News
March 2005
Index to all monthsFor the full text of any story, click on the headline. Electronic queries may be made to cunews@cornell.edu.
Cardiac stress test provides emotional reassurance and allays uncertainty
NEW YORK (March 31, 2005) -- Each year, millions of Americans undergo diagnostic tests aimed at spotting heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses. And while we know a lot about what these tests and their results mean for the body, we still know very little about how they affect a patient's state of mind. Now, a Weill Medical College of Cornell University study that focused on cardiac stress testing may give researchers a powerful new tool to study those types of psychological effects.The study found that, in patients with chest pain suggestive of coronary artery disease (CAD), the results of standard treadmill tests provided individuals with reassurance -- an emotional variable that's been difficult to measure until now.
Five Cornell scientists receive Sloan Fellowships
Five members of the Cornell University faculty, from the United States, Canada, Romania and Sweden, have been awarded prestigious Sloan Foundation Research Fellowships. They are Colleen E. Clancy, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics, Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell; Brian Crane, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology; Erich Mueller, assistant professor of physics; Camil Muscalu, assistant professor of mathematics; and Anders Ryd, assistant professor of physics. (March 31, 2005)
Britain's Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees to lecture on Einstein, cosmology and the future
Sir Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal and Master of Trinity College, the University of Cambridge, as well as a professor of cosmology and astrophysics, will deliver three Messenger Lectures at Cornell University in April. They are free and open to the public and will be held in the Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall. The lectures are: (March 31, 2005)
Grant supports development of biodegradable plastics
"Green" plastics developed in a Cornell University laboratory soon could become commercial products with the aid of a $300,000 grant from New York state. The mission of the funding agency, the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR), is to encourage economic development in the state by supporting high-tech academic research that can form the basis for new businesses. (March 31, 2005)
Grass makes environmentally friendly biofuel
Grow grass, not for fun but for fuel. Burning grass for energy has been a well-accepted technology in Europe for decades. But not in the United States. Yet burning grass pellets as a biofuel is economical, energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and sustainable, says a Cornell University forage crop expert. (March 31, 2005)
South African who helped defeat apartheid to speak
Leading South African trade unionist Tony Ehrenreich is the keynote speaker at Cornell University's Union Days 2005. "Unions in the Global Economy" is the overall theme of the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) events, April 6-8, in Ives Hall. Ehrenreich's talk is Wednesday, April 6, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in 305 Ives Hall. Along with other Union Days events, it is free and open to the public. (March 30, 2005)
Airline industry execs featured during Hotel Ezra Cornell
N.Y. -- Five airline industry leaders will talk about the issues confronting their industry; at the 80th annual, student-led Hotel Ezra Cornell (HEC) at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration, April 7-9. The event attracts top hospitality industry executives. "This year we chose the airline industry for one of our panel discussions because of its importance to the hospitality industry as a whole," said Kurt Zitzner, Cornell Hotel School senior and managing director of HEC 80. (March 30, 2005)
Jimmy Eat World and Taking Back Sunday hit Barton Hall, April 17
New anti-hazing Web site at Cornell offers information, intervention and education
Rare historical psychoanalysis of Hitler available online
Bill Nye, TV's 'Science Guy,' to give open lecture at Cornell April 6
Boston folk-rock artist Kate Klim will give a free performance at Willard Straight, April 4
Virginia Valian to give talk on invisible barriers that hold back women in professions
Burger and fries are just a keystroke away on Webfood
Cornell conference on 'consumer-directed' health insurance is slated for April 8-9
Human stem cells can develop into functional vascularized muscle tissue, Weill Cornell team finds
Light is detected from two confirmed extrasolar planets
Cornell joins USDA's $5 million food-safety initiative
Key enzyme is secreted by heart mast cells -- Weill Cornell discovery opens door to new cardiovascular therapies
Cornellians mourn death at 91 of diplomat Sol Linowitz, Law School alumnus and 'loyal friend'
Gay adolescent? No, normal teenager, new book says
Appellate Division upholds Cornell parking lot decision
Two antigens identified as targets for multiple myeloma vaccine
First-ever compounds to target only metastatic cells are highly effective against breast, prostate, and colon cancers
Weill Cornell research reveals secrets of trafficking within cells
Vampire bats keep out of trouble by running
Small schools make rural communities more prosperous
Student-led Big Red Relief concert, April 3, benefits tsunami victims
University of Texas bioengineer to lecture April 18 and 19
Beware of a dragon crossing (and vehicular delays) at Cornell March 18
Three promising and innovative prostate cancer therapies in clinical trials at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell
Security flaw in popular peer-to-peer filesharing program
$900,000 grant to New York City Urban Scholars Program
Free science education DVD for a limited time only
Hans Bethe is posthumously awarded American Philosophical Society's Benjamin Franklin Medal
Highway deaths rose after September 11
Majority of New Yorkers oppose Social Security plan
Cornell is studying the use of wind energy for its campus
Hans Bethe, a titan of physics and conscience of science, dies at age 98
Cornell trustees to meet in Ithaca, March 9-11
John Hsu conducts 'farewell concert' March 12 at Ithaca College
Randy Cohen, Emmy-Award winner and writer of The New York Times Magazine's 'The Ethicist' column, will give a public talk at on-campus event, March 11
Cornell Hillel awards 1st annual Tanner Prize to Barbara Friedman, recognizing her service to the Jewish people and Cornell University
Most patients allow proxies leeway in end-of-life decisions, researchers find
Weill Cornell researchers confirm that "brain-derived" protein is crucial for survival and growth of blood vessels
Spitzer Space Telescope finds bright infrared galaxies
Textbook details the economics of aging
Disease-fighting chemicals in apples could reduce the risk of breast cancer, Cornell study in rats suggests
The Cornell Concert Commission will present alternative-rock bands Jimmy Eat World and Taking Back Sunday, with The Format, April 17 at the university's Barton Hall on campus. Tickets for the 8 p.m. show are on sale now, for both Cornell students and the general public. Tickets for Cornell students with ID are $17 and can be purchased at the Willard Straight Hall ticket desk on campus and at
Cornell University has launched a new Web site,
A rare 1943 document -- a psychological analysis of the personality of Adolph Hitler that predicted, among other things, his eventual suicide -- is now available on the Cornell Law Library's Web site. The copyright to the original document -- number three of only 30 copies made -- was granted to the Law Library by Nina Murray, the widow of the document's main author, Dr. Henry A. Murray. (March 29, 2005)
Bill Nye, TV's popular advocate for science education, returns to Cornell University April 3-12 in his role as a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor. He will deliver a public lecture Wednesday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m. in Statler Auditorium. Nye's lecture, titled "Carbon, Stars and CSI: What Next Might Change the World," is free and open to the public, but tickets are required and are limited to two per person. They will be available beginning Thursday, March 31, at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office on campus. (March 29, 2005)
Singer-songwriter Kate Klim, a rising folk-rock artist from the Boston area, will be the featured performer for the Lauren Pickard '90 Emerging Artist Series Monday, April 4, in Cornell University's Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room. The performance, which is free and open to all, will begin at 7:30 p.m. (March 28, 2005)
Virginia V. Valian, professor of psychology and linguistics at Hunter College and author of Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, will give a lecture on women in academic careers Friday, April 1, at noon in the James Law Auditorium, College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. Valian, who also is the co-director of the Hunter College Gender Equity Project, will draw on psychology, sociology, economics and neuropsychology to examine the invisible barriers and explain the disparity in salary, rank and rates of promotion for men and women in the professions, science and academia. (March 25, 2005)
Peter Krebs no longer has to wait in line for his favorite Cornell Bear Deal combo meal. Frustrated by long lines at campus cafeterias, he has found a better way: Ordering online. The idea came to him on a cold February evening in 2000. At the time Krebs was a junior living on North Campus and fed up with waiting for an hour for dinner, only to find the counter window closing for the day. Instead of calling up for pizza, Krebs took his gripes to then-Cornell Dining Director Nadeem Siddiqui, who encouraged Krebs to find a solution. Two years later Krebs, C.E. '01, M.Eng. '02, and his four partners developed and successfully demonstrated their prototype, which they trademarked as Webfood. (March 24, 2005)
"Consumer-directed" models of health insurance that give consumers more financial accountability and responsibility for decisions about their health care will be the focus of a conference at Cornell University, April 8-9. (March 24, 2005)
NEW YORK (March 22, 2005) -- The discovery by Weill Medical College of Cornell University researchers that a specific type of human fetal stem cell can co-differentiate simultaneously into both muscle and blood vessel cells may unlock the door to therapies that replace damaged tissue in the heart and other organs.Heart attack and other events can destroy cardiac muscle and the surrounding vasculature (blood vessels), so effective heart repair requires concurrent replacement of both these types of tissues.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers have for the first time detected light from confirmed planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. Two teams of researchers have observed two planets in our galaxy, the Milky Way: One, cataloged as HD 209458b, is orbiting a star 153 light years distant -- about 29 quadrillion miles from Earth -- in the constellation Pegasus, the winged horse. The second planet, TrES-1, is even more distant -- 489 light years away in the constellation Lyra. (March 21, 2005)
Acute gastroenteritis -- commonly known as food poisoning -- is one of the most common household illnesses in the United States, with an estimated 76 million food-related illnesses occurring each year. To learn more about preventing the spread of food-related illness pathogens on the farm, researchers at Cornell University are joining a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded Food Safety Research and Response Network (FSRRN), led by North Carolina State University. FSRRN is a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary team of more than 50 food safety experts from 18 colleges and universities who will investigate several of the most prevalent food-borne pathogens. It is funded by a $5 million grant from the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service. (March 22, 2005)
NEW YORK (March 18, 2005) -- Weill Medical College of Cornell University researchers have made the startling discovery that renin -- a kidney-secreted enzyme crucial to blood pressure regulation -- is also synthesized and secreted by mast cells within the heart.Renin breaks down a precursor, angiotensinogen, to form angiotensin. Because angiotensin is a major culprit in the development of cardiovascular diseases, the discovery that renin is produced outside the kidneys could revolutionize our therapeutic approach to these conditions.
The death of Sol M. Linowitz, the international lawyer and diplomat who served as President Jimmy Carter's ambassador-at-large, negotiating the Panama Canal treaties and Middle East peace agreements, is being met with sadness on the Cornell University campus. Linowitz died March 18 at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 91. (March 21, 2005)
The so-called "gay adolescent" soon will disappear, predicts a Cornell University expert on teenage sexuality in a new book. These adolescents will still have the same desires, fantasies and attractions, he writes, but they no longer will need or want to identify themselves as gay. "The new gay teenager is in many respects the non-gay teenager," says Ritch Savin-Williams, professor and chair of human development in Cornell's College of Human Ecology in his new book, The New Gay Teenager (Harvard University Press, 2005). Savin-Williams is an expert on issues concerning gay, lesbian and bisexual youths and is a licensed clinical psychologist who works with gay youths and their families. (March 17, 2005)
Ruling that it could find no rational basis in the record, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York in Albany today unanimously upheld Tompkins County Supreme Court Justice Robert C. Mulvey's June 9, 2004, decision ordering the Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Commission to grant the approval sought by Cornell University for a replacement parking lot proposed as part of its West Campus Residential Initiative. This ruling is the latest of three successive judicial rulings in Cornell's favor. "The West Campus Residential Initiative is an exciting part of Cornell's academic program for the future. We hope that now, with this decision, this matter is finally resolved and Cornell and the city can move forward cooperatively," said Cornell Vice President Thomas Bruce, commenting on today's ruling by the appellate court in Albany. (March 17, 2005)
NEW YORK (March 16, 2005) -- Vaccines that train the immune system to seek out and destroy malignant cells are at the cutting edge of cancer treatment.Now, joint research -- conducted by researchers at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Branch in New York -- has pinpointed two proteins that seem ideal targets for a vaccine against multiple myeloma, the second most common, and currently incurable, blood cancer.
NEW YORK (March 16, 2005) -- Two compounds that zero in on cancer cells spreading throughout the body, while ignoring primary tumor cells, could someday give doctors a whole new weapon in the fight against tough-to-treat metastatic disease, according to Weill Medical College of Cornell University researchers.The compounds, called synthetic migrastatin analogues, prevented 91 to 99 percent of metastatic breast cancer cells in mice, and are the first to target only metastatic cells.
NEW YORK (March 16, 2005) -- As you read this, cells in your eye are transmitting information to your brain, while cells in your heart and arteries work just as hard to keep that brain alive. Every one of these cells -- and others throughout the body -- depends on an internal process called endocytosis to keep the flow of cellular nutrients and information healthy and strong.It's an incredibly important life process, and now researchers at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City have used an exciting new technology to better understand how one key player -- a protein called clathrin -- helps regulate endocytosis like a well-oiled machine. It may also give us insights into the kinds of disease states that can happen when clathrin-regulated endocytosis goes wrong.
Although most people think of bats as stealthy mammals that flit about in the night sky, at least one species has evolved a terrestrial trot never before seen in bats, according to a recent Cornell University study. It's known that the common vampire bats of Central and South America behave much more like four-legged terrestrial mammals, in that they like to walk around on the ground; other bat species fumble helplessly when left to walk. But researchers in Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine have discovered that these bats not only walk but run. The unprecedented gait of Desmodus rotundus is described in a brief communication in this week's issue of Nature magazine (March 17, 2005) from Daniel Riskin, Cornell graduate student in zoology, and his adviser John W. Hermanson, associate professor of biomedical sciences. (March 16, 2005)
The old news is that students in small schools do better and have brighter outcomes than students in larger schools. The latest news, however, is that when small schools close in rural communities to consolidate with large schools, the local community is a big loser. A Cornell University study shows that on almost every indicator of economic and social well-being, rural communities with their own schools fare significantly better than rural communities that no longer have schools. (March 16, 2005)
Cornell University will present a student benefit concert, Big Red Relief, to raise money for victims of the December 2004 tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean. The concert, which will include an array of talented student performers from across the Cornell campus, is Sunday, April 3, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in Barton Hall. Everyone is welcome, and doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office on campus; at the Clinton House, Ithaca Guitar Works and Greenstar Co-op Market in downtown Ithaca; and online at
George Georgiou, the Joe C. Walter Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, will deliver the 18th annual Julian C. Smith Lectures in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University Monday, April 18, and Tuesday, April 19. Both talks will be given at 4 p.m. in 255 Olin Hall and will be preceded by a 3:15 p.m. reception in the Fred H. Rhodes Lounge in 128 Olin Hall. Both lectures are free and open to the public. (March 16, 2005)
Cornell University experts predict that the 104th beast created for the annual Dragon Day parade on campus will emerge from its lair Friday, March 18, and the university has issued the following traffic warning and road-closure alert: Vehicular access to central campus will be restricted from 12:30 p.m. to approximately 3:30 p.m. Buses could be rerouted or delayed when the dragon begins its journey across campus from Rand Hall at approximately 1 p.m. The beast will travel east on University Avenue, then south on East Avenue, then west on Campus Road. It will lumber through Ho Plaza and enter the Arts Quad, between Uris and Olin libraries, before proceeding to the south side of Sibley Hall. (March 16, 2005)
NEW YORK (March 14, 2005) -- Three promising and innovative prostate cancer therapies are currently being investigated in clinical trials at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The three trials -- for patients with metastatic androgen-independent prostate cancer -- include separate studies of two monoclonal antibody investigative therapies (177Lu-J591 and MLN2704, respectively) and a third study of an experimental drug, Atrasentan, in combination with chemotherapy.Current treatment for advanced prostate cancer is limited and includes forms of androgen deprivation -- the elimination of male testosterone. This therapy can cause side effects, and ultimately ceases to work as the cancer develops androgen-independent cells. Although chemotherapy has been demonstrated to improve survival, there is currently no curative treatment for prostate cancer once it has metastasized.
A Cornell University research group has discovered serious vulnerabilities in a widely-used peer-to-peer filesharing program. The weakness in LimeWire, a popular client for the Gnutella filesharing network, would allow an intruder to read any file on a computer running the program, including confidential information such as internal documents, sensitive information and some password files. The problem occurs in both the free and paid versions of the program, in all operating systems for which it is available. As soon as his group noticed the problem, Emin Gun Sirer, Cornell assistant professor of computer science, immediately notified Lime Wire LLC, the company that distributes the software. "Lime Wire responded immediately and had a patch ready within a few hours," Sirer reported, adding that the company needed several days to get the patches out to all of the 36 million people who had downloaded the program. LimeWire automatically posts a notice of the need to install a patch when it is turned on. Patches are available for all versions of the program except those that run on classic versions of the Mac OS, and the company is working on that, Sirer said. (March 15, 2005)
The Heckscher Foundation for Children recently awarded a $900,000 grant to the Cornell Urban Scholars Program, in which students from Cornell University help address challenges confronting New York City's poorest children, families and neighborhoods. The grant will provide three years of operational funds for the Urban Scholars Program. A Heckscher Foundation grant in 2002, and others that followed, established and propelled the program, which is a collaboration between Cornell's Department of City and Regional Planning, Public Service Center, Cornell Cooperative Extension of New York City and the Cornell Graduate School. The undergraduate and graduate students in the program work with nonprofit organizations and municipal agencies in New York City on advocacy and policy issues, as well as provide applied research. (March 11, 2005)
Free, from Cornell University, for a limited time only, is an educational DVD about the innovative national outreach Garden Mosaics Program. It shows footage of educators conducting program activities that range from planning and planting gardens to interviewing elders in the community to implementing dozens of science activities related to gardening. The free copy is available to the first 500 people who fill out a short evaluation survey on the Garden Mosaics Web site
Three days after his death, Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University and an architect of the age of modern atomic theory, was posthumously awarded the 2005 Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences by the American Philosophical Society (APS). The APS is the oldest learned society in the United States. The medal is the society's highest honor for lifetime achievement in the sciences. (March 10, 2005)
Beyond the tragic deaths on Sept. 11, 2001, there were more lives lost as an indirect result of the terrorist attacks. Using airline passenger and highway statistics, nearly 1,200 more people died in the months subsequent to the attacks when they switched their travel plans from flying to driving, according to Cornell University economists. Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2001, the economists found 725 driving fatalities linked to travelers changing their plans from air to less-safe car travel, which the economists have dubbed "The Sept. 11 Effect." An additional 400 to 500 people died in the first quarter of 2002 resulting from the Sept. 11 effect. (The researchers excluded September 2001 data.) (March 10, 2005)
More than half of all New York state residents (51 percent) oppose President Bush's proposal to change Social Security by allowing individuals to privately invest a portion of their Social Security taxes, according to a poll by Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations Survey Research Institute (SRI). The poll found that only about one-third of residents (36 percent) surveyed support the proposal. The survey was conducted between Feb. 7 and Feb. 26 and involved 802 interviews with residents from both upstate and downstate New York. "The results were weighted based on geography [upstate vs. downstate] to account for population distribution and otherwise are representative of other key demographic criteria [gender, race, income, employment]," says Erik C. Nisbet, project manager for the SRI's Empire State Poll. (March 10, 2005)
Prompted by students from KyotoNOW!, Cornell University is in the process of studying the possibility of producing wind-generated electricity for its campus in Ithaca and has opened discussions with its neighbors. "Our investigation into using renewable wind energy is still in the study phase, and there still are a lot of issues to explore," said Harold Craft, Cornell vice president for administration and CFO, "but, so far, the possibility looks promising." (March 09, 2005)
Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, the last of the giants of the golden age of 20th-century physics and the birth of modern atomic theory, and one of science's most universally admired figures, died quietly yesterday evening at his home in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 98. At his death, Bethe was emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University, the institution he joined in 1935 after fleeing Nazi Germany because his mother was Jewish. He was one of the most honored members of the faculty in the university's 140-year history for his work in revolutionizing our perception of the real world. But he was equally admired for his reputation for integrity, humility and concern that made him the conscience of science. (March 07, 2005)
The Cornell University Board of Trustees will meet in Ithaca, March 9-11. The full board will meet from 9 to 11:45 a.m. and from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 11, in the Beck Center of Statler Hall on the Cornell campus. The first 15 minutes of the morning session will be open to the public. Topics will include a report from President Jeffrey Lehman; a report on the Student Assembly by its president, senior Erica T. Kagan; a report on the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly by its president, Brian T. Holmes; and approval of construction projects for Mann Library, the Waste Management Facility at the College of Veterinary Medicine, and the Martha Van Rensselaer North Wing demolition. (March 07, 2005)
John Hsu, one of Cornell University's most beloved professors and musicians -- and 50-year faculty member -- will conduct a "farewell concert," Saturday, March 12. Hsu, Cornell's Old Dominion Foundation Professor of Music, will mark the occasion of his retirement by conducting a gala performance of The Creation by Joseph Haydn at Ithaca College's Ford Hall, within the James J. Whalen Center for Music. Prior to the performance, which begins at 8 p.m., James Webster, Cornell's Goldwin Smith Professor of Music, will give a pre-concert lecture at 7:15 p.m. in the center's Iger Lecture Hall. (March 07, 2005)
Randy Cohen, Emmy-Award winner and writer of "The Ethicist" column in The New York Times Magazine, is the featured speaker at this year's Cornell Commitment Convocation, Friday, March 11, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in Call Alumni Auditorium of Kennedy Hall at Cornell University. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets can be obtained at the Cornell Commitment Office at 103 Day Hall on campus or by calling (607) 255-8595. A reception will follow Cohen's address. (March 04, 2005)
Cornell Hillel's Board of Trustees has announced that Barbara Friedman '59 will be the first recipient of the Tanner Prize for her significant contributions to the Jewish people and to Cornell University. The prize will be given to Friedman at an honorary luncheon April 21 at the Cornell Club in New York City. The visionary philanthropist and communal leader Harold Tanner, Cornell Class of 1952, will present the prize bearing his name. Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman, who is a Cornell alumnus of the Class of 1977, will introduce Tanner and pay tribute to him as well. (March 3, 2005)
NEW YORK (Feb. 28, 2005) -- The Patient Self-Determination Act, passed by Congress in 1990, upholds the rights of patients to grant power-of-attorney or "proxy" status to a loved one when it comes to tough decisions on end-of-life care.In most cases, patients leave explicit instructions as to their wishes, should they become incapable of making these decisions themselves. But how tightly do patients really expect proxies to adhere to these instructions, given changes in prognosis? A new study from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center researchers suggests the pact between patient and proxy is much deeper and more flexible than previously thought.
NEW YORK (Feb. 25, 2005) -- Physician-scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have made the surprising finding that a protein called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which is usually considered important only for cells in the nervous system, actually plays a critical role in the growth and maintenance of blood vessels. This research, to be published in the March 1 online edition of Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), may lead to new treatments for vascular disease and cancer.Cancer and vascular disease, the two leading killers of Americans under 85, are in some ways mirror images of one another. One way that tumors grow is by hijacking the body's blood supply system, making new arteries and blood vessels for themselves in a process called "angiogenesis." And, in several forms of heart disease, the blood supply to the heart is inadequate, and the heart needs to generate new blood vessels.
A Cornell University-led team operating the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS), the largest of the three main instruments on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, has discovered a mysterious population of distant and enormously powerful galaxies radiating in the infrared spectrum with many hundreds of times more power than our Milky Way galaxy. Their distance from Earth is about 11 billion light years, or 80 percent of the way back to the Big Bang. Virtually everything about this new class of objects is educated speculation, the researchers say, since the galaxies are invisible to ground-based optical telescopes with the deepest reach into the universe. "We think we have an idea of what they are, but we are not necessarily correct," says Cornell senior research associate in astronomy Dan Weedman. (March 1, 2005)
As the demographic tsunami known as the baby-boom generation approaches age 65, long-delayed and painful changes in Social Security and Medicare policies must be made to ensure the long-term financial stability of these vital social programs. But which changes and who will pay are unresolved and politically charged questions. A new textbook, The Economics of an Aging Society (Blackwell Publishing, 2004), co-authored by Richard V. Burkhauser, the Sarah Gibson Blanding Professor of Policy Analysis in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, goes beyond the political rhetoric of change by providing a detailed presentation of the demographic forces that make changes inevitable and a method for evaluating how the changes will impact the employment and economic well-being of current and future older populations. (March 1, 2005)
An apple a day can help keep breast cancer away, according to a study in rats by food scientists at Cornell University. "We found that tumor incidence was reduced by 17, 39 and 44 percent in rats fed the human equivalent of one, three or six apples a day, respectively, over 24 weeks," says Rui Hai Liu, Cornell associate professor of food science and lead author of the study. (March 01, 2005)