The University Lecture Series at Cornell presents the following free public talks: Friday, March 29, at 4 p.m. in the A.D. White House Guerlac Room: Marcia Landy, professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and a leading authority on cinema, visual culture and politics, will deliver a talk, "The Dream of the Gesture: Todd Haynes' Films and the Body of/in Cinema." Haynes, a filmmaker, is director of "Poison," "Safe" and "Velvet Goldmine." Thursday, April 4, at 4:30 p.m. in Kaufmann Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall: Herbert Tucker, professor of English literature at the University of Virginia, will deliver a lecture, "Sweet to Tongue and Sound to Eye: The Virtual Orality of Rossetti's Goblin Marketing." Christina Rossetti's poem "Goblin Market," published in 1862, is one of the most frequently and variously interpreted works in its genre. (March 25, 2002)
"Biocomplexity in the Environment: A 21st Century Odyssey" will be the topic April 16 for Rita R. Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), when she will be the 2002 Jill and Ken Iscol Distinguished Environmental Lecturer at Cornell.
The role of the hormone estrogen in protecting the female heart from enlargement and ultimate failure has been partly explained by studies with genetically engineered mice, according to researchers at Cornell and Vanderbilt universities. Authors of the report in the latest issue of Nature (March 21, 2002), "Oestrogen protects FKBP12.6 mice from cardiac hypertrophy," used the newly developed mouse "model" for an enlarged heart muscle to help explain estrogen's important role in preventing female cardiac hypertrophy -- extreme stress on the heart that is an early sign of congestive heart failure. However, the researchers say, much more research is needed into the complex causes of heart-muscle enlargement, a condition that leads to cardiac hypertrophy. (March 22, 2002)
'Science, Journalism and Politics: When Cultures Collide' will be the topic for National Public Radio (NPR) science correspondent Richard Harris in his keynote address April 9 at 4:30 p.m.
Good decisions can be made at warp speed -- if you know how to bypass biases and embrace the opportunity that pressure offers -- say a Cornell University business school professor and a Wharton consultant in a new book. Described by Harvard Business Review as a "comprehensive, well-balanced guide" to decision-making, the book Winning Decisions (Doubleday Currency, 2002) by Professors J. Edward Russo and Paul Schoemaker takes decades of groundbreaking research on how people make decisions and delivers a four-step framework for making good decisions quickly. (March 21, 2002)
New York, NY (March 18, 2002) - Despite having a potentially life-threatening condition, a large proportion of patients with hypertension (high blood pressure) are unaware of the full importance of systolic blood pressure (the upper number in a blood pressure reading) in the control and prevention of disease, according to a study presented today at the 51st Annual Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology in Atlanta."Improved recognition of the importance of systolic blood pressure has been identified as a major public health challenge," said primary investigator Susan A. Oliveria, Sc.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor of Public Health at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Assistant Attending Epidemiologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. "Yet this survey indicates that many patients lack the basic knowledge about the importance of systolic blood pressure that would help them achieve better blood pressure control and reduce the potential for more serious conditions."
Raffaello D'Andrea, associate professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, has been awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE), the White House has announced. The award carries a five-year, $500,000 research grant to explore the control of interconnected systems. Matching grants from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research bring the total project funding to $1 million. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the U. S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers who are in the early stages of establishing their independent research careers. Awards are given to researchers who have received their Ph.D. degrees within the past five years. The Clinton administration established the awards in February, 1996 to recognize some of the nation's finest junior scientists. (March 20, 2002)
Cornell University's Community and Rural Development Institute (CaRDI) will hold a conference, "Everything Old Is New Again: The New Approach to Community Development," May 22-23 at the Wyndham Syracuse, Route 298, East Syracuse, N.Y. The conference is designed to help community leaders, development professionals and government officials focus on how localities can accelerate and sustain healthy development. (March 20, 2002)
With the help of Cornell University's Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC), two students at Lansing High School in Lansing, N.Y., will see the results of three years of research and planning go far -- all the way to Mars. Jessica Sherman and Kelly Trowbridge, both sophomores at Lansing, are two of just three students selected in a global competition to have their experiments carried on a future mission to Mars. The three students presented their plans to investigate conditions on the red planet at the Lunar and Planetary Institute's annual conference in Houston on March 14. (March 20, 2002)
Harvard University professor of government Nancy Rosenblum, who researches U.S. political parties, will deliver Cornell University Law School's Robert S. Stevens Lecture Tuesday, March 26, at the Law School. Rosenblum's talk, "Party ID? Anti-Extremism, Anti-Partisanship, Anti-Politics," will take place in the Stein Mancuso Amphitheater of Myron Taylor Hall. It is free and open to the public. No tickets are needed to attend. (March 19, 2002)
Using nanoscale chemistry, researchers at Cornell University have developed a new class of hybrid materials that they describe as flexible ceramics. The new materials appear to have wide applications, from microelectronics to separating macromolecules, such as proteins. What is particularly striking, even to the researchers themselves, is that under the transmission electron microscope (TEM) the molecular structure of the new material -- known as a cubic bicontinuous structure -- conforms to century-old mathematical predictions. "We in polymer research are now finding structures that mathematicians theorized long ago should exist," says Ulrich Wiesner, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell. The structure of the new material appears so convoluted that it has been dubbed "the plumber's nightmare." (March 19, 2002)
