would enhance the survey work the Fish and Wildlife Service was already doing,” said Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez, assistant director of Cornell Lab’s Center for Avian Population Studies, who supervised the lab’s role in this partnership. “We’re hoping that this will allow the Fish and Wildlife Service to track bald eagle populations over a much wider area in the most cost-effective manner in the future.”

And, Ruiz-Gutierrez says, she also hopes those eagle models continue to show positive momentum. Since the USFWS delisted the bald eagle from the ESA in 2007 – a historic moment for species recovery under the act – the number of known occupied nests in the Lower 48 states has more than doubled, according to the latest report.

“It’s a great American conservation success story,” Cornell Lab Center for Avian Population Studies Senior Director Amanda Rodewald said March 24 at a virtual press conference hosted by the USFWS. She thanked the agency for hosting the event to celebrate eagle recovery, and to celebrate the role of citizen science – the thousands of birders who shared their observations to help build the population models.

>>>>>>>>>>……….>>>>>>>>>>……….>>>>>>>>>>

See also: Bald eagle that suffered from lead poisoning, treated, released back to the wilderness, Jeff Morris, WCHS News 8, February 11, 2021

RANDOLPH COUNTY, WV — A bald eagle that was treated after suffering from lead poisoning was released back to the wilderness in Pocahontas County. West Virginia Natural Resources Police report that land owners found the eagle on their property and the bird was unable to fly.

The adult eagle was treated and banded at the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia in Morgantown and returned to the Upper Shavers Fork area of Randolph County for release.

Police said lead poisoning occurs when eagles ingest lead most likely while scavenging carcasses of other wildlife. When ingested, lead has detrimental effects on the nervous and reproductive systems of eagles. Eagles with lead poisoning may have loss of balance, gasping, tremors and an impaired ability to fly. The birds can die within two to three weeks after ingesting lead.