New York, NY (July 9, 2003) -- A major educational conference in New York on July 10-13 -- the International Symposium on Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, and Cardiovascular Disease -- will show that it may not be enough simply to reduce LDL cholesterol (or "bad cholesterol") in the effort to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Each year, CHD kills more men and women in the United States than the next seven causes of death combined. But about half of the heart attacks each year strike people with low to normal cholesterol. Thus, factors other than high cholesterol must also contribute to CHD risk. The conference will elucidate a particular group of risk factors that have come to be known as the "metabolic syndrome." Dr. Antonio J. Gotto, Jr., M.D., the Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College and one of the world's foremost experts on cardiovascular disease, will open the conference and participate in satellite symposia.The metabolic syndrome represents a constellation of risk factors for coronary heart disease, comprising abdominal obesity, elevated triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol (the "good cholesterol"), elevated blood pressure, and elevated glucose levels, among other factors. It is vitally important, as it increases a person's risk for developing CHD (e.g., a heart attack) and can also lead to diabetes. Persons with Type 2 diabetes have a twofold to fourfold greater risk for CHD. The increasing prevalence of obesity in Western societies, including the United States, has led to a growth in the number of people with the metabolic syndrome.
Fitted with its new compound eye on the heavens, the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Arecibo Observatory telescope, the world's largest and most sensitive single-dish radio telescope, early tomorrow morning begins a years-long survey of distant galaxies, perhaps discovering elusive "dark galaxies" -- galaxies that are devoid of stars.
In his Annual Message to the Legislature, delivered this afternoon in Albany, New York Gov. George E. Pataki announced the outline of a new $1 billion high-technology initiative fund that would include an initial $250 million in state support.
Paul A. Marks, professor at the Weill Cornell Medical College, and alumnus Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak were elected to the APS, the oldest learned society in the United States. (May 21, 2007)
The Executive Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees will hold a brief open session when it meets in Manhattan on April 19, at 11:30 a.m. at the Cornell Club of New York, 6 E. 44th St.
Cornell University’s Sigma Xi chapter – the chapter that founded the scientific research honor society almost 130 years ago – has been awarded its first Chapter of Excellence Award for 2013 by the group’s national executives.
The Second Biennial Urie Bronfenbrenner Conference, held last month, focused on how to best ways to translate basic research in the social and behavioral sciences into real-world practices. (Nov. 12, 2009)
Cornell University's Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art received a National Endowment for the Humanities challenge grant of $500,000 to support construction of a new study center and renovation work.
Architecture critic Robert Campbell lectured Sept. 12 in honor of Roger Trancik's retirement after 38 years as a Cornell professor of city and regional planning and landscape architecture. (Sept. 23, 2008)