Soundbites

Here is a sampling of quotations from Cornell University faculty, students and staff that have appeared recently in the national and international news media:

"The fact is that others do not notice us nearly as much as we think they do."

­Thomas Gilovich, professor of psychology, describing the results of his research studies in which people overestimate how much they are noticed by others, in the Los Angeles Times, Jan. 13.

"[That's] too optimistic a figure."

­Roni Michaely, professor of finance, Johnson Graduate School of Management, in response to the White House claim that its proposal to scrap the corporate dividend tax will boost the stock market by 10 percent, in the Financial Times, Jan. 10.

"History will be made when the dreams of Squyres and Bell become a reality. The mission will be launched this year, exactly 100 years after the first powered flight made by Orville Wright in1903. That flight lasted only twelve seconds, but started a journey which will be taken to new heights with the MER mission."

­Salman Arif, a student majoring in mathematics, in an article he wrote about the upcoming launch in June of the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission to Mars. He called the mission the "brainchild" of Cornell astronomy Professors Steven Squyres and James Bell, co-principal investigators of the science project. The story was carried by the Associated Press, Jan. 6.

"I think what students need more than anything is [to have] a truly genuine interest in the job they're going after. Recruiters can differentiate between someone who's truly interested and someone who's doing a good interview. Experience helps. But there are career switchers who are getting jobs because they're proving they're the right person for the job."

­Karin Ash, director of the Johnson Graduate School of Management's Career Management Center, on the current job market for MBA graduates, in the News Analysis section of Business Week Online, Jan. 2.

"It became one of the first Fortune 500 companies to move overseas. They looked for the same things companies look for today: high employment, low wages and an abundance of young women."

­Jefferson Cowie, assistant professor, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, in an Associated Press story Dec. 4, on a former RCA plant in Taiwan that left a sea of illegally dumped industrial contaminants in its wake.

"If you're the officer, you look at the costs and the benefits. And many police officers will decide it is better to ignore the suspect's right to remain silent than to respect it. [The Supreme Court would be] more honest if it just overruled Miranda."

­Steven Clymer, professor of law and a former Los Angeles prosecutor, in the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 24, on the potential outcome of a case that challenges the Supreme Court's Miranda ruling guaranteeing suspects the right to be informed they may remain silent and get counsel.

"While average lifespan in humans has crept up, maximum lifespan has not changed for hundreds of years. We want to know why that is."

­Paul Sherman, professor of neurobiology and behavior, commenting on his research on the unusual longevity of naked mole-rats, in Nature magazine's online Science Update, Nov. 18.