SEATTLE-- Oxygen was discovered more than 230 years ago, seized center stage in the 18th century chemical revolution and is still catching fire today. Oxygen has been the subject of space missions, environmental and biological sciences and of drama. It was also the subject of an unusual symposium, "It's All About Oxygen," today (Feb. 14) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Seattle. Participants approached the subject from historical, theatrical and strictly scientific perspectives, including a presentation on the recent remarkable discovery of the presence of ozone in living cells, its production catalyzed by antibodies. (Ozone is a form of oxygen in which the molecule contains three atoms instead of the normal two.) (February 11, 2004)
If today's global statistics of more than 3 billion malnourished people are worrisome, try projecting 50 years into the future, when Earth's population could exceed 12 billion and there could be even less water and land, per capita, to grow food.
On the evening of Feb. 21, internationally renowned musician Yair Dalal will return to Ithaca for a performance of his unique style of Middle Eastern music.
Two professors in the Cornell University College of Engineering have received prestigious $50,000 awards from the 2004 Lockheed Martin University Research Grants Program. The two recipients are Alyssa B. Apsel, the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mark Campbell, assistant professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. (February 11, 2004)
Tickets for the Newport Jazz Festival at Ithaca's State Theater, $17. Admission to the Valentine's Day Dance on the Cornell University campus, $5. Seeing the Martian landscape in stereo, priceless. The "3-D" glasses are free, while the supply lasts. Cornell Provost Biddy Martin has purchased 1,000 red-blue filtered, stereo glasses from American Paper Optics, Bartlett, Tenn., for distribution to Cornell students to view online images of Mars. The glasses are available at the information desk at Cornell's student union, Willard Straight Hall, says Dave Cameron, the provost's special projects assistant who organized the distribution. (February 10, 2004)
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- One issue that provokes opposing views in this year's election battles is how to improve U.S. public schools. On Feb. 12, Harold O. Levy, former New York City schools chancellor, will tackle the controversial subjects of testing, performance and school attendance in "Helping our Children Learn: Critical Issues in Public Education", a talk in New York City. Levy, who holds undergraduate and law degrees from Cornell University (B.S '74, J.D. '79), headlines the first of four Cornell lectures in the city. Sponsored by the university's School of Industrial and Labor Relations' Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS), the Workplace Colloquium series takes place at the Cornell Club, 6 E. 44th Street (between Madison and Fifth avenues). (February 10, 2004)
New York, NY (February 9, 2004) -- Diabetics who have certain abnormalities on an electrocardiogram (ECG) -- a measure of the heart's electrical activity -- are much more likely to die in a five-year period than their peers who have normal ECG results, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center physician-scientists report in the February issue of the journal Diabetes.Electrocardiograms, which are performed by attaching electrodes to the chest, are one of the easiest and most common heart tests given to patients.
The Honorable Elena Poptodorova, the ambassador from the Republic of Bulgaria to the United States, is visiting the Cornell University campus, Feb. 10-12, to deliver public lectures and meet with community members, university students, faculty members and administrators. On Wednesday, Feb. 11, the Bulgarian ambassador will give a Berger International Speaker Series lecture, titled "The Rule of Law in Bulgaria -- An Emerging Democracy: New Concepts, New Legal Instruments and New Practices," in Room G85 of Cornell Law School's Myron Taylor Hall at 6 p.m. On Thursday, Feb. 12, she will address the topic "A View From the 'New Europe'" at the Peace Studies Seminar of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies in G08 Uris Hall at 12:15 p.m. The ambassador also will speak in visiting lecturer Elena Iankova's International Political Risk Management class at the Johnson Graduate School of Management in Sage Hall's Ramin Parlor, Feb. 12 at 2:55 p.m. All of these talks are free and open to the public. The Law School and the Einaudi Center are the principal sponsors of Poptodorova's visit to Cornell. (February 9, 2004)
For onion growers battling botrytis leaf blight, a crop-decimating disease, relief is on the way. Cornell University plant scientists have breached the plant's tough sexual barrier to cross two species and develop a first draft of a botrytis-resistant onion. The way is now paved for scientists to bring the onion to commercial quality and, perhaps, make it resistant to other diseases as well. Martha Mutschler, Cornell professor of plant breeding, will unveil her research team's results Feb. 11 at 2 p.m. at the 2004 Empire State Fruit and Vegetable Expo in the Riverside Convention Center's Bausch Room, Rochester, N.Y. Her research collaborators were Jim Lorbeer, Cornell professor of plant pathology; research associate Edward Cobb; and graduate student Pablo A. Goldschmied. (February 9, 2004)