"There's no doubt in my mind that the best thing Americans can do is reduce their fat intake."

-- David Levitsky, professor of nutrition and psychology, discussing healthy diets in the April 22 issue of Women's Day magazine.

"Being helpful to your neighbor, doing good works in your community, even voting, those are all good ideas, but they're not anywhere in the Constitution. There is no notion of obligations tied to American citizenship other than what Mom 'n' Pop and civics teachers may tell you."

-- Theodore J. Lowi, the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions, discussing civic virtue and volunteerism in the April 27 Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"It might well work. But, with other transgenic potatoes I've seen, the effects are not yet big enough for useful application. Still if the effects of engineered plants are effective against Late Blight in Europe, I expect them to be effective in the U.S., even against the new strains."

-- William E. Fry, professor of plant pathology, in an article in the Financial Times of London, on fighting potato late blight, April 22.

"Industry pushes a perception that its creations are identical to nature's. But nature's food is highly complex. You can't duplicate the biotechnology of a grape in a test tube."

-- Harry T. Lawless, associate professor of food science, discussing artificial food flavorings in the April 30 issue of the Chicago Tribune.

"We've known for a long time that chronic noise is having a devastating effect on the academic performance of children in noisy homes and schools. This study shows that children don't tune out sound per se, rather that they have difficulty acquiring speech recognition skills."

-- Gary Evans, professor of design and environmental analysis, describing a new Cornell study analyzing the school performance of children whose schools are in the flight paths of major airports, in the May 2 issue of the London Times.

"It has not been proven that mothers' working has been harmful to their children."

-- Francine Blau, the Frances Perkins Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations, discussing working women in a Knight-Ridder Tribune News story published in the Houston Chronicle on May 3.

"They've done it for political purposes. They're afraid of residential consumers. They throw tomatoes and they vote."

-- Alfred E. Kahn, professor emeritus of economics, commenting on the Federal Communications Commission's new rules for telephone deregulation that mandate that the industry continue to subsidize universal service, in a May 3 article in the San Jose Mercury News.