"Social Justice and Campus Activism" is the theme of Union Days, April 2-4, at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Ives Hall. The events, which are free and open to the public, look at how labor and students intersect today on such issues as the war in Iraq, the anti-sweatshop campaign and organizing campus workers. (March 28, 2003)
Viburnum leaf beetles are chewing susceptible bushes into skeletal remains in central, western and northern New York state. The beetles, which face few predators, now appear to be taking aim at western New England and parts of Pennsylvania, and they are poised to move into the Hudson Valley, the New York City metropolitan area and Long Island.
NEW ORLEANS -- The fouling of ships' hulls, whether by barnacles and seaweed or by slime-creating bacteria, is a major problem for shipping worldwide, and particularly for navies. It has been estimated, for example, that fouling of hulls can create such turbulence as a ship moves through the water that fuel consumption is increased by as much as 30 percent. Traditionally major users of ships, like the U.S. Navy, have attempted to resist fouling by painting hulls with paints containing copper or triorganotin, a tin-based compound. But these paints are highly toxic and can leach into the water, killing marine life. That's why their use increasingly is being prohibited. But help is at hand: A research group at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., led by Christopher Ober, has developed two types of non-toxic paint, one hydrophilic and one hydrophobic, that effectively prevent fouling, whether by bacteria or barnacles. The paints act not only by minimizing adhesion by organisms but also by enabling hulls to become self-cleaning: As a ship moves through the water at 10 to 15 knots, the turbulence created removes the clinging barnacle or seaweed. (March 21, 2003)
Students from the top U.S. business schools will compete in the first-ever MBA Stock Pitch Competition this April 3 and 4 at Cornell. The competition for future stock analysts is sponsored by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell. It takes place at the Johnson School's Parker Center for Investment Research in Sage Hall in the center of campus. The competition will provide a platform for students to showcase their stock picking and presentation skills, considered an important part of an analyst's job in the investment industry. The first-place team will receive a $3,000 award and the second-place team, an award of $1,500. (March 27, 2003)
Three members of Cornell University's faculty, two from the Ithaca campus and one from the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, have been named Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellows. They are among 117 outstanding young researchers from 50 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada to receive awards of $40,000 over two years. The three fellows are Johannes Gehrke, assistant professor of computer science, and David Lin, assistant professor of biomedical sciences, both on the Ithaca campus, and Diana Murray, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology and director of the Computational Genomics Core Facility at Weill Cornell. (March 27, 2003)
Four research projects at Cornell University have been selected to receive a total of $1.1 million in Department of Defense (DoD) grants under the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program and the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP). The research project leaders are Kenneth Birman, professor of computer science; Lang Tong, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Matthew Miller, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering; and Stephen Pope, the Sibley College Professor of Mechanical Engineering. (March 27, 2003)
Anne M. Fletcher, an award-winning health and medical journalist and Cornell alumna, will be speaking on campus in the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall, March 31.
Sanford I. Weill, chairman and CEO of Citigroup, whose Wall Street triumphs are the stuff of legend, will give this year's Hatfield address at Cornell University Wednesday, April 2, at 4:30 p.m. in the Schwartz Auditorium of Rockefeller Hall. Weill, a member of the Cornell Class of 1955, will speak as the 2003 Robert S. Hatfield Fellow in Economic Education, the highest honor the university bestows on outstanding individuals from the corporate sector. His talk is free and open to the public. (March 25, 2003)
The 20th annual Cornell Society of Engineers (CSE) conference will be held on the Cornell University campus, April 3-5. The conference, also sponsored by Cornell's College of Engineering, has as its theme, "Breaking the Size Barrier: Engineering at the Smallest Dimensions." The conference will provide an overview of current research and applications of nanoscience, or engineering at the molecular level. The public is invited to attend all sessions at no charge, but advance registration is required. (March 25, 2003)
We could all use a little comic relief, and who better than John Cleese and company to provide it? And what better date than April Fools' Day? Cleese returns to Cornell University in his role as an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large to celebrate the life and works of W.C. Fields -- the clown prince of 20th century American comedy who Cleese says has been neglected and forgotten. Cleese's accomplice for this, his fourth visit as an A.D. White professor, is James Curtis, author of a new biography of Fields, simply titled W.C. Fields: A Biography (Knopf, 2003). (March 25, 2003)
This one's for the kids. Bill Nye "The Science Guy" will visit Cornell University in his role as a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor and give a free public show for children at the Ithaca Sciencenter, Tuesday, April 1. Cornell alumnus and television personality Nye will give a public talk, "Where There's Just a Little Air," Tuesday, April 1, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Sciencenter, 601 First St. in Ithaca. Intended for elementary- and middle-school audiences, Nye's talk will describe the work of the late Cornell astronomer and professor Carl Sagan, the atmosphere on Mars, and it will be accompanied by demonstrations from Nye's book, The Truth About Dinosaurs. (March 25, 2003)
NEW ORLEANS -- U.S. reliance on foreign oil production could be reduced by chemically mapping the subsurface streams of hydrocarbons, amounting to tens of billions of barrels, hidden well below the Gulf of Mexico, says a Cornell University geologist. These untapped oil and gas reserves can be found by matching hydrocarbon chemical signatures with geologic models for stratigraphic layers under the sea floor, says Lawrence M. Cathles, a professor of chemical geology at Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. (March 21, 2003)
