Cornell University News Service Releases

June, 2002

Index to all months

For the full text of any story, click on the headline. Electronic queries may be made to cunews@cornell.edu.

CONTOUR mission launch postponed until July 3
The launch of NASA's Comet Nucleus Tour, CONTOUR, has been delayed until 2:47 a.m. EDT July 3, Cornell University space scientists said today. The launch had been scheduled for the morning of July 1.

Companion Animal Tumor Registry established
A newly established Companion Animal Tumor Registry in two areas of New York state will test a question that has intrigued cancer researchers: Can a geographic database of cancers in dogs and cats warn of possible environmental causes of cancers in humans? Researchers in the Cornell University Comparative Cancer Program and Center for the Environment will begin asking veterinarians in Tompkins and Nassau counties voluntarily to report cancers diagnosed in clients' pets, identifying them by residential ZIP code. Once logistics are worked out, the pilot project might be expanded to other areas of New York state or even nationwide, allowing researchers to merge animal-cancer data with parallel databases for human-cancer incidence. Researchers also will seek to collect and analyze tissue, blood and urine samples from pets diagnosed with cancer. (June 27, 2002)

Cornell's Big Red scores robot soccer victory over Germany in Japan by stopping Berlin university team, 7-3, in world finals
If you are still sore about last week's United States quarterfinal loss to Germany in World Cup soccer in South Korea, don't be. On Sunday (June 23) on behalf of Americans everywhere, Cornell University students got revenge, beating the Freie Universität (FU) Fighters of Berlin, 7-3, at the 2002 RoboCup small-size robot soccer league championship in Fukuoka, Japan. This is Cornell's third championship win in four years.

Structure of key protein that enables quorum-sensing bacteria to communicate and spread infection is solved by research team
A decade after microbiologists began to suspect that many groups of bacteria can communicate -- by releasing and detecting chemical pheromones to gauge their population density -- the molecular structure of a key protein in this interbacterial communication has been solved.

Jennie Farley, champion of women's rights, dies at age 69
Jennie Tiffany Towle Farley, a champion of women's rights and Cornell University professor of industrial and labor relations, co-founder of Cornell's Women's Studies Program and a former member of the university's Board of Trustees, died June 19 in Hudson, N.Y., after a long illness. She was 69.

Cornell officials respond to NLRB request for materials
Cornell University officials announced today (June 20) that on June 14, Vice President for Human Resources Mary George Opperman received a subpoena duces tecum from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), issued at the request of the associate general counsel of the United Auto Workers in Detroit, demanding that the university produce by July 9 an enormous array of materials dealing not only with graduate and undergraduate students serving in teaching assistant, research assistant and related titles, but also dealing with all faculty of the university and all employees of the university "exclusive of TAs [teaching assistants], supervisors, managers and guards." Opperman observed that, since the initial hearing before a regional hearing examiner of the NLRB held in Ithaca on May 29, the university has been actively engaged in attempting to determine which individuals have been included in the proposed bargaining unit in the petition filed May 13 by the Cornell Association of Student Employees CASE/UAW. The inclusion of undergraduate students in the proposed unit has substantially complicated the data-gathering activity, since the university has no centralized record-keeping of undergraduates serving in the job titles identified by the union: teaching assistant, research assistant, tutors, graders, readers and consultants. (June 20, 2002)

NY Regents standards inadvertently increasing dropouts
Two years after the New York State Board of Regents removed the option of a local diploma in favor of more-demanding Regents diplomas for all students, 28 percent of the state's school superintendents, not including New York City, are reporting an increase in dropouts, according to a Cornell University survey. The findings were presented as a preliminary draft to the state's education leaders in May, and its final version is being released today (June 19, 2002). Among low-performing school districts, about 45 percent of the superintendents reported an increase in dropouts. Most average- and high-performing school districts reported no change in the dropout rate, according to the survey of superintendents and principals throughout New York state, conducted by John W. Sipple, Cornell assistant professor of education, and Kieran Killeen, an assistant professor at the University of Vermont. The survey included administrators from across upstate New York state. (June 19, 2002)

New method for 'visualizing' proteins
A newly established national biomedical center at Cornell University is reporting its first major advance: a new way of measuring, or "visualizing," proteins. The new technique will hasten the transformation of the human genome project's blueprints of life into a comprehensive view of the biochemical and physiological circuitry that interconnect to form entire organisms. The technique, which determines the structure of a protein by measuring the distances between atoms in the molecule at greater separations than previously possible, is an important development, says Jack Freed, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell, who is director of the National Biomedical Center for Advanced ESR Technology (ACERT), established at Cornell last year by the National Institutes of Health. "This is in the spirit of seeing the whole forest of the protein, whereas before we have been seeing the trees one after another," says Freed. (June 19, 2002)

Humanity's din could be blocking whales' courtship songs
The very-low-frequency courtship songs of fin whales and blue whales are the most powerful and ubiquitous biological sounds in the oceans. But the artificial racket created by ships and other human sources could be interfering with whale reproduction and population recovery, marine scientists report in the latest edition (June 20, 2002) of the journal Nature. Scientists from the University of California-Santa Cruz, Cornell University, Mexico's Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur and the California Academy of Sciences studied fin whale courtship songs in frequencies far below the range of human hearing. Natural sounds that low often can travel many hundreds, if not thousands, of miles under water. But so can very-low-frequency, human-made noises that have increased dramatically in the last 100 years of motorized shipping. (June 19, 2002)

Johnson School summer 'camp' to build business skills -- and confidence -- in young women
N.Y. -- Camp $tart-Up‚, a new program held at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University this July 20-27, will offer 17- to 19-year-old women some of the skills they'll need to pursue careers in business or run their own small enterprises. Limited to 30 participants, the program combines teaching essentials of business and entrepreneurship with fun activities that help empower young women to take charge of their lives, both in school and in business, and achieve self-confidence and economic self-reliance. (June 19, 2002)

Graduate student is agricultural fellow for Hillary Clinton
Erica Pagel, a master's degree student in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has been named an agricultural fellow for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). For a six-month term, Pagel will be working with the senator's Agricultural Advisory Council and will provide expertise on the federal agricultural policy process. As a member of Clinton's legislative staff, Pagel will follow legislation and appropriations related to New York agriculture and serve as a liaison between constituents and the legislative staff. She will return to Cornell at the end of her term to complete her thesis and degree. (June 18, 2002)

Fungi help some trees weather acid rain, not all
A discovery reported in the latest edition of the journal Nature (June 13, 2002) -- that fungi on the roots of some trees in the Northeastern United States help supply much-needed calcium in forest soils battered by acid rain -- would seem to ease worries about the worrisome form of pollution. But don't stop worrying just yet, warns Timothy J. Fahey, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Natural Resources at Cornell University and a co-author of the report, "Mycorrhizal weathering of apatite as an important calcium source in base-poor forest ecosystems." (June 18, 2002)

MBA project helps people with disabilities start businesses
Give Cari Holcomb a pen and she'll draw you a picture. Disabilities may have limited her employability but have not prevented the 28-year-old Tompkins County, N.Y., resident from making artwork all her life, she says. That's why the idea of designing and making brightly colored datebook covers and greeting cards and selling them locally appealed to her. You can now buy Holcomb's dinosaur datebooks for $5 apiece, and soon you will see her cards at the Ithaca Farmers' Market CraftAbility Collective booth run by Challenge Industries, a vocational rehabilitation agency in Ithaca. She and seven other Challenge service recipients with disabilities sell their work there Tuesdays and Saturdays thanks to a new Challenge self-employment program, a grant from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation and a little help from three Cornell University MBA students and a local credit union. (June 18, 2002)

Death by color: spiny spiders' bright stripes attract prey
Like the glitter and glare of Las Vegas beckoning tourists to the gambling tables, the orb-weaving spiny spider flashes its colorful back to lure unsuspecting quarry into its web. The discovery of this lethal use of color runs contrary to the long-held belief that in the animal kingdom color is used generally to attract mates rather than to entice prey, says a Cornell University animal behavior researcher "Attraction is all casinos are about. They lure you; they want to get you there. They lure people with bright lights, cheap plane tickets, inexpensive hotel rooms, great shows and great meals," says Mark E. Hauber of Cornell's Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. "The spiny spiders work the same way." (June 14, 2002)

Board of Trustees Executive Committee meets in New York City June 20
The Cornell University Board of Trustees Executive Committee will meet in New York City Thursday, June 20. The meeting will be held in the Fall Creek Room of the Cornell Club of New York, 6 E. 44th St. (June 12, 2002)

Molecule between wires makes single-atom transistor
ITHACA, N.Y. ---- A long-sought goal of scientists has been to shrink the transistor, the basic building block of electronic circuits, to smaller and smaller size scales. Scientists at Cornell University have now reached the smallest possible limit: a transistor in which electrons flow through a single atom. The Cornell researchers have created a single-atom transistor by implanting a "designer" molecule between two gold electrodes, or wires, to create a circuit. When voltage was applied to the transistor, electrons flowed through a single cobalt atom within the molecule. Paul McEuen, professor of physics at Cornell, describes the process by which electrons pass from one electrode to the other by hopping on and off the atom as "a virtual dance of electrons." (June 10, 2002)

Nanobiotechnology Center 'Moving Into the Future' meeting
The Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC), a national research center at Cornell University, will hold its annual meeting June 21 in 700 Clark Hall on the Cornell campus. The meeting, under the theme of "Moving Into the Future," will feature presentations on current research, including opportunities in medicine and life sciences and the novel properties of nanostructures. The public is invited to attend the meeting without charge, although there will be limited seating. (June 10, 2002)

Expeditions find no evidence of ivory-billed woodpecker
ITHACA, N.Y./ RICHMOND, Va. -- Since early January, bird researchers, conservationists and bird enthusiasts everywhere have been holding their breath for results of a series of cooperative expeditions conducted by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Zeiss Sports Optics and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries in search of the ivory-billed woodpecker. Although the species has been long thought to be extinct, recent reports suggested that a few could have lingered undetected in a remote part of Louisiana. Analysis of more than 4,000 hours of digital data captured by 12 acoustic recording units (ARUs), developed by the Cornell lab's team of bioacoustics engineers, have shown no indication of the species' presence. (June 10, 2002)

Chemistry Professor Paul L. Houston is appointed senior associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Paul L. Houston, professor of chemistry and chemical biology, has been appointed senior associate dean in Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1. Houston will join Arts and Sciences Dean Philip E. Lewis and Senior Associate Dean Jonathan Culler as a chief academic officer of the college. Houston fills the position previously occupied by Jon C. Clardy, the Horace White Professor of Chemistry. Houston is a distinguished member of the College of Arts and Sciences faculty, with an international reputation for research in the fields of materials and physical chemistry. He also has distinguished himself at Cornell by his excellence in teaching and advising at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He served as chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology from 1997 to 2001. (June 10, 2002)

Mark P. Bridgen appointed Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center director
Mark P. Bridgen, Cornell University professor of horticulture, has been appointed director of the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center at Riverhead, N.Y., by Susan Henry, dean of Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Bridgen succeeds Joseph Sieczka, who recently retired. Before joining the Cornell faculty in January 2002, Bridgen was professor of horticulture and head of the Plant Tissue Culture and Micropropagation Facility at the University of Connecticut. (June 10, 2002)

Weill Cornell scientists demonstrate new strategy of using bone marrow stem cells to restore aging cardiac blood vessel-forming capacity
New York, NY (June 7, 2002) In a new study just published in the journal Circulation Research, scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College demonstrate that therapy with bone-marrow-derived precursor cells can restore aging cardiac blood vessel-forming capacity, thus possibly preventing some of the morbidity and mortality associated with ischemic heart disease in older individuals. The study points to a promising and novel approach to preventing and treating heart disease in the aging.The lead author, Dr. Jay Edelberg, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Weill Cornell and Assistant Attending Physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s Weill Cornell Medical Center, says the study, in an animal model, builds on previous research in his lab that examined changes in the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels of older hearts. That study found that molecular alterations in those aged cells lead to a dysregulation of a molecular pathway by which platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) normally contributes to angiogenesis, or new blood vessel formation. In the new study, he and his colleagues show the possibility of restoring this pathway by bone marrow transplantation.

Sexual orientation and homophobiais formed early in life, new book by leading psychiatrists argues
New York, NY (May 31, 2002) Bridging psychoanalytic thought and sexual science, a new book by two leading New York psychiatrists brings sexuality back to the center of psychoanalysis, showing how important it is for students of human sexuality to understand motives that are irrational and unconscious. The authors present a new perspective on male and female development, emphasizing the ways in which both sexual orientation itself and the homophobia encountered by many gay and lesbian individuals begin early in life.Sexual Orientation and Psychoanalysis: Sexual Science and Clinical Practice (Columbia University Press; $35) sums up several decades of research and practice by Dr. Richard C. Friedman, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, and Dr. Jennifer I. Downey, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.

Sept. 11 memorial exhibit is in Barton Hall through June 9
A Cornell University Police exhibit, "The Heroes Within," a Sept. 11 memorial, is now open to the public on the ground-floor concourse of Barton Hall, on campus. The free exhibit, set up during Cornell's 2002 Reunion weekend, will be open continuously until 10 a.m. Sunday, June 9. The exhibit, which includes memorials from the World Trade Center site, written remembrances, messages, photographs and other mementos, can be viewed by entering the west entrance of Barton Hall, through the doors facing Statler Hall. (June 7, 2002)

Cornell joins consortium on environmental quality
N.Y. -- Cornell University is one of eight academic institutions and four not-for-profit organizations forming a statewide consortium with corporate and economic development partners to improve environmental quality through the development of new integrated systems that enhance human health and performance, reduce lifecycle costs and improve the quality of built and urban environments. New York Gov. George Pataki announced the creation of the consortium -- the Center of Excellence in Environmental Systems (CoE-ES) -- with support of $37 million from the state to fund the center, on June 5, at Syracuse University. The CoE-ES, which has headquarters at Syracuse, is a regional partnership founded to coordinate and channel the research, development and production of environmental system solutions. (June 7, 2002)

Recombinant Protein Expression Lab established at CU
Molecular biologists at Cornell University have established a Recombinant Protein Expression Laboratory with a five-year, $986,000 grant from the National Cancer Institute. Located in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, the centralized facility will produce proteins for cancer-related research throughout Cornell's Ithaca campus as well as at the Weill Medical College of Cornell and its Tri-Institutional Collaboration partners (Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center) in New York City. (June 7, 2002)

Site of U.S. Open at Bethpage is reducing pesticide use
BETHPAGE, N.Y. -- Forget the sand traps and the water hazards. The real battle on Long Island's Bethpage State Park golf course, the site of this year's U.S. Open June 13-16, is making the putting greens free from fungal diseases, cutworms and weevils ---- and safe from the pesticides used to combat them. Turf scientists at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and the Bethpage greenskeepers have been looking for ways to substantially reduce pesticide use on one of the nation's busiest public golf-course complexes. (June 6, 2002)

Three graduate students are named Heinz Scholars
Three Cornell University graduate students are among 17 at seven American universities to receive grants as Teresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research. o Heidi E. Gjertsen, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Applied Economics and Management, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, was awarded a $10,000 grant for her project, Identifying Factors for Success in Marine Protected Areas. Currently working in the Philippines, Gjertsen is collecting data for a comparative study of 45 marine protected areas (MPAs) worldwide that contain coral reefs. (June 6, 2002)

The crisis in the Middle East and the aftermath of 9/11 are topics of two open panel discussions during Reunion 2002 weekend
The crisis in the Middle East is an issue dominating today's news and public concern. On Friday, June 7, at Cornell University, a distinguished faculty panel will discuss the region's explosive developments during the annual Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Lecture. The Olin Lecture, a significant event during Cornell's Reunion 2002 weekend, will be held at 3 p.m. in Bailey Hall on campus. It is free and open to the public, and no tickets are required. (June 4, 2002)