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:

"Generally speaking, most insects can fly as long as they stay in air above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. If the air temperature at ground level is 90 degrees, the 50-degree border is around 6,000 feet; in the 70s, the ceiling is around 3,600 feet."

-- Elson Shields, professor of entomology, explaining how high insects can fly, in The New York Times, Aug. 7.

"The spread of winner-take-all markets helps explain why almost all recent gains in income and wealth have gone to a relatively small number of people atop the economic pyramid."

-- Robert H. Frank, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics in the Johnson Graduate School of Management, arguing in an op-ed column on new synthesized speech software that can copy any recorded voice that it will increase inequality in wealth distribution by replacing many paid announcers with the synthesized voices of celebrities, in The New York Times, Aug. 7.

"The evidence is that juries are not out of control."

-- Theodore Eisenberg, professor in the Law School, commenting on his study with Martin T. Wells, professor in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, that shows judges and juries award similar amounts for punitive damages, in The New York Times, Aug. 6. (See story in this issue of the Cornell Chronicle.)

"The ceiling was the perfect place for sound to go up and whirl around and around. That's why you do round ceilings in a concert hall. But you shouldn't do it for classrooms."

-- Lorraine Maxwell, associate professor of design and environmental analysis in the School of Human Ecology, discussing classroom design in The New York Times, Aug. 5.

"I'm not prepared to say that virtual is better than face-to-face education, or even as good. But it's here to stay, and informed and highly motivated consumers can make good use of it."

-- Glenn Altschuler, dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions, discussing distance learning in an opinion piece in The New York Times' Education Life, Aug. 5.

"Linking workers' rights to international trade is an idea whose time has come and stayed, despite the best efforts of free trade ideologues to chase it away. In looming congressional debates about 'fast track' negotiating authority, the Bush administration and Congress confront powerful demands from workers, trade unionists and a wider public for rules protecting human rights and labor rights, not just corporate investments, in trade agreements."

-- Lance Compa, senior lecturer, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, commenting on citizens' growing demands that international trade agreements address fair wages and the right to organize, in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, Aug. 1.

"It gives the lawyer leverage in working with a client who is a cheat and a liar and wants to be above the law."

-- Roger C. Cramton, Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law Emeritus, in an article describing changes in ethics rules for lawyers being considered by the American Bar Association, including a change that would permit revealing clients' secrets in some instances, in The New York Times, July 31.