Peter Krebs no longer has to wait in line for his favorite Cornell Bear Deal combo meal. Frustrated by long lines at campus cafeterias, he has found a better way: Ordering online. The idea came to him on a cold February evening in 2000. At the time Krebs was a junior living on North Campus and fed up with waiting for an hour for dinner, only to find the counter window closing for the day. Instead of calling up for pizza, Krebs took his gripes to then-Cornell Dining Director Nadeem Siddiqui, who encouraged Krebs to find a solution. Two years later Krebs, C.E. '01, M.Eng. '02, and his four partners developed and successfully demonstrated their prototype, which they trademarked as Webfood. (March 24, 2005)
"Consumer-directed" models of health insurance that give consumers more financial accountability and responsibility for decisions about their health care will be the focus of a conference at Cornell University, April 8-9. (March 24, 2005)
Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers have for the first time detected light from confirmed planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. (March 23, 2005)
Acute gastroenteritis -- commonly known as food poisoning -- is one of the most common household illnesses in the United States, with an estimated 76 million food-related illnesses occurring each year. To learn more about preventing the spread of food-related illness pathogens on the farm, researchers at Cornell University are joining a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded Food Safety Research and Response Network (FSRRN), led by North Carolina State University. FSRRN is a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary team of more than 50 food safety experts from 18 colleges and universities who will investigate several of the most prevalent food-borne pathogens. It is funded by a $5 million grant from the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service. (March 22, 2005)
NEW YORK (March 22, 2005) -- The discovery by Weill Medical College of Cornell University researchers that a specific type of human fetal stem cell can co-differentiate simultaneously into both muscle and blood vessel cells may unlock the door to therapies that replace damaged tissue in the heart and other organs.Heart attack and other events can destroy cardiac muscle and the surrounding vasculature (blood vessels), so effective heart repair requires concurrent replacement of both these types of tissues.
The death of Sol M. Linowitz, the international lawyer and diplomat who served as President Jimmy Carter's ambassador-at-large, negotiating the Panama Canal treaties and Middle East peace agreements, is being met with sadness on the Cornell University campus. Linowitz died March 18 at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 91.
NEW YORK (March 18, 2005) -- Weill Medical College of Cornell University researchers have made the startling discovery that renin -- a kidney-secreted enzyme crucial to blood pressure regulation -- is also synthesized and secreted by mast cells within the heart.Renin breaks down a precursor, angiotensinogen, to form angiotensin. Because angiotensin is a major culprit in the development of cardiovascular diseases, the discovery that renin is produced outside the kidneys could revolutionize our therapeutic approach to these conditions.
Although most people think of bats as stealthy mammals that flit about in the night sky, at least one species has evolved a terrestrial trot never before seen in bats, according to a recent study.
On March 9, MBA students taking International Political Risk Management, a course taught by Elena Iankova, a lecturer at the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, heard Fuad El-Hibri, chairman and CEO of Bioport's parent company, Emergent BioSolutions Inc., discuss the hurdles his firm faces in making and marketing its products abroad.
The so-called "gay adolescent" soon will disappear, predicts a Cornell University expert on teenage sexuality in a new book. These adolescents will still have the same desires, fantasies and attractions, he writes, but they no longer will need or want to identify themselves as gay. "The new gay teenager is in many respects the non-gay teenager," says Ritch Savin-Williams, professor and chair of human development in Cornell's College of Human Ecology in his new book, The New Gay Teenager (Harvard University Press, 2005). Savin-Williams is an expert on issues concerning gay, lesbian and bisexual youths and is a licensed clinical psychologist who works with gay youths and their families.