A Cornell researcher has won a prestigious Burroughs-Wellcome Fund Investigators in Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award, given to a young researcher whose work focuses primarily on the interaction of pathogens with their human hosts. John Parker, assistant professor with the Baker Institute for Animal Health in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell, won one of the 11 awards given this year.
On three evenings last week, when most students were cramming for exams and writing papers, a handful came together to raise awareness about the slaughter of innocent civilians in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where genocide on the scale of that in Rwanda 10 years ago is taking place. Sponsored by the Darfur Action Group, a student group on campus, "Documenting Darfur" featured back-to-back three-hour showings of films and videos about the tragedy, on May 9, 10 and 11 in 165 McGraw Hall.
Salah Hassan has been appointed to a five-year term as director of Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center effective July 1, the Office of the Provost announced May 12. Hassan, chair of the Department of History of Art and associate professor of African and African Diaspora art history and visual culture, has served as the center's acting director for two years, overseeing the renovation and expansion of the facility that was celebrated with a formal dedication ceremony April 29.
About 1 percent of Cornell's Fungi of China Collection, as interpreted through the lens of Department of Plant Pathology photographer Kent Loeffler, is on display at Mann Library through Aug. 31.
The inside of a U.S. jail cell is what he has been looking at for the past 13 months, waiting for his asylum appeal to be ruled on. If he is deported to the Dominican Republic, he could be killed. He believes this because he has been threatened in jail, and thugs have made menacing remarks to his wife. For that reason, too, his name and location are not mentioned in this story. Two second-year law students, Ralph Mamiya and Kristin McNamara, have taken on his case through a Cornell University Law School course -- the Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic.
Cornell University will celebrate its 137th Commencement on Sunday, May 29, with approximately 4,500 graduates receiving degrees at a ceremony beginning at 11 a.m. in Schoellkopf Stadium.
The Cornell Law School recognized its graduating students during convocation ceremonies Sunday afternoon, May 15, in Bartels Hall on campus. The actual degrees will be conferred during the university Commencement on May 29.
Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor, and even today 99 percent of the two species' DNA is identical. But since the paths of man and chimp diverged 5 million years ago, that one percent of genetic difference appears to have changed humans in an unexpected way: It could have made people more prone to cancer. A comparative genetic study led by Cornell researchers suggest that some mutations in human sperm cells might allow them to avoid early death and reproduce, creating an advantage that ensures more sperm cells carry this trait. But this same positive selection could also have made it easier for human cancer cells to survive.
Cornell Junior Bryan J. Lowrance, a Presidential Research Scholar and College Scholar majoring in English and classics, has been named one of 18 Beinecke Scholarship winners nationwide for 2005.
Scientists have discovered compounds nearly ubiquitous in fire that have amazingly eluded detection in spite of 150 years of research on how flames burn. According to a paper in the journal Science on its Science Express Web site (May 12), co-authored by a Cornell professor, enols, technically in the family of alcohols, are part of the chemical pathway that occurs when a wide variety of fires burn.
Rudyard Kipling, who famously wrote, "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," obviously never met Lisa Nishii. Negotiating cultural differences is something she has had to do from birth. Now an assistant professor of human resource (HR) studies and international and comparative labor at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), Nishii has a most unusual heritage: Her Japanese father is descended from Buddhist monks, while her mother traces her ancestry back to the original Mayflower settlers.
A public enemy has infiltrated the nation's borders. Taken captive in Fulton, N.Y., and identified by a Cornell expert, the adult female alien is the only one of its kind ever discovered in eastern United States.
