Thanks to bioinformatics researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College, cell biologists around the globe will soon have a powerful new tool to model complex biochemical processes within the cell.
For the first time, scientists have shown how the activity of a gene associated with normal human development, as well as the occurrence of cancer and several other diseases, is repressed epigenetically – by modifying not the DNA code of a gene, but instead the spool-like histone proteins around which DNA tightly wraps itself in the nucleus of cells in the body.
Nationally known politicians, pundits and partisans will visit the Cornell campus this fall for an election-season debate and lecture series presented by the student group Cornell Mock Election 2004 Steering Committee.
Helene Selco has been named director of Cornell's Center for Learning and Teaching (CLT). She succeeds Susan Piliero, who returned to teaching at the beginning of 2003.
Topics ranging from contemplative gardens to urban jungles fill the Fall 2004 Cornell Plantations Lecture Series at Cornell. The long-running series moves to a new location in the renovated Alice Statler Auditorium of Statler Hall.
Nice weather -- if you're The Swamp Thing. Ithaca-area residents absorbed a record-breaking total of 49 days of rain for the months of June, July and August -- and that was with a relatively dry June. The previous record of 46 days of rain in the three months was set in 1947. (August 31, 2004)
Okko Behrends, one of Europe's foremost experts in classical Roman law and a Cornell A.D. White Professor-at-Large, will explore the origins of the Roman legal influence during a public talk.
New York, NY (August 31, 2004) -- An innovative PET "tracer" drug manufactured at Weill Cornell Medical College received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's stamp of approval this month for use in diagnosing tumors, cardiovascular problems, and centers of epileptic activity in the brain, using positron emission tomography (PET). The FDA's approval for Fludeoxyglucose F18 injection ([18F]FDG) is the second such approval in the country for this type of radiopharmaceutical application, and the first in the New York--tri-state area.
Richard Trumka, a third-generation coal miner from Pennsylvania who rose to become a leader of the AFL-CIO, the most powerful union the United States, will be this year's pre-Labor Day speaker at Cornell University. Trumka's public lecture, "What's at Stake: the Future for Working Families," on labor, the economy and the 2004 election, will take place Thursday, Sept. 2, from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. in 105 Ives Hall. The talk, which is sponsored by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), is free and open to the public. (August 30, 2004)
The tricks eyes play on the mind will be revealed and explained in a Sept. 14 lecture by master illusionist Al Seckel at 7:30 p.m. in Cornell University's Call Alumni Auditorium. Titled "Your Mind's Eye: The World's Most Powerful Illusions" and sponsored by the Cornell Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, the lecture is open to the public, free of charge. Advance tickets are available from the Willard Straight Hall ticket office or the neurobiology department office, W363 Mudd Hall, (607) 254-4340. (August 30, 2004)
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)
