A team of Zuckerman Institute neuroscientists, data scientists, and engineers together received a grant to answer one of biology’s most fundamental questions: How does the brain tell the body to move?

The Corinth rift is one of the most seismically active areas in Europe. Starting this month, researchers — led by Columbia University seismologist and co-chief scientist Donna Shillington — will drill into the rift to discover its past and future.

The effort could prove transformational for science and medicine by laying the groundwork for tailored therapies that target specific malfunctioning cell types, offering hope that spinal-cord disease and injury may one day be more effectively treated, or even cured.

Astronomers, including a team at Columbia University, have for the first time witnessed a pair of dead neutron stars colliding, and have confirmed that the heaviest metals in the universe, from gold to platinum, are formed in explosions like this one spotted 130 million light-years away.

Despite recent media reports, there’s no imminent threat, says Columbia geologist Einat Lev; the Yellowstone supervolcano currently shows no signs of eruption.

Yaniv Erlich, an assistant professor of Computer Science and Computational Biology at Columbia, will use the DARPA funds to develop advanced DNA storage technologies.

A clinical professor of health policy and management and pediatrics at the Mailman School of Public Health, Redlener heads the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia’s Earth Institute.