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Johnson Art Museum acquisitions topped $4 million in 2000-01, making it a remarkable year for Cornell's showpiece museum

Cornell University's Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art acquired more than $4 million worth of fine art for its permanent collection this past year through gifts and purchases, says Franklin Robinson, the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the museum. "Our recent acquisitions have been truly extraordinary," said Robinson. "A lot of people don't realize that our collections are growing all the time and that the museum is so dynamic -- in large part thanks to the generosity of alumni donors, other gifts and through the work of our museum advisory council." (February 28, 2002)

'The Science Guy' – Bill Nye – to spend week at Cornell lecturing and meeting students and teachers

Bill Nye "The Science Guy" will be coming to Cornell University March 9-15 as a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professor.

Ergonomic changes to workstations reduce workers' musculoskeletal problems by 40 percent, academic-state study reveals

A collaborative project between Alan Hedge, a Cornell professor, and New Jersey health and safety researchers Mary Rudakewych and Lisa Valent-Weitz has found that workers who use proper ergonomic products and are trained in their use report an average 40 percent decline in musculoskeletal problems within eight months.

March 2 Cornell law symposium looks at effect of victim impact statements on death penalty verdicts

Has a 1991 Supreme Court ruling led to more prejudiced verdicts in capital cases and more defendants on death row? Statements about a victim's virtues have become a common feature of capital trials in the United States since Payne vs. Tennessee, when the nation's highest court ruled that victim impact statements (VIS) in death penalty cases were admissible in court. Scholars have argued about the effects of such statements on jurors' verdicts. Now, that controversial subject will be discussed at length at a day-long symposium at Cornell University Law School March 2. Also addressed will be the supposition that executions bring relief to the families of victims. (February 27, 2002)

Mae Jemison and Jane Goodall among five A.D. White Professors-at-Large to give public lectures at Cornell in March and April

Physician and former astronaut Mae Jemison and renowned primatologist Jane Goodall are among an interdisciplinary cast of Andrew D. White Professors-at-Large who will give public talks during their visits to Cornell University in March and April.

World renowned architect Richard Meier to speak at Cornell March 6

Richard Meier, Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate and recently named designer of Cornell University's future life science technology building, returns to the Cornell campus for his fourth visit as a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor, March 4-7. Meier will deliver a free public lecture titled "The New Museum" Wednesday, March 6, at 4:45 p.m. in Call Alumni Auditorium of Kennedy Hall. He will discuss the museums he has designed through his firm, Richard Meier & Partners. These include: The Getty Center (Los Angeles), Museum of Contemporary Art (Barcelona), High Museum of Art (Atlanta) and Museum for Decorative Arts (Frankfurt). No tickets are required for the lecture. (February 26, 2002)

Stretching DNA-protein complex with optical tweezers permits first direct observation of fundamental genetic packaging unit's dynamic structure

By using optical tweezers to pull individual strands of chromatin -- the DNA-protein complex that chromosomes are made of -- researchers have seen for the first time how information in fundamental genetic packaging units, called nucleosomes, might become accessible to molecules that "read" it. (February 26, 2002)

Cornell-developed microsecond-imaging X-ray camera shows for first time how fuel shock waves affect auto efficiency

A one-of-a-kind X-ray camera, capable of capturing a succession of microsecond images of events hidden to optical cameras, has been developed by researchers at Cornell University. The first experiment using the novel camera has captured a moving image of shock waves from diesel fuel as it emerges at supersonic speeds from an automobile engine fuel injector. The X-ray imaging was able to penetrate the fog of aerosol droplets formed by the fuel as it cycles through the injector within a thousandth of a second. In a series of images, the camera depicted the shock wave created by the fuel, a phenomenon never before observed or measured, according to the camera's principal developer, Sol Gruner, professor of physics at Cornell. (February 26, 2002)

On thin ice: Northeast winter destined to be warmest on record, says Cornell climate center

If current trends continue for the Northeast through Feb. 28, then the meteorological winter of 2001-02 will be the region's warmest on record, with an average temperature above freezing for the first time in 107 years of official record-keeping, say Cornell University climatologists.

Newborn Babies Can Learn to Distinguish Speech Sounds While Asleep, Study Shows

Add this universal truth to biology textbooks: the mass of a plant's leaves and stems is proportionally scaled to that of its roots in a mathematically predictable way, regardless of species or habitat. In other words, biologists can now reasonably estimate how much biomass is underground just by looking at the stems and leaves above ground. Up to now, plant biologists could only theorize about the ways stem and leaf biomass relate to root biomass across the vast spectrum of land plants. Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Arizona spent two years poring over data for a vast array of plants -- from weeds to bushes to trees -- in order to derive mass-proportional relations among major plant parts. (February 19, 2002)

Biologists hold new truth to be self-evident: that plants' stems and leaves are created equal in proportion to roots

Add this universal truth to biology textbooks: the mass of a plant's leaves and stems is proportionally scaled to that of its roots in a mathematically predictable way, regardless of species or habitat. In other words, biologists can now reasonably estimate how much biomass is underground just by looking at the stems and leaves above ground. Up to now, plant biologists could only theorize about the ways stem and leaf biomass relate to root biomass across the vast spectrum of land plants. Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Arizona spent two years poring over data for a vast array of plants -- from weeds to bushes to trees -- in order to derive mass-proportional relations among major plant parts. (February 19, 2002)

Electrostatic Calculations Can Explain Interactions Between Proteins and Membrane Surfaces

If you want to see what computers will be doing for us tomorrow, take a look at what students are doing with them today. BOOM, or Bits On Our Minds, is an annual show organized by the Cornell University Department of Computer Science and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, but which involves students from all over the campus displaying their computing projects. The fifth annual show will take up parts of three floors of Upson Hall from 4 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 6. The students will be on hand to explain their work, and many exhibits will include interactive displays. (February 25, 2002)