Why don't we do the things we know we should? - Research Matters S2E1

Cornell students aren’t just studying how a bill becomes law. They’re in Albany drafting statutes, testifying before lawmakers and helping move 20 bills in a single year, all inside this hands-on legislative clinic.

Everyone's talking about carbon sequestration, but which techniques might help farmers most? Ben Houlton, Cornell CALS dean, ecologist and founder of carbon-storage startup, The N3gative Company, separates the real science from the hype, from enhanced rock weathering to paying farmers for the carbon they store in their soil. Drawing on a childhood around midwestern dairy farms and a career spanning water chemistry, engineering and ecology, Houlton offers a rare inside view of what's ready to scale and what's still five years away.

Eswar Prasad ran the International Monetary Fund's China division. Now he's telling everyone from Davos to Bloomberg that global instability isn't a phase. His book "The Doom Loop" recently landed on best-of-the-year lists from the Economist and the Financial Times. This episode is the plain-English version.

Shows like "The Pitt" have everyone asking what we owe frontline medical workers. Angelique Taylor has spent years building an actual answer: robots tested inside real emergency rooms at Weill Cornell, designed alongside the nurses and doctors who'd have to trust them. This episode gets into what a robot can and can't do when seconds matter and human lives are on the line.

That green scum on the lake in August? There's a real chance it started on a farm. Kirsten Workman, Cornell's Nutrient Management and Environmental Sustainability Specialist, joins Research Matters to explain how manure — a valuable nutrient package when it stays put — becomes a public health hazard when it doesn't. From phosphorus indexes to injection versus spraying to the runoff forecast tool she built, this is a close look at the unglamorous, high-stakes science of keeping farm nutrients where they belong: in the soil, not the water supply.

America is aging faster than its systems are prepared for. In this two-guest conversation, Jenna Wells and Adriana Reyes bring their research to bear on the realities of eldercare today: who provides it, who pays for it, and what happens when both run short. It's a grounded, research-backed look at one of the biggest quiet crises facing families right now.

What if the building coming down next door could become the one going up down the street? Felix Heisel joins Research Matters to explain circular construction — the practice of designing buildings to be disassembled, reused and reborn instead of landfilled. It's a rethink of how we build, one that could turn the construction industry's waste problem into its next resource.

Free speech feels simple until you're the one drawing the lines. In this episode of Research Matters, Cornell's Gautam Hans unpacks the messy, high-stakes reality of civil liberties in America today, from campus speech fights to the digital platforms reshaping what "free expression" even means. It's a clear-eyed look at a right everyone claims to understand and almost no one agrees on.

Why do smart, capable people still blow off health screenings, hoard a bottle of wine "for a special occasion" and keep a box of college notebooks they'll never open again? Cornell behavioral economist Suzanne Shu — a former electrical engineer turned behavioral economist — breaks down the psychology behind procrastination, overspending and our strange attachment to stuff. It's a funny, sharply researched look at why willpower isn't really the problem, and what actually helps.

In this episode of Research Matters, psychologist Gordon Pennycook dives into the surprisingly relatable science of why smart people believe dumb things, from conspiracy theories to “deep” nonsense that only sounds profound. Blending humor with research, the conversation reveals how our fast, distracted brains and overconfidence make us easy targets for misinformation, and why the real fix might be as simple (and as hard) as pausing to think. Watch here.