Cornell University News Service Releases

August, 1998

Index to all months

For the full text of any story, click on the filename at the end of the description. These stories are also available via anonymous FTP at cunews.cornell.edu. Electronic queries may be made to cunews@cornell.edu.

'Garden Cities to Green Cities' symposium at Cornell Sept. 17-19
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning will host a two-day symposium, Sept. 17 - 19, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ebenezer Howard's influential book, Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.. Howard's book launched the widespread garden city movement in the 20th century. The symposium, "From Garden Cities to Green Cities and Beyond: Urban Policy for the 21st Century," will explore the origins, influence and future relevance of garden city concepts and planning strategies. There also will be on-site tours of the Cornell campus, Cornell Plantations and EcoVillage at Ithaca. Garden.cities.conference.html (August 31, 1998)

Conference sites change for Nabokov Festival
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The locations of sessions of the Nabokov Centenary Festival's scholarly conference at Cornell University, Sept. 10-12, have been changed to accommodate larger audiences. Here is an updated schedule, with session times and locations: Nabokov.Fest.update.sm.html (August 31, 1998)

Cornell Nanofabrication Facility gets renewed funding
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The National Science Foundation has renewed Cornell University's Nanofabrication Facility's (CNF) funding for a further five years. The CNF, which supports research into ultrasmall devices for medicine, high-speed communications and automotive safety, was founded 20 years ago. It has about 450 users from universities, private industry and government laboratories. nanofab.funding.deb.html (August 31, 1998)

Eloy Rodriguez named E.E. Just Lecturer by American Society for Cell Biology
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Eloy Rodriguez, the James A. Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies at Cornell University, has been named the fifth annual E.E. Just Lecturer by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). An internationally noted specialist in the chemistry of medicinal plants, Rodriguez will deliver the 1998 Just Lecture on Dec. 13 at the ASCB annual meeting in San Francisco on the topic "Exploring Amazonian Biodiversity for Novel Cytotoxins and Immunodulators." Just_lecture.hrs.html (August 28, 1998)

United Way kicks off 1998 campaign with 'Day of Caring' Sept. 16
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Roll up your sleeves. United Way of Tompkins County is kicking off its 1998 campaign Sept. 16 with the second annual "Day of Caring." Volunteers are needed to paint rooms, wash windows, fix playground equipment and clean yards for United Way agencies. More than six dozen Cornell employees are expected to participate, according to Cornell campus campaign leaders. DayofCaring.ds.html (August 26, 1998)

'Good Neighbor Guide' being distributed to students off campus
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Many of the Cornell University students who live off campus call Collegetown home during the academic year. But Collegetown is also home to year-round residents and families, private homes and large apartment complexes, and a bustling business district. The Collegetown section of East Hill offers a diverse mix of people, buildings and activities unmatched in character, quality, and amenities according to David I. Stewart, Cornell's director of community relations. "That's why students and families choose to live there," he said. To introduce college students and other renters to their new neighborhood, the Collegetown Neighborhood Council has published its 1998-99 "Good Neighbor Guide." More than 3,000 copies of the guide -- enough for each apartment in that East Hill neighborhood -- are being distributed by property owners, merchants and year-round residents. Copies are being distributed in the Cornell Heights neighborhood and to fraternity and sorority houses, too. good.neighbor.guide.html (August 26, 1998)

Primatologist Jane Goodall to give free lecture Sept. 11 in Bailey Hall
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Jane Goodall, the world-renowned primatologist, will present a free and open lecture titled "Individuals Make a Difference For Humans and Chimpanzees" on Friday, Sept. 11, at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall on the Cornell University campus. Free tickets for the lecture will be available on a first-come, first-served basis at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office on the Cornell campus and downtown at the Tompkins County Public Library beginning Tuesday, Sept. 1, at 10 a.m. There is a limit of two tickets per person. Donations will be requested during the lecture to support the Jane Goodall Institute. Goodall will autograph books after the lecture, and books, T-shirts and other items will be available for purchase. goodall.free.lecture.html (August 26, 1998)

Tiny pellets could deliver Alzheimer's drugs
ITHACA, N.Y. --Tiny polymer pellets, some microscopic in size, containing a natural protein, hold the promise of one day being able to treat such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer's. The system is startlingly effective because it targets, within a fraction of an inch, the area of the brain where cell death is causing the devastating illness. The protein is called nerve growth factor (NGF), a well-studied member of a family of chemicals called neurotrophins that are essential for the survival of the nervous system. About two decades ago Alzheimer's patients were found to have a pronounced loss of nerve cells in the forebrain. These cells, it was discovered, could be regenerated with NGF. Since then, the problem has been how to deliver the potent protein to the affected area of the brain. NGF.saltzman.html (August 25, 1998)

Two top union officials to speak at ILR's Pre-Labor Day Forum Sept. 3
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Mel Horton, vice president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' (IBEW) District 5, and Ann Twomey, president and founding member of Health Professional and Allied Employees (HPAE) and national vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, will speak at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations' (ILR) Pre-Labor Day Forum Thursday, Sept. 3, at 11:30 a.m. in 305 Ives Hall on the Cornell campus. The theme of this year's forum is "Changing to Organize: Union Strategy for the 21st Century." All ILR School classes Sept. 3 will be suspended from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. so staff, faculty and students can attend the forum and picnic after the presentations. prelabor.ssl.html (August 25, 1998)

Kahn: how to deregulate deregulation
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Applying what he learned from spearheading the deregulation of the airline industry, Alfred E. Kahn, the Robert Julius Thorne Professor of Political Economy Emeritus at Cornell University and one of the most influential figures in public utility deregulation, says to current regulators: "Do the bare minimum and then let go." As the "father" of airline deregulation when he was chair of the Civil Aeronautics Board from 1977 to 1978, and the author of the landmark two-volume set The Economics of Regulation,, Kahn applies his experience and perspective to evaluating the regulatory process and policies now transforming the telecommunications and electric power industries. He shows how current regulatory efforts are biased toward producing immediate results and offers concrete suggestions on how to deregulate for optimal long term success. Granted, deregulating the electric power and telecommunications industries is complicated, Kahn says in his new book, Letting Go: Deregulating the Process of Deregulation, or: Temptation of the Kleptocrats and the Political Economy of Regulatory Disingenuousness (Institute of Public Utilities and Network Industries, Michigan State University, 1998). Many consumers depend on the only local utility available, Kahn observes, so their service must be protected. Regulation will be required, he says, to assure competitors access to the utility companies' lines and wires, on terms that permit them to compete if they are equally efficient. kahn.book.ssl.html (August 21, 1998)

Orientation Week events begin Friday for newcomers to Cornell
ITHACA, N.Y. -- New, incoming students will be welcomed to Cornell University with a week of activities, events, trips and speakers, tailored just for them. Approximately 3,300 freshman, 500 transfer students and 1,500 new graduate and professional students will flock to campus beginning Friday, Aug. 21, when residence halls open at 9 a.m. As soon as cars are unloaded and bags unpacked, orientation will begin. Orientation.Week.sfm.html (August 21, 1998)

James A. Perkins, past president of Cornell, dies at 86
ITHACA, N.Y. -- James A. Perkins, who as president of Cornell University from 1963 to 1969 led the campus during its most tumultuous years of social change, died Aug. 19 in Burlington, Vt. He was 86. Widely recognized as one of the nation's most innovative educators and an effective spokesman for higher education, Perkins at the time of his death was chairman emeritus of the International Council for Educational Development in Princeton, N.J., an organization he founded in 1970 to identify and analyze key problems facing education around the world. Perkins.obit.html (August 21, 1998)

Magnets and polymers will be part of Cornell children's science program
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell University Center for Materials Research (CCMR) is offering several outreach programs for children, ages 5 to 8, during the 1998-99 school year. There is no charge for the events, but parents are asked to participate in the workshops with their children. Since 1960, the CCMR has promoted collaborative, interdisciplinary research. The center also is dedicated to increasing the number of outreach programs that increase students' exposure to science and technology. materials.kids.deb.html (August 20, 1998)

Cornell offers food-safety certification
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell University Food Industry Management Distance Education Program (DEP) is offering food-safety certification programs for food retailers at both the state and national levels. The Food Protection Certification Program was developed in cooperation with the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), a non-profit association in Washington, D.C., to help food retailers nationwide keep the foods they prepare, store and sell safe to eat. Over 3,000 people throughout the United States and Canada have received certification during the past two years. FoodSafety.bpf.html (August 19, 1998)

Gallium nitride boosts transistor power
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University researchers have reported significant progress in making a new generation of transistors based on gallium nitride, a material that promises to deliver up to a hundred times as much power at microwave frequencies as the semiconductors now used in cellular telephones, military radar and satellite transmitters. Lester F. Eastman, the John L. Given Foundation Professor of Engineering, and James R. Shealy, professor of electrical engineering, say they have tested gallium nitride transistors with output power of up to 2.2 watts per millimeter at a frequency of 4 gigahertz (GHz) and expect to see power figures five times higher as soon as improved test equipment is installed. gallium_nitride.bs.html (August 19, 1998)

Book examines aftermath of the Holocaust
ITHACA, N.Y. -- In 1940 near a small town in southern Poland called Oswiecim, close to the confluence of the Vistula and Sola rivers, the Germans built an enormous camp they called Auschwitz. Between 1940 and early 1945, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, between 1 million and 5 million people, many of them Jews, were systematically killed there. The fact of the existence of Auschwitz seems almost to defy human comprehension, to challenge the very idea of memory. How can a person even begin to approach such monumental evil? In his new book, History and Memory After Auschwitz (Cornell University Press, 1998), Dominick LaCapra, the Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies at Cornell University, focuses on the interactions of history, memory, ethics and politics in the aftermath of the Shoah. lacapra.pc.html (August 19, 1998)

The key to better fruit and veggie wines
ITHACA, N.Y. -- In the past, wine made from New York state fruit, like strawberries, apples, cherries and peaches, and vegetables, like rhubarb, has been considered the ugly step-child of winemaking. That was then. This is now: Thanks to new Cornell University research, full, robust-flavor fruit or vegetable wines could be available on a wider basis. Robert Kime, food science pilot plant manager at Cornell's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, believes he has found the alcohol-content threshold that separates fine fruit wine from cheap, inferior wine -- what the British call "plonk." FruitWine.bpf.html (August 18, 1998)

'Heritage' veggies are growing strong in Cornell Plantations garden
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Three centuries of vegetable history are on display as crops in Cornell Plantations' Pounder Heritage Vegetable Garden reach their late-summer peak and university gardeners invite the public to inspect their handiwork. The Pounder Garden provides an overview of the history of vegetables from the colonial times to the present, and how these vegetables have changed in response to changing demographics, world wars and new technology. Many New World crops -- such as potatoes, corn, tomatoes, beans and squash -- have become staples for cultures around the world and, in some cases, have influenced human migrations. heritage.hrs.html (August 18, 1998)

Obesity bigger turnoff than eating disorder
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Men and women seem to have an equal tendency to avoid dating people with eating disorders. But when it comes to obesity, men are far less accepting than women, says a new Cornell University study. "Students -- and probably others -- generally stigmatize people with eating disorders, and, as a result, many are reluctant to become involved in romantic relationships with a person who has anorexia nervosa or bulimia," says Jeffery Sobal, a nutritional sociologist and associate professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell, who conducted the study of college men and women. eating.disorders.ssl.html (August 14, 1998)

Preventing everyday at-home pollution
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Many people are unwittingly poisoning the environment by not maintaining septic systems, neglecting wells, overusing pesticides and dumping paint and motor oil on the ground, among other acts of carelessness, says a Cornell University environmental chemist. To help promote better understanding of environmental risks around the home, Ann Lemley, director of the Water Quality Extension Program at Cornell, says a pollution prevention program provides education on subjects such as protecting water quality, managing septic systems, disposing of hazardous household products and employing safe yard and garden care. The program was developed from a national award-winning, pollution-education effort supported by several federal agencies. Home*A*Syst.ssl.html (August 14, 1998)

Law School clinics offer legal services to the local community and beyond
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Last semester, one Cornell University Law School student helped a mentally impaired local man recover funds that had been mismanaged by a financial adviser. In another case litigated over several years, various students helped win reinstatement and back pay for a Native American prison guard who was suspended for refusing, for religious reasons, to cut his hair. Other students worked on cases ranging from helping women on welfare obtain child- support payments to assisting attorneys file appeals for indigent death-row inmates. These are just a few examples of how 120 Cornell law students each year donate between five and 25 hours a week as part of their clinical course work. Every year they help about 140 local people and scores of others outside Tompkins County resolve their legal problems. law.clinic.ssl.html (August 14, 1998)

Cornell in consortium for faster circuitry
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University soon will be putting its electronics expertise to work as part of a national consortium of seven universities chosen to take part in an ambitious national semiconductor research effort. The venture's aim is to develop a new generation of more powerful computer chips by devising new methods to connect microchip components. The national effort, known as the Focus Center Research Program, will ultimately involve six consortia of universities, supported by industry and government funds, seeking both to pioneer new integrated circuit design and to support the $70 billion-a-year U.S. microchip industry. The first two groups chosen in this effort are the team that includes Cornell and a consortium, coordinated by the University of California at Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University, that will concentrate on computer chip design. chips.research.deb.html (August 13, 1998)

Cornell hosts Nabokov Centenary Festival
ITHACA, N.Y. -- For more than 10 years, from 1948 until 1959, renowned author Vladimir Nabokov taught at Cornell University. These were 10 of the most productive years of his life, during which he translated Eugene Onegin, finished his autobiography titledSpeak, Memory and wrote Lolita and Pnin. Cornell will keep the Nabokov presence on its campus very much alive this fall by sponsoring a Nabokov Centenary Festival, Sept. 10 to 12, marking the 50th anniversary of Nabokov's arrival at Cornell (July 1, 1948) and the upcoming centenary of his birth (April 23, 1899). Nabokovrelease.pc.html (August 11, 1998)

Sage Hall is a model of adaptive reuse of architecturally distinctive buildings
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The move of the Johnson Graduate School of Management into its new location in Cornell University's venerable Sage Hall marks a milestone in adaptive reuse of historic buildings. The project team was led by The Hillier Group of Princeton, N.J. The building dates back to 1875, when it opened as the Sage College for Women, part of Cornell's then-radical experiment in coeducation, making it a landmark in the history of higher education in the United States. It is also architecturally important as a key example of Victorian Gothic architecture, roughly modeled on Oxford's University Museum, according to Alan Chimacoff, A.I.A., principal with The Hillier Group. Its architect, Charles Babcock, whose best-known work is Wall Street's landmark Trinity Church, was the first professor and dean of architecture at Cornell. sage-2.pc.html (August 11, 1998)

Most of Tower Road is open
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Motorists and bicyclists on the Cornell University campus will be greeted by a pleasant (and smooth) surprise this week. Tower Road, a main east-west route through the heart of campus, is opening ahead of schedule on its summer construction projects. Since mid-June, the road has been closed to traffic in four different areas at various times to accommodate road improvements and utility work. Tower Road, with the exception of the section between Garden and East Avenues, is now open. The Garden Avenue extension between Tower Road and Bailey Hall is also open. TowerRdrelease.html (August 10, 1998)

Paper wasp queens wait to hijack or adopt
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Scientists once believed that a wasp queen took over another queen's nest only if her own nest had been destroyed. That's wrong. A Cornell University researcher has found that certain female paper wasps (Polistes dominulus), without nests of their own, "sit and wait" for an opportunity to adopt orphaned nests or hijack nests from other queens. "If paper wasps could talk, Jerry Springer would have a month full of guests on his TV talk show," says Philip T. Starks, a Cornell doctoral candidate in animal behavior, whose research is being published today (Aug 7) by Britain's Royal Society. WaspQueen.bpf.html (August 5, 1998)

Cornell responds on dropped Bronfenbrenner lawsuit
ITHACA, N.Y. -- A Cornell University official today reacted to the announcement that Beverly Enterprises Inc. has dropped its appeal to reinstate a libel suit against Cornell labor professor Kate Bronfenbrenner by stating that the lawsuit had "no basis in law or fact." "We are gratified to learn that Beverly Enterprises has dropped its litigation against Professor Kate Bronfenbrenner," said Nelson E. Roth, Cornell associate university counsel who, together with assistant university counsel Wendy Tarlow, represented Bronfenbrenner in the lawsuit. "The Beverly lawsuit was an attack on academic freedom that sought to punish Dr. Bronfenbrenner for presenting the results of her research in a public forum. The action against her was without merit." Beverly_drops_appeal.html (August 5, 1998)

A model to meet Kyoto environmental goals
ITHACA, N.Y. -- As economic models go, this one from Cornell University could please most political palates: It offers great mileage and moderate taxes. One of the measures the U.S. Senate will consider when it takes up the environmental changes called for in an international treaty aimed at reducing global warming will be the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. Of the six greenhouse gas emissions that are targeted for reduction, carbon dioxide is considered by some researchers to be the main culprit in predicted global temperature increases. The Clinton administration approved the emission-reducing accords, signed by 174 nations, at the Kyoto Climate Change Conference last December in Japan. Jean Agras, Cornell doctoral graduate in environmental economics, and her adviser Duane Chapman, Cornell professor of environmental economics, have developed a computer model indicating that by using a moderate combination of higher fuel taxes and lower gasoline consumption Washington could make a large contribution to meeting the terms of the accord by reducing U.S. transportation emissions to 93 percent of 1990 levels by 2010. KyotoGas.bpf.html (August 4, 1998)

Orienteering adventure at Cornell Plantations Aug. 30
ITHACA, N.Y. -- An all-family adventure -- orienteering with map and compass through Cornell Plantations' F.R. Newman Arboretum -- is planned from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30, at Cornell University. Admission to the "Explore the Arboretum" event is free to all who register a week in advance. Admission the day of the event is $5 per family. Families may begin the course anytime between 1 and 4 p.m. The orienteering course starts at a tent at the arboretum ponds. The event is sponsored by the Class of 1940 gift to Plantations and the Central New York Orienteering Chapter. adventure.hrs.html (August 3, 1998)

Cornell Plantations' 1998 fall lecture series spans the globe
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Plants of China and Japan, foods of South America, tree rings of the Mediterranean and gardens of New England are among the topics for this fall's free Wednesday night lecture series sponsored by Cornell Plantations at Cornell University. All lectures except the first in the series begin at 7:30 p.m. in the James Law Auditorium of Schurman Hall in the College of Veterinary Medicine, and all are open to the public at no charge. The series may be taken for college credit as Horticulture 480. fall_lectures.hrs.html (August 3, 1998)