Nobel laureate Charles Townes, inventor of the laser and in recent years an astronomical explorer using an array of moveable infrared telescopes, will present the Thomas Gold lectures in Schwartz Auditorium in Rockefeller Hall at Cornell University next week. Townes, who is University Professor of Physics emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley, will present his first lecture, "Characteristics of old stars measured by infrared interferometry" -- aimed at a specialized audience -- on Monday, March 29. His second lecture, "Logic and uncertainties in science and religion" -- for a more general audience -- is on Wednesday, March 31. Both lectures start at 4:30 p.m. and are free and open to the public. (March 24, 2004)
The Cornell Public Service Center and the United Way of Tompkins County are recruiting locally for new AmeriCorps*VISTA members to serve in the Tompkins, Tioga and Schuyler county communities. AmeriCorps is a federally funded network of national service programs that engage 50,000 Americans each year. VISTA stands for Volunteers in Service to America and is often referred to as the "domestic Peace Corps." Since the early 1960s, the VISTA program has embedded volunteers for one-year terms within low-income communities to help address critical issues related to poverty. In 1993, VISTA formally joined the AmeriCorps network, and today nearly 6,000 AmeriCorps*VISTA members serve in hundreds of nonprofit organizations and public agencies throughout the United States. (March 24, 2004)
New York, NY (March 23, 2004) -- Injecting a combination of growth factors can protect the heart during a heart attack, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center researchers report in this month's issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine.The finding, in an animal model, may one day help keep heart cell damage to a minimum after a heart attack.
Two members of the Cornell faculty have been awarded prestigious Sloan Foundation Research Fellowships. They are Fernando Escobedo and Rasmus Nielsen, assistant professors of chemical engineering and biometrics, respectively.
"Someone must have slandered Joseph K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested." So begins The Trial, Franz Kafka's prophetic – some have argued comically absurd – novel.
Martha Van Rensselaer (1864-1932), co-founder of the College of Human Ecology at Cornell, will be inducted posthumously into the National 4-H Hall of Fame during the National 4-H Conference ceremonies March 22-23 in Chevy Chase, Md.
Cornell University is joining with organizations that offer career and employment services to form the Cornell Recruitment Partnership. The partnership was created to offer a new, inclusive gateway to career opportunities at Cornell. The objective of the Cornell Recruitment Partnership (CRP), organizers say, is to promote career opportunities at Cornell through strategic, diverse and communication-focused partnerships with local, regional and national career-services organizations that help connect talented people with career opportunities. The CRP's efforts will expand on earlier employment initiatives spearheaded by Cornell's offices of Workforce Diversity, Equity and Life Quality and Community Relations and will increase access to career opportunities at Cornell. (March 18, 2004)
George Boiardi, a Cornell senior student, was struck in the chest with a lacrosse ball late in the fourth quarter of a game against Binghamton University on March 17 at Schoellkopf Field. He was rushed to Cayuga Medical Center, where he later died.
A new study of upstate New York's economy by three Cornell University faculty members confirms that the region continues to lag behind much of the rest of the nation and, as a result, is losing its best and brightest young people to regions with more better-paying jobs in vibrant urban centers. The only bright spots in the otherwise bleak report are higher education and health care. The report quantifies how the region has never fully rebounded from the deindustrialization that began in the 1970s and continues to the present. Today, upstate remains far behind the national average in income and job growth, with average wages rising little more than 2 percent from 1980 to 2000, compared with 15 percent in the rest of the nation. However, the report also shows that jobs in the region are beginning to diversify -- a positive change. The researchers call for concerted state policy efforts backed by federal support to spur further economic health. (March 18, 2004)
About 300 people who run the world's reigning hotels and restaurants will be guests at the world's largest teaching hotel this April 1-4. Many of them also got their first training at that hotel, the Statler, which is linked to Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration. For current Cornell Hotel School students, the 79th annual Hotel Ezra Cornell is the defining event of their undergraduate experience. In addition to showcasing their culinary and presentation skills, the extravaganza includes educational panels on pressing issues in the hospitality industry. It also offers students an opportunity to network with the executives while running both a hotel and a major conference themselves. (March 17, 2004)
Cornell University has been awarded a $300,000, three-year grant to generate public-private sector links that will bolster agricultural productivity, exports and rural incomes in India. The grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was awarded through the Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development. Cornell will implement two development programs. First the university will offer a course, Agriculture in Developing Nations: India, in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 academic years. Cornell also will develop an executive development program in agricultural business management. (March 17, 2004)
99th KILOMETER MARKER, ISRAEL/JORDAN BORDER -- Flying over this 150-acre speck in the desert, it is possible to imagine a near-perfect circle ringed by two green arcs. Approach by land, and imagine the arcs enlarging to groves of olive trees, a spiraling tower behind them. After it is completed, in about five years, the tower eventually will be home to the world's most advanced database, the Library of Life. The entire complex itself, called the Bridging the Rift Center (BTR), will be a symbol in the desert between Israel and Jordan, seeking, as its name indicates, to create a bridge between two divided societies. (March 16, 2004)
