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ITHACA, N.Y. -- Three advanced technologies are about to expand the horizons of health care, speakers at the 12th annual Cornell Biotechnology Symposium, "Frontiers in Biomedicine," will predict on Oct. 15 from 9 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. in the ground floor conference room of the Biotechnology Building at Cornell University. Topics include "A New Paradigm of Structure-based Drug Design Using Combinatorial Chemistry" by Gregory Petsko, the Markey Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at Brandeis University; "Gene Therapy: A Therapeutic Paradigm for the 21st Century" by Ronald Crystal, the Webster Professor of Internal Medicine at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center; and "Polymer Delivery Systems for Drugs, Proteins and Mammalian Cells" by Robert Langer, the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "These techniques are highly experimental now, but at the rate biomedicine is progressing, they may be routine practice by early in the next century," said Milton Zaitlin, associate director of Cornell's Center for Advanced Technology in Biotechnology, which sponsors the symposium. "We've assembled some of the top people in their fields to tell us where biomedicine is headed next." biotechsymp.hrs.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The fungus responsible for the legendary Irish potato famine of the last century is staging a strong resurgence and scientists want to fight back. Researchers from Poland, Russia, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Canada, Peru, Mexico and the United States will gather in Ithaca on Oct. 7 and 8 at Cornell University to discuss the problem and how to fight it. Researchers at the international planning meeting of the newly launched Cornell-Eastern Europe-Mexico International Collaborative Project in Potato Late Blight Control will review and identify priority research topics and determine the potential for technical cooperation and financial support. A newer, stronger strain of the potato late blight fungus, Phytophthora infestans, now has been found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia. The indigenous strain of the fungus has been controlled with fungicides, but it appears that exotic strains are more resistant. If left unchecked, the exotic strains could recombine with indigenous strains and wreak worldwide, agricultural havoc, experts say. Blight.bpf.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The future of aircraft, satellite technology and space missions all will be discussed down on Earth when prominent figures in the aerospace industry and government convene at Cornell University on Saturday, Oct. 12, for the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering's symposium commemorating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Cornell's Graduate School of Aeronautical Engineering. The all-day symposium, "Looking Ahead: The Next 50 Years of Aerospace Engineering," will be held at the Statler Hotel on the Cornell campus. Talks are free and open to the public, but a registration fee is required for lunch and dinner. M&AEsymp.lb.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Most people think nothing of it when their desktop ink jet printer spews out page after page of documents, or how the characters are formed, letter after letter, line after line. The hum of the cartridge moving across the page is their only concern. But what if users knew the real mechanism by which those characters, each made up of thousands of minuscule dots squirted out of tiny nozzles, were produced? What if they knew that hundreds of microscopic pads were heated at rates of almost 1 billion degrees per second? Why, people might even be amazed - both by the temperatures involved and that they even could be measured. "The bubble-jet printing process is undoubtedly a significant achievement in design and ingenuity, drawing upon concepts in boiling of liquids, electronics, heat transfer and fluid mechanics," said C. Thomas Avedisian, Cornell University professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering who led a study on the thermal ink jet process. bubble.jet.lb.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- A chemistry symposium in honor of the 75th birthday of Harold Scheraga, Cornell University professor of chemistry emeritus, will be held Saturday, Oct. 19, in Baker Laboratory on the Cornell campus. Former students, postdoctoral fellows and research colleagues will honor Scheraga's 50 years at Cornell with talks and colloquia on their mentor's favorite area of research -- protein chemistry. scheragasym.lb.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Two Cornell physicists, Robert C. Richardson and David M. Lee, won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for their 1971 discovery of the superfluid helium-3, a breakthrough in low-temperature physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today (Oct. 9, 1996). Richardson and Lee share the prize with Douglas Osheroff (Cornell Ph.D. 1973) of Stanford University, who was a doctoral student at the Cornell lab under Richardson and Lee. The trio discovered that the helium isotope helium-3 can be made a superfluid -- that is, it can flow without resistance -- at about two-thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, which is minus-273.15 degrees Centigrade. Such a discovery cannot be understood in terms of classical physics. nobelprize.ltb.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Researchers have long suspected that the chemistry of the brain largely influences personality and emotions. Now, a Cornell University clinical psychologist has shown for the first time how the neurotransmitter dopamine affects one type of happiness, a personality trait and short-term, working memory. "One personality trait in humans is how sensitive and responsive we are to incentives and rewards," said Richard Depue, Ph.D., professor of human development and family studies and director of the Laboratory of Neurobiology of Personality and Emotion at Cornell. Depue is an expert in the neurobiology of personality, emotion and temperament with particular expertise in the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. "Some of us are motivated by signals of incentive-reward and pursue goals, and others are not." A major reason for the difference, he argues, is related to different levels of or responsiveness to dopamine, one of the chemical substances that transmits nerve impulses through the brain. chem.personality.ssl.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The time is near, Cornell University waste-management researchers say, when patrons of environmentally friendly restaurants can take home two packages: the traditional doggie bag of leftovers for tomorrow's lunch box plus a sack of compost for the garden or window box. And if the patrons had visited the restaurant two months before, there is a chance tonight's pleasantly earthy-smelling package would contain microbially processed food scraps from their previous meal. Technology for food-scrap composting has matured to the point, Cornell experts say, where small family restaurants, 70,000-inmate prison systems and all food servers in between can practice on-site composting -- without offending delicate sensibilities. "Food-scrap composting has presented challenges. There's no doubt about that," said Thomas L. Richard, a biological engineer in Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Science. "But research at the Cornell Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering and elsewhere has shown how to compost just about any kind of food waste, efficiently and inoffensively." foodscrap.hrs.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The period of Jan. 1 through Sept. 30 was the wettest for the Northeast in 102 years of records, according to climatologists from the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. "This was quite a turn-around from last year, when anomalously cold and dry weather characterized the first full month of the autumn season," said Keith Eggleston, regional climatologist. NRCC.Sept96.bpf.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Although self-help organizations have long suspected that "it takes one to help one" might be true, new Cornell University research shows that social contact with people who have been through the same life change crisis are, by far, the most helpful. In fact, the more people you know who have been through the same stressful experience, such as widowhood, divorce, or caring for an ill relative, the less likely you are to be depressed. And the more stressful the crisis, the greater the benefits of knowing people who have been through a similar situation. best.supports.ssl.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Hans A. Bethe, Nobel laureate physicist at Cornell University and head of the Theoretical Physics Division at Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project during World War II, will give a lecture on "The Making of the Bomb" on Monday, Oct. 28. The lecture, free and open to the public, is designed for an audience with some scientific or technical background. It is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall. Bethe.Gemantlecture.lb.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Materials Science Center (MSC) at Cornell University has received funding for another five years, topping the list of institutions that were funded by the National Science Foundation as centers of materials research. The MSC, an interdisciplinary research center established in 1959, will receive $17.75 million over 54 months for research that ranges from fundamental condensed matter science to thin films on glass needed, for example, for flat panel displays in laptop computers. MSC.lb.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Frank Press, senior fellow with the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., will give a free, public lecture at Cornell University on Monday, Oct. 21. The lecture, "Out of Chaos: A Better Way to Support Science," is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Monday in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. Presslecture.lb.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University researchers have found a way to boost what may be whole milk's natural cancer-fighting ability. By making simple changes in the cow's feed, they have substantially increased the amount of conjugated lineoic acid (CLA) -- a cancer-fighting compound -- in the milk. A number of laboratory studies -- not at Cornell -- have shown that CLA suppresses carcinogens and inhibits proliferation of colon, prostate, ovarian, breast cancers and leukemia. While none of these studies have involved humans, laboratory research indicates that CLA, even in extremely low dietary concentrations (for example, 0.05 percent), inhibits carcinogenesis. milkcompound.bfp.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Anthony Vidler, professor of art history and architecture and chair of the Department of Art History at the University of California at Los Angeles, has been nominated as dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University. The appointment, made by Cornell Provost Don M. Randel, would be effective Jan. 1, 1997. Vidler.djg.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell University Student Farm is holding a Harvest Festival on Saturday, Oct. 5 (raindate Oct. 6), to close down the farm officially for this season. The student farm is located on the southern edge of the Cornell Orchards, on Route 366, and it can be accessed via the nature trail along Cascadilla Creek. studentfarm.bpf.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Thomas W. Jones, BS '69 MRP '71, president and chief operating officer of TIAA-CREF, heads a prominent list of corporate executives who will participate in a conference on "New Values for Corporate Leadership: Balancing Stakeholder Demands in a Competitive Environment" on Wednesday, Oct. 16, from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Cornell Club, 6 East 44th St., in New York City. The event is sponsored by Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management. As part of the conference, the Johnson School will release the results of a survey on what values and leadership characteristics make good executives. The survey polled senior executives and non-executive employees of Fortune 1,000 companies, along with MBA students from the nation's top 20 business schools. JSchool_forum.dg.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Philip Meilman has been appointed director of psychological services at Cornell University's Gannett Health Center. Meilman joined the staff on Sept. 23, and he brings 19 years of experience devoted to college mental health. "We are delighted that Phil Meilman has joined our staff," said Janet Corson-Rikert, M.D., director of University Health Services. "He brings fresh vision and strong clinical leadership to psychological services and a commitment to collaboration and outreach on campus and in the community." newdirector.sd.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Igor Novikov, theoretical astrophysicist, will deliver two lectures as the Thomas Gold Lecturer at Cornell University this month. Novikov, a professor at the Theoretical Astrophysics Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, will give a free, public lecture titled "Can We Change the Past?" at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 17, in Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall. He will discuss the nature of time and its asymmetry from the past to the future and its possible reverse. On campus for the week of Oct. 14, with an office in the Astronomy Department, Space Sciences Building, Novikov also will deliver a joint Physics/Astronomy Colloquium at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 16, "Tidal Interaction of Stars With Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei," also in Schwartz Auditorium. Novikov.lb.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Honorable George J. Mitchell, former Senate majority leader and a special adviser to President Bill Clinton in Ireland, will be the 1996 Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World Affairs Fellow at Cornell University Oct. 23 and 24. Mitchell will present the Bartels Fellowship Lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 23, in the Alice Statler Auditorium, Statler Hall at 7:30 p.m. Titled "American Foreign Policy in the Next Century: From Bosnia and Burundi to Beirut and Belfast," the lecture is free and open to the public. Bartels.adv.jkp.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Christian Jouhaud, the Luigi Einaudi Chair in Modern European and International Studies at Cornell University, will present the Einaudi Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 22, at 4:30 p.m. in the A.D. White House on the Cornell campus. The lecture, free and open to the public, is titled "Two Stories in One: Literature as a Hidden Door to 17th-Century French History." einaudi.jkg.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- They could have called it "Applied Biology-Chemistry-Physiology-Ecology-Risk Analysis-Current Affairs." Instead, the faculty members who developed a first for Cornell -- and one of the few undergraduate courses at any American university to address the health and environmental effects of toxic substances -- settled for "Principles of Toxicology." "Traditionally, toxicology has been taught at the graduate level, in medical schools or on the undergraduate level in pharmacy schools for students with a heavy science background. We wanted to make toxicology accessible to students who don't necessarily have an extensive background in science," said one of the new course's instructors, Stephen M. Penningroth, "and to strike a balance between medical toxicology, with its concern for human health, and environmental toxicology, with its concerns for ecosystems and wildlife." envirotox.hrs.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Kyle L. Grazier, associate professor of heath care finances and director of the Sloan Program at Cornell University, has been named a J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise at Cornell. Grazier will investigate the unique conditions under which the art and science of entrepreneurship applies to the health care industry. She will explore innovation in the start-up, collaboration, diversification and management of health care organizations as well as the philosophies and risk-taking behaviors of their leaders through interviews and case studies to allow in-depth analyses of processes and outcomes. In the spring, Grazier will invite health care entrepreneurs to Cornell to share their experience and wisdom through a workshop. This forum will be the foundation for a semester-long course in health, health care and entrepreneurship the following year. grazierendowment.ssl.html
NEW YORK -- Compassion will be one of the most important characteristics business leaders will need for success a decade from now, say executives of Fortune 1,000 companies surveyed by Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management. Only team-building was cited more often than compassion by the executives, who selected from a list that also included the terms "competitiveness," "intelligence" and "aggressiveness," among others. "The results may seem surprising in this era of mass downsizing, but they clearly show that executives think there's more to corporate responsibility than just profits," said Thomas Dyckman, acting dean of the Johnson School, which released the survey results today. "Executives may be getting weary of the 'chainsaw' management mentality that's been receiving so much attention lately." J_School.survey.djg.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Executives from Toys "R" Us, Paine Webber, Garrick-Aug and Price Costco will discuss new directions in retail real estate at the 14th annual Cornell Real Estate Conference, Friday, Oct. 18, at Cornell University. "Retail real estate is clearly in a transition that may be a predictor of what is in store for other segments of our industry," said Robert Abrams, co-chair of the Real Estate Council and director of the Cornell MPS/Program in Real Estate. "Not only are we seeing intensive consolidation of tenants through mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies, but the fundamentals for accessing capital are also evolving rapidly." RealEstateConf1996.dg.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University alumni and friends gave the university a single-year record of $219.8 million in the fiscal year ending June 30, President Hunter Rawlings announced today (Wednesday, Oct. 23). These gifts included those made in the final six months of Cornell's record-setting $1.5 billion five-year Capital Campaign that ended Dec. 30, 1995, and those made in the first six months of 1996. Gifts for the previous fiscal year totaled $197.7 million. gifts.jkp.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- World Court decisions will be available for the first time on the Internet, courtesy of the Cornell University Law School.
Official decisions of the International Court of Justice, as well as other court-related documents, are posted on the Cornell University's Law School Web page at
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Africa is arguably the richest continent on Earth in terms of its natural resources, yet its share of world trade is less than five percent, writes Muna Ndulo, a Cornell University visiting professor of law, in the current issue of the Institute for African Development newsletter Africa Notes. Africa's near absence from the arena of world trade and the need for non-African countries to invest in the continent will be addressed at an upcoming symposium, "Integrating Africa into the Global Economy," at Cornell Oct. 25 and 26. The symposium is free and open to the public and will be held in Room 290 Myron Taylor Hall. The symposium is scheduled to coincide with World Food Day, the anniversary of the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. This year's symposium is dedicated to Ron Brown, the late U.S. Secretary of Commerce who worked tirelessly to bolster African trade, said David B. Lewis, director of the Institute for African Development. worldfoodday.jkg.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Hundreds of members of the Board of Trustees and University Council will arrive on campus Thursday, Oct. 24, for Cornell University's annual Trustee/Council Weekend. The annual meeting of the 440-member council and a quarterly meeting of the trustees are scheduled on campus every fall so that the groups may attend joint meetings and hear President Hunter Rawlings' State of the University Address. The council is an advisory body made up of alumni and friends of the university who are elected by the trustees. trustee.council.jkp.html
SAN DIEGO -- Persons seeking to recover damages from people or corporations who injure them will soon be out of luck -- and money, a law professor from Cornell University will warn a conference of bankruptcy judges and lawyers in San Diego on Friday (Oct. 18). An increasingly sophisticated array of judgment-proofing techniques will soon render meaningless lawsuits for damages under our current legal liability system, predicts Lynn M. LoPucki, the A. Robert Noll Professor of Law at the Cornell Law School. He will present his analysis of the legal liability system Friday at the annual meeting of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges to be held at the Marriott--San Diego. LoPucki_Release.lgk.dg.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings announced today (Oct. 25) the formation of an Academic Initiatives Fund to finance the recruiting of new faculty who will forge creative, intellectual initiatives, particularly across disciplines. Rawlings announced the establishment of the fund, with a gift of $8.4 million over five years, in his annual fall State of the University address to trustees, alumni and friends in the Alice Statler Auditorium, Statler Hall, on campus. The fund will create opportunities for universitywide collaboration to enhance the university's academic excellence in selected areas. Academic.Init.Fund.jkp.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Marshall Sahlins, the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, will deliver a lecture titled "Sentimental Pessimism and Ethnographic Experience: Why Culture is Not a Disappearing Object" at Cornell University Friday, Nov. 1, at 4:30 p.m. in Room 165 McGraw Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public and is part of the University Lectures series. One of America's premier anthropologists, Sahlins first rose to prominence as an ethnographer and historian of Polynesia. His theories on the history of European contact in Polynesia have sparked lively debates, recorded in the pages of several national news magazines. His first book, Social Stratification in Polynesia, remains a standard in the field, as does Moala: Culture and Nature on a Fijian Island. Other influential works include Evolution and Culture (which he co-edited with Elman Service), The Use and Abuse of Biology, Culture and Practical Reason and Stone Age Economics, a collection of essays. His most recent book is How 'Natives' Think: About Captain Cook, for Example. sahlins.jkg.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University has established the Cornell Research Scholars Program to help recruit the best and brightest undergraduate students with special research opportunities and financial support, Cornell President Hunter Rawlings announced today (Oct. 25). Rawlings announced the establishment of the Research Scholars Program, with a gift of $5.45 million over five years, in his annual fall State of the University address to trustees, alumni and friends in the Alice Statler Auditorium, Statler Hall, on campus. The program will provide exceptional students with the opportunity to work one-on-one with a faculty mentor on research projects and to be paid for that work. Research.Scholars.jkp.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Ossie Davis, the actor, writer, director and producer, will appear on stage in Cornell University's Statler Auditorium at 8 p.m. Nov. 1, for a program entitled "In Other Words. . ." Tickets -- $13 for students and $15 for all others -- are available at the Willard Straight Hall box office. Davis' performance will be a mixture of dramatic readings of stories, poems and excerpts from novels, historical writing and plays. Much of the program is based on the works of African American authors, but it also includes works from other cultures and is interspersed with Davis' observations on the arts and current political and economic trends. Ossie_Davis.sfm.html
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell University section of the American Chemical Society is celebrating National Chemistry Week -- the first week in November -- by helping to enhance the public's awareness of the contributions of chemistry to society and our everyday lives. To mark the 10th anniversary of National Chemistry Week, the Cornell section will hold a series of demonstrations and hands-on activities at Pyramid Mall in Lansing on Saturday, Nov. 2. Chem_society.sfm.html