News Releases
February 2005
Index to all monthsFor the full text of any story, click on the headline. Electronic queries may be made to cunews@cornell.edu.
2004 Weiss Presidential Fellows named for outstanding teaching
Three Cornell faculty members have been chosen for the 2004 Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellowships for effective, inspiring and distinguished teaching of undergraduate students. They are T. Michael Duncan, associate professor, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; C. Richard Johnson Jr., professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Peter J. Katzenstein, the Walter S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies, Department of Government. The awards -- $5,000 for five years for each faculty member -- are named for Stephen H. Weiss '57, emeritus chair of the Cornell Board of Trustees, who endowed the program. They recognize excellence in teaching, advising and outstanding efforts toward instructional improvement and development. The appointed fellows are permitted to hold the title of Weiss fellow simultaneously with any other named professorship. (February 25, 2005)
Cornell Police is seeking the retrieval of stolen equipment
Cornell University Police is seeking information leading to the recovery of items stolen on the Cornell campus early this morning, Feb. 25. Between the hours of 12 a.m. and 1 a.m., a box containing some band equipment fell from the back of a vehicle near the intersection of Campus Road and East Avenue on campus. According to police reports, an individual who found the equipment was seen loading it into a dark colored vehicle near Duffield Hall. (February 25, 2005)
Cornell students give HIV/AIDS communication skills workshops
Currently, half of all new HIV infections strike people under the age of 25 and locally the Southern Tier AIDS Program's (STAP) client caseload is its highest in 19 years. A group of Cornell students, led by College of Human Ecology senior Ed Pettitt, is addressing this problem by conducting multi-part workshops on intergenerational communication and HIV/AIDS awareness in Ithaca and Tompkins County. With a small but growing group of peers, Pettitt has initiated the newest adaptation of the award-winning "Talking with Kids about HIV/AIDS" of the Cornell HIV/AIDS Parent Education Project, aptly named "Help Understand and Guide Me" (HUG Me). About a dozen Cornell student-volunteer educators are using the curriculum to empower staff at the Tompkins County Youth Bureau and other youth service providers in the county to interact more comfortably and knowledgeably about HIV/AIDS with the young people they serve. (February 25, 2005)
Endless repetition saved manuscripts from Dark Ages
Before the invention of printing technology by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century, manuscripts survived much like gossip in a game of telephone -- depending on scribes to faithfully reproduce the works, but changing ever so slightly each time they were recopied. By analyzing this endless process of repetition, a Cornell University paleontologist concludes that many more hand-copied manuscripts probably survived the Middle Ages than previously thought. The reproduction of pre-Gutenberg manuscripts, he has found, was much like the replication of biological organisms, since both must be painstakingly copied from parent templates. In order for a text to be copied, one had to already exist, and the more copies in existence, the more copies that could be transcribed. (February 24, 2005)
Two faculty members receive NSF 'Early Career' awards
Two Cornell University faculty members are among this year's recipients of National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Awards. The Faculty Early Career Development Program offers NSF's most prestigious award for new faculty members. The program recognizes and supports the early career development activities of those teacher-scholars who are considered most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. Matthew DeLisa and Yong Joo, both assistant professors of chemical and biomolecular engineering, each will receive five-year grants of about $500,000. (February 24, 2005)
Comedian Jon Stewart adds a second show at 10 p.m. March 4
Boyce Thompson Institute launches elementary after-school program
Maurie Semel, Cornell entomologist whose work helped potato and vegetable growers, dies at 82
New methods of solving 'hard' computer problems
$18 million NSF grant for a new source of X-rays
Multimedia teaching tools for neuroscience
Increasing nitrogen pollution in nation's coastal waters
Failing to aid Africa will lead to more terrorism
Secrets of whales' long-distance songs are being unveiled
Largest machines on Earth will be described at AAAS
Sociologist proposes new system of racial identification
Pilot study suggests interpersonal psychotherapy effective against posttraumatic stress disorder
Cockoach pheromone discovery could lead to pest control
Robots walk with close-to-human efficiency
NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell multiple myeloma program begins clinical trial of promising new chemotherapy cocktail with revlimid
Extensive brain activity while listening to speech suggests awareness in minimally conscious patients
Dictionary explains sociologist Max Weber's ideas
Former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan speaks on Islam and the West Feb. 21
Howard Dean, newly elected Democratic National Committee chair, will speak at Cornell Feb. 23
New York economy: Hops industry growth sparked by Cornell and Northeast Hops Alliance
Yolanda King to give MLK commemorative lecture Feb. 15
Cornell applauds community for Northwest Airlines agreement
Arecibo's sensitive new eye begins massive sky survey
Singing in a Strange Land: C.L. Franklin, the Black Church and the Transformation of America
Feb. 10 seminar to explore Sumatra earthquake and tsunami
Stephen T. Golding named executive vice president for finance
First-of-its-kind geriatric emergency medicine fellowship created at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell
Cellular enzyme plays key role in gene regulation
Bone density screening may reduce hip fracture risk
The Qur'an offers women the same rights, author says
United Farm Workers founding organizer and Cornell labor educator dies
'Constant fear and risk' for meatpacking workers
Comedian and talk show host Jon Stewart has added a second show at Cornell University on Friday, March 4. Stewart, host of TV's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Comedy Central, will be performing at 8 and 10 p.m. in Cornell's Barton Hall. Five thousand tickets for the 8 p.m. show sold out five hours after they went on sale to Cornell students on Feb. 9. Tickets for the added 10 p.m. show, open to Cornell students and the general public, will be available online only, at
Nature Explorers, an after-school club for students in the Northeast Elementary School's Kids Count program, begins the spring semester's sessions Feb. 18 at 3:50 p.m. Kindergarten through fifth-grade students can join the club, where they learn firsthand about science by planting seeds, racing beetles and even isolating DNA. The Nature Explorers club, run by an outreach committee at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) for Plant Research, located on the campus of Cornell University, is one of many activities in the Northeast Kids Count program. An after-school program founded in September 2004 by parents, Kids Count also includes clubs for drama, birding, dodgeball, quilting and other activities. Kids can attend on school holidays as well as after school. (February 22, 2005)
Maurie Semel, Cornell University professor emeritus of entomology, whose research work bolstered the Long Island, N.Y. potato and vegetable industries, died Feb. 10, 2005, in Bucyrus, Ohio. He was 82. Semel was the insect expert at Cornell's Long Island Agricultural Research Laboratory at Riverhead, N.Y., from 1954 to 1988. In the heyday of vegetable farming on Long Island, Semel conducted insect-pest research that helped move farmers away from a heavy reliance on pesticides to trying biological controls. (February 22, 2005)
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- There are some computer problems so hard that computer scientists consider them out of reach. They label them "intractable" and move on. But researchers at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., have developed tools to solve such problems, at least in certain practical situations. Mostly their approach is to have the computer do what a human being might do: stop, go back and start over and try something different. (February 11, 2005)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Cornell University $18 million to begin development of a new, advanced synchrotron radiation x-ray source, called an Energy Recovery Linac (ERL). The ERL, based on accelerator physics and superconducting microwave technology in which Cornell's Laboratory of Elementary Particle Physics (LEPP) is a world leader, will enable investigations of matter that are impossible to perform with existing X-ray sources. "The X-ray beams produced by the new source will be roughly a thousand times better in brightness, coherence and pulse duration than currently is possible," said Sol Gruner, Cornell professor of physics, who is the principal investigator of the ERL project. (February 21, 2005)
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Neuroscience for high schoolers? Why not, says Cornell University neurobiologist Ron Hoy. To prove his point that the subject can be exciting for young people to study, Hoy and a Cornell development team of colleagues and undergraduates have developed a suite of novel, interdisciplinary multimedia teaching tools. The teaching aids, with descriptive names like Koé (Japanese for "voice") and Fruitfly, take neuroscience out of the realm of the just plain technical and difficult and instead present the field as encompassing everything from cognition, behavior and neurogenetics to communication, engineering and music. (February 15, 2005)
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Much of the nitrogen spewing from vehicle exhausts appears to be contaminating coastal systems, such as Chesapeake Bay, to a much greater extent than previously thought, according to a study by researchers at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. The study suggests that the nitrogen pollution emitted in fossil-fuel combustion from vehicles and electric power plants into sensitive coastal rivers and bays could be twice as great as previous estimates for the northeastern United States. Previous studies focused on the nitrogen in acid rain that falls well away from urban and suburban sources, but the new study shows substantially more nitrogen -- largely in gaseous form -- being deposited near highways and other urban sources. (February 15, 2005)
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- If the developed world fails to invest more in African agriculture and rural infrastructure to benefit the poor and help them escape poverty, the world will become a much more dangerous place, says economist Per Pinstrup-Andersen. Investment in productivity-increasing agricultural research is particularly important. At present, he notes, agricultural science and investment generally benefit affluent farmers and consumers. Pinstrup-Andersen, the 2001 World Food Prize laureate and chair of the Science Council for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, a consortium of 15 international research agricultural centers that focuses on setting priorities for international agricultural research, points out that about one-fifth of the world's population lives in dire poverty, and the already very skewed gap between rich and poor keeps growing. (February 15, 2005)
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Why do whales in the North Atlantic Ocean seem to be moving together and coherently? What is impelling them forward. How do they communicate with each other, seemingly over thousands of miles of ocean? And how can this acoustical habitat be protected? For nearly nine years Cornell University researcher Christopher Clark -- together with former U.S. Navy acoustics experts Chuck Gagnon and Paula Loveday -- has been trying to answer these questions by listening to whale songs and calls in the North Atlantic using the navy's antisubmarine listening system. Instead of being used to track Soviet subs as they move through the Atlantic, the underwater microphones of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) can track singing blue, fin, humpback and minke whales. (February 15, 2005)
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Two of the largest machines ever conceived by scientists will be described today by one of the world's leading experts on particle colliders, the massive and expensive machines used to explore inner space by smashing particles together at super-fast speeds. Cornell University physicist Maury Tigner, director of Cornell's Laboratory for Elementary Particle Physics (LEPP) in Ithaca, N.Y., is playing a major role in two of these machines: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), being built at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, for which he serves as chairman of the machine advisory committee, and the International Linear Collider (ILC), being planned by an international team, for which he is chairman of the steering committee. (February 7, 2005)
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Federal government forms now allow people to officially identify with up to six different racial groups -- a fundamental change that is designed for multiracial categorization. But the "mark one or more boxes" system has flaws -- most evident in the 2000 census -- that are now rising to the surface, according to a leading sociologist. In tabulating race data, says Cornell University professor of sociology David Harris, multiracial self-reporting is often defaulted back into a single race category. The most glaring example is with people who indicate they are both white and Native American: For some purposes, the census count automatically defaults to Native American, exaggerating the demographics of an entire population. (February 15, 2005)
NEW YORK (Feb. 16, 2005) -- For years, the "gold standard" treatment for patients struggling with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has involved exposure to reminders of the triggering traumatic event.Now, findings from a small pilot study by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers may offer patients a new alternative to that often painful process.
GENEVA, N.Y. - The sexual chemistry of the German cockroach has baffled scientists for years. Meanwhile the insect, which is one of the most serious food and residential pests worldwide, has been busily fouling up the planet essentially unhindered. Blattella germanica plagues humans in homes, apartments, restaurants, supermarkets, hospitals and any buildings where food is stored, prepared or served. The cockroach is notoriously resilient and difficult to control. But homeland security for the pesky cockroach has just become a thing of the past. A team of entomologists working at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and North Carolina State University have succeeded in isolating, characterizing and synthesizing the sex pheromone of the female German cockroach, thus providing an important new tool for the control and management of the pest. The study is reported in Science this week. (February 17, 2005)
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Robots that walk like human beings are common in science fiction but not so easy to make in real life. The most famous current example, the Honda Asimo, moves smoothly but on large, flat feet. And compared with a person, it consumes much more energy. But researchers at Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Holland's Delft University of Technology have built robots that seem to more closely mimic the human gait -- and the Cornell robot matches human efficiency. The researchers' inspiration: simple walking toys that fascinated children in the 19th century. (February 7, 2005)
NEW YORK (Feb. 2, 2005) -- The Center of Excellence for Lymphoma and Myeloma at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center is the only medical center in the nation to currently offer a chemotherapy cocktail with the next-generation immuno-modulatory research drug Revlimid™ (lenalidomide), as part of a clinical trial for patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma. Results of the single-center Phase II clinical trial are anticipated to show improved complete remission rate and response time, and decreased toxicity -- compared to the standard treatment.The drug cocktail is known as BiRD, an acronym for its component parts: Biaxin® (clarithromycin, an antibiotic), Revlimid, and dexamethasone (Decadron®, a steroid). It is an induction therapy, the first step toward shrinking the cancer and evaluating patient response to the potential treatment.
NEW YORK (Feb. 7, 2005) -- For the first time, advanced neurological imaging suggests the brains of minimally conscious patients recognize and respond to speech in ways similar to healthy individuals, according to a team of researchers from Columbia University Medical Center and the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, both in New York City; and the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute-Center for Head Injuries, in Edison, N.J."The results challenge our thinking about the possible inner lives these severely brain-damaged patients may experience, and also motivate renewed interest in research aimed at recovery and rehabilitation," said the study's senior author, Joy Hirsch, Ph.D., Professor of Neuroradiology and Psychology, and Director of the fMRI Research Center at Columbia University Medical Center.
Max Weber (1864-1920) was a German sociologist, economist and political scientist who is known not only as one of the world's most important social scientists because he founded the modern study of sociology and public administration, but also as one of the most difficult to understand. To help the general reader (and frustrated or tired student or teacher) get a better grasp of the theories and works of Weber, Richard Swedberg, an economic sociologist, Weber scholar and professor of sociology at Cornell University, has published a book, The Max Weber Dictionary: Key Words and Central Concepts (Stanford University Press, 2005). (February 16, 2005)
Thomas W. Simons Jr., former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and Poland, returns as the Provost's Visiting Professor at Cornell and will deliver a lecture titled "Islam and the West Since Iraq" Monday, Feb. 21, at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall on campus. The talk is free and open to the public. During Simons' Cornell visit, which runs through Friday, Feb. 25, he will meet with faculty and student groups and participate in a colloquium hosted by the Department of Government, a Peace Studies Program seminar, and government and business classes, among other activities. (February 16, 2005)
The newly elected chair of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, will deliver a public lecture at Cornell University, Wednesday, Feb. 23, at 2:30 p.m. in Anabel Taylor Auditorium on campus. The topic of Dean's talk, which is sponsored by the student-led Cornell Democrats, is "Reforms in the Democratic Party." The talk is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. They can be obtained beginning Wednesday, Feb. 16, at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office on campus, first come, first served. (February 15, 2005)
For the second year in a row, New York's fledgling hops industry -- developed by Cornell University, the Northeast Hops Alliance and New York's Department of Agriculture and Markets -- continues to grow. The Ithaca Beer Co.'s Double India Pale Ale, made from hops grown exclusively in New York, is now available to consumers at pubs and cafes in New York City, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse. Last year, it sold out within weeks. Duncan Hilchey, Cornell senior extension associate in Cornell's Community, Food and Agriculture Program in the Department of Development Sociology, is striving to kick-start a new hop-growing industry. Hilchey helped to develop the Northeast Hops Alliance, a group of farmers and brewers trying to amplify hop's resurgence in the state. New York state was once a thriving hop-growing region, but crop disease and prohibition shut it down early in the last century. (February 15, 2005)
Actress and public speaker Yolanda King will return to campus to deliver the Cornell University Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture titled "Open My Eyes, Open My Soul: Discovering the Power of Diversity," Tuesday, Feb. 15, at 5 p.m. in Sage Chapel. King was selected to speak by the university's King Commemoration Committee last spring, said Kenneth Clarke, director of Cornell United Religious Work (CURW). (February 7, 2005)
Cornell University Vice President Tommy Bruce has issued the following statement on the Northwest Airlines agreement to bring new air service to Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport: "Cornell University is excited by this new commuter arrangement with Northwest Airlines, which will expand travel options for the region. This is a boon to the community because it can lead to further expansion of travel options in the future. We are proud to have been part of a local partnership of academic institutions and businesses providing revenue guarantees to ensure the success of this endeavor. In addition, Cornell staff members have been actively involved in the coordination of efforts and the negotiations with Northwest Airlines since this process began." (February 7, 2005)
ARECIBO, PUERTO RICO -- Fitted with its new compound eye on the heavens, the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Arecibo Observatory telescope, the world's largest and most sensitive single-dish radio telescope, early tomorrow morning begins a years-long survey of distant galaxies, perhaps discovering elusive "dark galaxies" -- galaxies that are devoid of stars. Astronomers at Arecibo Observatory hope the new sky survey will result in a comprehensive census of galaxies out to a distance of 800 million light years from our galaxy, the Milky Way, in nearly one-sixth of the sky -- or some 7,000 square degrees. (February 3, 2005)
In 1996, Cornell University historian Nick Salvatore began a scholarly journey that led him into the life and times of the legendary C. L. Franklin (1915 to 1984), father of Aretha and arguably the greatest African American preacher of his generation. Salvatore's findings are stylishly bound within the covers of his latest work, Singing in a Strange Land: C.L. Franklin, the Black Church and the Transformation of America, (Little, Brown and Co.). It is the first full study of Franklin, whose rise to eminence paralleled the rise of the black church as a socio-political force in the growing civil rights movement in America. (February 3, 2005)
Cornell University will present a seminar, "The Sumatra Earthquake and Tsunami: The Science Behind the Headlines," Thursday, Feb. 10, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in room B14 of Hollister Hall. It is being held by the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. The public is invited to attend without charge. (February 3, 2005)
Stephen T. Golding, a seasoned professional with experience in higher education financial affairs, investment management, strategic resource planning and government, has been appointed to be the first Samuel W. Bodman Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration at Cornell University. Golding's nomination by Cornell President Jeffrey S. Lehman was approved by the Executive Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees at a special meeting Feb. 1. He will assume the post full time in April. (February 3, 2005)
NEW YORK (February 1, 2005) -- To better address the acute medical needs of the growing number of adults aged 75 and older, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center has created a Geriatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship, a first-of-its-kind program for physicians who have completed their residency training in emergency medicine."We are grateful for the vision and generosity of Jerry I. Speyer, Vice Chairman of our Board of Trustees, who made this unique and innovative fellowship possible," says Dr. Herbert Pardes, President and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
NEW YORK and ITHACA (February 2, 2005) -- A cellular enzyme known to biologists for years just got a startling makeover.The discovery by a Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medical College scientist that poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) plays a pivotal role in gene transcription could open doors to new therapies for cancer and neurological disease, and even hints at connections between the foods we eat and gene expression within our cells.
NEW YORK (January 31, 2005) -- More than one million Americans undergo bone density scans each year, looking for evidence of osteoporosis that would increase their risk for fracture. But, there's been no clear evidence that osteoporosis screening helps to reduce fracture risk."Although some groups recommend screening, no study had proven that screening prevents fractures. Our study provides new evidence for the effectiveness of osteoporosis screening," said lead researcher Dr. Lisa Kern, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City. Dr. Kern is also Assistant Attending Epidemiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
The Qur'an, Islam's sacred text, offers Muslim women the same rights as men, according to a new book, Woman's Identity and the Qur'an: A New Reading, by Nimat Hafez Barazangi, a research fellow in Cornell University's Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. Barazangi argues that the Qur'an traditionally has been misinterpreted. Muslim women have been excluded from full participation in Islamic society because of patriarchal readings of the Qur'an, which dates back to the 7th century, says Barazangi. "The realities of Muslim women haven't changed since the beginning. The men have interpreted the Qur'an up until now, and Muslim women have been taught that interpretations have the same authority as the Qur'an itself," she says. But that practice is directly contradicted in the Qur'an, which "specifically states that each individual is obligated to understand Islam by reading the Qur'an and making sense of it himself or herself. This must be done continually, over time and space." (February 01, 2005)
New York, N.Y. -- Jessica Govea Thorbourne, a labor educator with Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations in New York City and a founding organizer of Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers (UFW) Union, died Jan. 23, 2005, of breast cancer at age 58. A resident of West Orange, N.J., at the time of her death, she had played a central role in making the UFW one of the nation's most formidable labor organizations and a source of pride to several generations of Mexican-Americans. In 1996 Govea Thorbourne was featured in part two of the PBS series entitled "Chicano! The Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement." Her labor work was highlighted in a two-hour PBS documentary, "The Fight in the Fields," which aired in April 1997. She also was written about in the book We Were There, Too!: Young People in U.S. History by Phillip Hoose, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2001. (February 01, 2005)
Working conditions in the U.S. meat and poultry industry are so hazardous and the tactics that employers use to prevent workers from organizing so threatening that the industry consistently violates basic human rights. That is the conclusion of a Cornell University labor law expert in a report for Human Rights Watch. "In sum, the United States is failing to meet its obligations under international human rights standards to protect the human rights of meat and poultry industry workers," writes Lance Compa, who teaches courses in U.S. labor law and international labor rights at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, in the report. (February 01, 2005)