A discovery reported in the latest edition of the journal Nature (June 13, 2002) – that fungi on the roots of some trees in the Northeastern United States help supply much-needed calcium in forest soils battered by acid rain – would seem to ease worries about the worrisome form of pollution.
Give Cari Holcomb a pen and she'll draw you a picture. Disabilities may have limited her employability but have not prevented the 28-year-old Tompkins County, N.Y., resident from making artwork all her life, she says. That's why the idea of designing and making brightly colored datebook covers and greeting cards and selling them locally appealed to her. You can now buy Holcomb's dinosaur datebooks for $5 apiece, and soon you will see her cards at the Ithaca Farmers' Market CraftAbility Collective booth run by Challenge Industries, a vocational rehabilitation agency in Ithaca. She and seven other Challenge service recipients with disabilities sell their work there Tuesdays and Saturdays thanks to a new Challenge self-employment program, a grant from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation and a little help from three Cornell University MBA students and a local credit union. (June 18, 2002)
Like the glitter and glare of Las Vegas beckoning tourists to the gambling tables, the orb-weaving spiny spider flashes its colorful back to lure unsuspecting quarry into its web. The discovery of this lethal use of color runs contrary to the long-held belief that in the animal kingdom color is used generally to attract mates rather than to entice prey, says a Cornell University animal behavior researcher "Attraction is all casinos are about. They lure you; they want to get you there. They lure people with bright lights, cheap plane tickets, inexpensive hotel rooms, great shows and great meals," says Mark E. Hauber of Cornell's Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. "The spiny spiders work the same way." (June 14, 2002)
A long-sought goal of scientists has been to shrink the transistor, the basic building block of electronic circuits, to smaller and smaller size scales. Scientists at Cornell University have now reached the smallest possible limit: a transistor in which electrons flow through a single atom.
The Cornell University Board of Trustees Executive Committee will meet in New York City Thursday, June 20. The meeting will be held in the Fall Creek Room of the Cornell Club of New York, 6 E. 44th St. (June 12, 2002)
The Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC), a national research center at Cornell University, will hold its annual meeting June 21 in 700 Clark Hall on the Cornell campus. The meeting, under the theme of "Moving Into the Future," will feature presentations on current research, including opportunities in medicine and life sciences and the novel properties of nanostructures. The public is invited to attend the meeting without charge, although there will be limited seating. (June 10, 2002)
ITHACA, N.Y./ RICHMOND, Va. -- Since early January, bird researchers, conservationists and bird enthusiasts everywhere have been holding their breath for results of a series of cooperative expeditions conducted by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Zeiss Sports Optics and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries in search of the ivory-billed woodpecker. Although the species has been long thought to be extinct, recent reports suggested that a few could have lingered undetected in a remote part of Louisiana. Analysis of more than 4,000 hours of digital data captured by 12 acoustic recording units (ARUs), developed by the Cornell lab's team of bioacoustics engineers, have shown no indication of the species' presence. (June 10, 2002)
Paul L. Houston, professor of chemistry and chemical biology, has been appointed senior associate dean in Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1.
Mark P. Bridgen, Cornell University professor of horticulture, has been appointed director of the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center at Riverhead, N.Y., by Susan Henry, dean of Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Bridgen succeeds Joseph Sieczka, who recently retired. Before joining the Cornell faculty in January 2002, Bridgen was professor of horticulture and head of the Plant Tissue Culture and Micropropagation Facility at the University of Connecticut. (June 10, 2002)
New York, NY (June 7, 2002) In a new study just published in the journal Circulation Research, scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College demonstrate that therapy with bone-marrow-derived precursor cells can restore aging cardiac blood vessel-forming capacity, thus possibly preventing some of the morbidity and mortality associated with ischemic heart disease in older individuals. The study points to a promising and novel approach to preventing and treating heart disease in the aging.The lead author, Dr. Jay Edelberg, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Weill Cornell and Assistant Attending Physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital's Weill Cornell Medical Center, says the study, in an animal model, builds on previous research in his lab that examined changes in the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels of older hearts. That study found that molecular alterations in those aged cells lead to a dysregulation of a molecular pathway by which platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) normally contributes to angiogenesis, or new blood vessel formation. In the new study, he and his colleagues show the possibility of restoring this pathway by bone marrow transplantation.
Bridging psychoanalytic thought and sexual science, a new book by two leading New York psychiatrists brings sexuality back to the center of psychoanalysis, showing how important it is for students of human sexuality to understand motives that are irrational and unconscious.
Cornell is one of eight academic institutions and four not-for-profit organizations forming a statewide consortium with corporate and economic development partners to improve environmental quality through the development of new integrated systems that enhance human health and performance.
