A central plank of David Levitsky's teaching philosophy, honed over 40 years of instructing Cornell students, is to make his lessons unpredictable, and his style has earned him a USDA teaching award.
As the world population passes the 6 billion mark, pioneering work to guarantee food sustainability continues at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research Inc. the largest not-for-profit organization dedicated to plant research in the world, celebrates its 75th anniversary.
DENVER -- Discovery of drugs to treat generalized epilepsy with febrile seizures (GEFS), a genetic disorder that affects 4 million Americans, could now advance more rapidly, predicts a Cornell University biochemist. George P. Hess, professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y., invented a laser-based technique to study signal transmission between cells of the nervous system. The same technique, called laser-pulse photolysis, already has identified a cocainelike analog compound to block the effects of cocaine poisoning on the nervous system, he says. (February 12, 2003)
Commissioned institutional histories tend to be dry and self-congratulatory, dull work for anonymous authors and often even duller reading. Yet 'The Establishment of Science in America: 150 Years of the American Association for the Advancement of Science', released last December, transcends the genre.
Eboo Patel of the Interfaith Youth Core, an institution building the global youth movement, will present Cornell's Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture in Sage Chapel, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m.
Walter R. Lynn, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Cornell, has been named director of the university's Center for the Environment. A specialist in water-resources planning and a Senior Fellow in the center, Lynn follows James P. Lassoie, director of CfE since 1993.
Imagine a school lunch program with entrees containing only 6 percent of calories from fat, almost completely based on nutrient-dense USDA commodity plant foods such as dried beans, lentils, bulgur wheat and brown rice, and -- here is the hard-to-imagine part -- is readily eaten by children. Yet such food is being served -- and consumed -- in six schools across the nation, thanks to a pilot program developed at Cornell.
Technology Review magazine has named Matthew DeLisa, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and Rajit Manohar, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, to its list of top technology innovators under 35.
Jason Koski/University PhotographyMike Skelly of Fayetteville-Manlius and Kristina Fanghanel, who teaches in the Victor School District, work on a laboratory activity. This year's workshop was the first time the Cornell Institute…