The fastest-growing segment of the natural food market, organic dairy products, is getting a boost from a Cornell University-U.S. Department of Agriculture program that studies experiences of upstate New York milk producers as they make the transition from conventional to organic farming.
For the first time since New York state began judging milk quality and flavor, a dairy has won a perfect 100 score to earn the 2004 Gold Medal. The dairy, Niagara Milk Cooperative (Wendt's Dairy) of Niagara, N.Y., will receive the award this morning (Aug. 30) in the Empire Room at the New York State Fair Dairy Day awards breakfast at 8:30 a.m. "Before this, no dairy has ever earned a perfect score," said Kathryn Boor, Cornell University professor of food science, who administers the milk judging. "Wendt's did everything right. They were perfect in all categories. Wendt's had exceptional hygiene, the processing equipment worked perfectly, and they brought in good milk to process. This shows they have done everything just right." (August 30, 2004)
Cornell University Police will be supporting National Stop on Red Week 2004, Aug. 30-Sept. 6, by employing selective traffic enforcement measures on campus, including extra patrols. National Stop on Red Week is dedicated to educating American motorists about the dangers of running red lights. It is sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the American Trauma Society. Its motto is "The light is red for a reason: So stop!" (August 27, 2004)
Cornell President Jeffrey S. Lehman today (Aug. 26) issued the following statement: "I am deeply troubled and concerned about allegations that a landlord in Ithaca has grossly violated the privacy of his tenants, a number of whom are Cornell students. The safety and wellbeing of our students is of the highest importance to us. (August 26, 2004)
Cornell University officials and staff are offering support services to students who have been affected by alleged incidents of unlawful surveillance by a landlord for rental housing in Ithaca. Susan Murphy, vice president for student and academic services, has convened a crisis management task force to handle issues of emergency housing, finances and legal issues, as well as to provide psychological support. (August 26, 2004)
With equipment so sensitive that it can locate clusters of electrons, Cornell University and University of Tokyo physicists have -- sort of -- explained puzzling behavior in a much-studied high-temperature superconductor, perhaps leading to a better understanding of how such superconductors work. It turns out that under certain conditions the electrons in the material pretty much ignore the atoms to which they are supposed to be attached, arranging themselves into a neat pattern that looks like a crystal lattice. The behavior occurs in a phase physicists have called a "pseudogap," but because the newly discovered arrangement looks like a checkerboard in scanning tunneling microscope (STM) images, J.C. Séamus Davis, Cornell professor of physics, calls the phenomenon a "checkerboard phase." (August 26, 2004)
Dr. Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, will deliver a public lecture titled "Creativity and the Brain," Thursday, Sept. 2, at 7:30 p.m. in Statler Auditorium on the Cornell University campus. The talk is free and open to the public. Tickets are required and will be available starting Aug. 26 at the Willard Straight Hall Ticket Office with a limit of two per person. During his second campus visit as an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell, Sacks also will visit five classes and deliver a presentation based on his BBC program "Poison in Paradise" to undergraduates in the new Alice Cook House on West Campus. (August 25, 2004)
All aboard: On a 50-city tour to register young voters for the upcoming elections, the "Rock The Vote" bus tour stops in Ithaca on Saturday, Aug. 28. The rockin' bus rolls to its first stop on the Ithaca Commons from noon to 4 p.m. Next, it will park on East Avenue on the Cornell University campus, near Goldwin Smith Hall, from 4:30 to 7 p.m. The last stop of the day will be at the Alice Cook House, the new residence hall on West Campus, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. (August 24, 2004)
To be worry-free about having enough food is not the norm in the United States, says a Cornell University sociologist. "Rather, the need to use food stamps is a common American experience that at least half of all Americans between the ages of 20 and 65 will face," says Thomas A. Hirschl, professor of development sociology at Cornell who has completed a study of food stamp use. (August 24, 2004)
Johannes Gehrke, assistant professor of computer science at Cornell University, has been named a faculty associate director of the Cornell Theory Center (CTC). "Johannes is not new to the center," said Thomas Coleman, CTC director and professor of computer science and applied mathematics. "He has already helped in significant ways with many CTC initiatives over the last several years; this appointment is, in part, recognition of a growing and positive relationship. It also recognizes his international research reputation, strong leadership potential and effective collaboration skills. Our team is now deeper and stronger." (August 24, 2004)
Time is fast running out for the semiconductor industry as transistors become ever smaller and their insulating layers of silicon dioxide, already only atoms in thickness, reach maximum shrinkage. In addition, the thinner the silicon layer becomes, the greater the amount of chemical dopants that must be used to maintain electrical contact. And the limit here also is close to being reached. But a Cornell University researcher has caused an information industry buzz with the discovery that it is possible to precisely control the electronic properties of a complex oxide material -- a possible replacement for silicon insulators -- at the atomic level. And this can be done without chemicals. Instead, the dopant is precisely nothing. (August 23, 2004)
Steve Squyres, Cornell professor of astronomy and the principal scientific investigator for the Mars rover mission, took a break from his hectic schedule this July to talk to Cornell News Service Senior Science Editor David Brand about the progress of the history-making mission.
