The world's largest single-dish radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory is focusing on a largely Spanish-speaking audience by creating an Office for the Public Understanding of Science. It will be headed by a native of Uruguay, Daniel Altschuler.
ARECIBO, P.R. -- Sixto González has been named director of Arecibo Observatory, the home of the world's largest and most-sensitive single-dish radio telescope. His appointment is effective Sept. 29. He is the first native-born Puerto Rican to head the observatory. Since 2001 González has been assistant director for space and atmospheric sciences at the telescope facility. He succeeds Daniel Altschuler, who will become the first director of the observatory's Office for the Public Understanding of Science (OPUS), which will provide a multicultural focus for education and public outreach activities in Puerto Rico. (September 26, 2003)
The force of global economics is changing the agricultural landscape in New York state, the Northeast region and the United States. These changes have created uncertainties for the American agricultural economy, according to a white paper released Sept. 19 by Cornell University agricultural scientists and economists. "We are seeing more and more large farms, and there are billions of dollars in subsidies for large, commercial farms. If there were an economic shake-up in agriculture and if the big farm holdings could not sell their goods, the United States would become protectionist immediately," says Thomas Lyson, Cornell's Liberty Hyde Bailey professor of development sociology and one of the paper's authors. "I think it is very precarious." (September 24, 2003)
"Americans have an ugly history of executing poor children. In the United States, we have been killing our children for more than three centuries," argues an award-winning Cornell University historian. To illuminate some important, but forgotten, history, Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor of history, human development and gender studies, uses the prism of a single historical case in a new book, Kansas Charley: The Story of a l9th Century Boy Murderer (Viking, 2003). (September 24, 2003)
Cornell University Professor Urie Bronfenbrenner, among the world's best-known psychologists, has been publishing articles and books for 60 years on what really matters in the development of human beings. Now he has pulled his ideas together and published a new book that traces the historical development of his groundbreaking bioecological model of human development and detailing how it can be applied via programs and policies. Making Human Beings Human: Bioecological Perspectives on Human Development (Sage Publications, 2004) is Bronfenbrenner's culminating work and statement that he hopes will shape the future of his field. Bronfenbrenner, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Human Development and of Psychology at Cornell, is a co-founder of the federal Head Start program and is widely regarded as one of the world's leading scholars in developmental psychology, child-rearing and human ecology -- the interdisciplinary domain he created. (September 24, 2004)
Returning for its seventh year with a slight name change and more venues, the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival is a showcase of films and performances with a message.
Stephen M. Campbell, director of planning and project development at Johns Hopkins University, has been named associate vice president for facilities services at Cornell University, effective Oct. 27. He will be a senior member of the staff of Cornell Vice President for Administration and Chief Financial Officer Harold D. Craft Jr., to whom he will report. "I am very pleased that Steve has decided to come to Cornell," said Craft. "He is a very seasoned facilities professional with a deep understanding of large research universities. He has shown real skill in the areas of facilities leadership that will need special attention in the coming years." (September 22, 2003)
Serena Suewei Chan, a Cornell graduate student in statistical science, has been awarded a grant to research bioterrorism for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The announcement was made by U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Science, whose district includes parts of Cornell. Chan, who was chosen by the agency from among 2,500 applicants, will work with her adviser, Gennady Samorodnitsky, professor of operations research and industrial engineering, to develop an epidemiological computer model of how terrorists could create an epidemic, such as smallpox. (September 22, 2003)
Where did peppers originate? Why are some hot and some not? Why don't all peppers look alike? What are the benefits of eating peppers? Answers to these and other burning questions can be found at the Cornell Plantations' Pounder Heritage Vegetable Garden, where special displays -- and plantings that are now in fruit -- demonstrate the history, genetic diversity and importance of peppers. (September 19, 2003)
Cornell Plantations is offering a $300 reward for information leading to the arrest of the individual or individuals responsible for the theft of three container plantings from the patio in front of the Plantations gift shop during the weekend of September 13-14. The theft was reported by the staff of Cornell Plantations, which is part of the Cornell University campus. One pot contained a six-foot-tall banana tree (Ensete vintricosum 'Maurelii') with large reddish-purple leaves. A second container housed a large agave (Agave Americana x scabra 'Gainsville Blue'), more than two feet tall, with thick blueish leaves and black spines. And the third contained a cycad (Cycas revoluta) with leathery, fern-like green leaves spiraling from a central cone-like base. (September 17, 2003)
As Hurricane Isabel churns in the middle Atlantic and takes aim at the East Coast, the storm's track on Thursday through Friday lies directly through the heart of the Northeast.
Due to the large number of traffic infractions cited and observed by the Cornell University Police during National Stop on Red Week at the beginning of September, Cornell Police will extend this "zero tolerance" enforcement effort at least through Sept. 30. Cornell Police has been participating in National Stop on Red Week 2003, a law-enforcement program dedicated to educating American motorists about the dangers of running red lights, by fielding New York state-funded selective traffic enforcement patrols on campus. A zero-tolerance policy has been maintained for such infractions as going through red lights, running stop signs and failing to yield the right of way to pedestrians at crosswalks. (September 17, 2003)
