Here is a sampling of quotations from Cornell faculty, students and staff that have appeared recently in the national and international news media:
"I registered the loudest belch ever produced by a human being."
-- Robert C. Richardson, the Floyd R. Newman Professor of Physics and 1997 Nobel laureate in physics, describing the result of swallowing liquid nitrogen during a lecture at Ohio State University, in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, May 9.
"I think most people are in awe about the universe, about the solar system, about our place in it. It really taught people that we are not alone here on the planet Earth."
-- Yervant Terzian, the James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences and chairman of astronomy, on the public interest generated by the comet Hale-Bopp, in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 10.
"If we don't start some intervention, we are designing in for ourselves a big problem five or 10 years down the road."
-- Alan Hedge, professor of design and environmental analysis, on the effects of repetitive strain injury caused by video terminals and keyboards, in the Tennessean, May 20.
"These turtles have been around for 50 million years, which means they've had a long time to figure out the best places to eat."
-- Steve Morreale, doctoral student in natural resources, talks about sea turtle migration patterns in the June 1997 issue of Popular Science magazine.
"Every time we think we know all about the secrets of insects, the insects tell us something new. What these guys do is amazing."
-- Thomas Eisner, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Biology, commenting on a German report about the first-known heat-seeking insect that can detect the infrared light emitted by forest fires from up to 30 miles away. The buprestid beetle seeks freshly burned wood in which to deposit eggs. The story appeared in New York Newsday.
"Some cats will just lie there and look miserable. A minority might fight you. But a lot will get used to a harness and most, once you get the leash on them, will adapt."
-- Katherine Houpt, professor of veterinary physiology and director of the Animal Behavior Clinic, describing the process of leash-training cats in the July issue of Cats Magazine.
"It almost breathes pollution."
-- Stephen Zinder, professor of microbiology, on finding Coccoid Strain 195, an unusual bacterium that gobbles up chlorinated solvents in ground water, quoted in a Reuter report June 5 that was carried internationally.
"We're finding that you are what you weigh and you weigh what you are."
-- Jeffery Sobal, professor of nutrition, commenting on how body weight is a reflection of culture, socio-economic and marital status, life stage and ethnicity, in the June 10 issue of Your Health.
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