A&S Media Report - 8/14/2026

-

STATS AT A GLANCE:
82 external media stories tracked
1 press release/tip sheet distributed
2 Cornell Chronicle stories
3 Cornellians stories
2 A&S website stories
7 X posts
3 Facebook posts
3 LinkedIn posts

Social Sciences

People who hate being seen struggling should know about the “beautiful mess effect” — across several studies, observers rated other people’s vulnerability as courage while rating their own identical vulnerability as weakness

Bolde and 1 other media outlet(s)
Related People: Thomas D. Gilovich
Related Department or Program: Psychology

A cleaning lady believed she was dating the Crown Prince of Dubai, only to realize the truth when she lost all her savings. (Vietnamese)

Sức Khoẻ & Đời Sống and 6 other media outlet(s)
Related People: David Rand
Related Department or Program: Psychology

Donald Trump Raves Over Male Olympic Speedskater's 'Very Strong' Physique: 'How Do I Get My Legs to Look Like That?'

OK Magazine
Related People: Sabrina Karim
Related Department or Program: Government

Grieving families ask why police accountability feels elusive

Times Union
Related People: Joseph Margulies
Related Department or Program: Government

Deep Dive episode: What if our leaders are actually more responsive to public opinion than we think?

Strength in Numbers podcast
Related People: Peter K. Enns
Related Department or Program: Government

Why overconfidence so often leads to success in life

1News and 13 other media outlets
Related People: David Alan Dunning
Related Department or Program: Psychology

Read All About It! The Rum Conundrum

American Jewish Historical Society
Related People: Davide Napoli , Klarman Fellow
Related Department or Program: Government

Conspiracy theories abound in the Lindsay Clancy case

Boston Globe
Related People: David Rand
Related Department or Program: Psychology

Can Iran’s ‘Asian friends’ reopen Hormuz when the US cannot?

Asia Times and 2 other media outlets
Related People: Allen R. Carlson
Related Department or Program: Government

Søren Kierkegaard: the worst despair is to live an entire life without ever becoming oneself (French)

Ouest France
Related People: Thomas D. Gilovich
Related Department or Program: Psychology

How to Ease Polarization Using Science

Psychology Today
Related People: Michèle Belot
Related Department or Program: Economics

The synthetic voter: what happens when public opinion polls are simulated by artificial intelligence (Portuguese)

The Conversation
Related People: David Rand
Related Department or Program: Psychology

Humanities and Arts, Social Sciences

A new playbook for controlling universities

The Hill and 4 other media outlet(s)
Related People: Glenn Altschuler
Related Department or Program: American Studies Program

Your August 2026 Reads

Cornellians
Related People: Stacey A. Langwick , Gregory Dreicer, PhD ’93, John Hyland ’99, John Thaddeus Rutkowski '76
Related Department or Program: Anthropology, Science and Technology Studies, History

New program turns minor cheating violations into a learning opportunity

Cornell Chronicle
Related People: Lawrence Blume , Z.K. Payne, Urna Chakrabarty, graduate students
Related Department or Program: Economics, Philosophy

Humanities and Arts

‘Project Hail Mary’ at Cornell Cinema includes special talk, prize drawing

A&S Communications
Related People: Lisa Kaltenegger , Molly Ryan
Related Department or Program: Astronomy, Cornell Cinema

Sciences and Math

The great silence: why haven’t we found any aliens yet?

The Guardian and 7 other media outlets
Related People: Lisa Kaltenegger
Related Department or Program: Astronomy, Carl Sagan Institute

How to train a magnet: Excitons as a new knob for magnetic control

Technology.org
Related People: Youn Jue (Eunice) Bae
Related Department or Program: Physics

Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight: Here’s what you need to know

WBNG
Related People: Jake Turner
Related Department or Program: Astronomy, Carl Sagan Institute

Attacking cancer-enabling proteins where they live

Cornell Chronicle
Related People: Ciaran Seath, assistant professor
Related Department or Program: Chemistry and Chemical Biology

Neuroscientists have vastly underestimated brain cells’ computing power

Scientific American and 3 other media outlets
Related People: Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz
Related Department or Program: Neurobiology and Behavior

The Science of Better Trades

Investor's Alley
Related People: James Sethna
Related Department or Program: Physics

Can Anthropic’s invisible watermarks curb ‘AI slop’? Researchers remain sceptical

Nature
Related People: Paul Ginsparg
Related Department or Program: Physics

Cell biochemistry beyond membranes: The physics of condensates

A&S Communications
Related People: Eric Dufresne
Related Department or Program: Physics

Other

Why ‘The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Might Be Three Decades’

Cornellians
Related People: Penny Smith Eifrig ’90
Related Department or Program:

Sciences and Math, Social Sciences

How Is Academia Like Punk Rock? Ask Cornell Prof David Rand ’04

Cornellians
Related People: David Rand, Gordon Pennycook, Steven Strogatz
Related Department or Program: Psychology
 
View PDF