The National Science Foundation (NSF) has renewed funding for the Cornell IGERT Program in Nonlinear Systems. The new award of $3,338,800 will provide two-year graduate fellowships of $27,500 a year for 30 students over the next five years, beginning with 12 new students in the fall of 2004. The funds also will provide computer services and general support for the program offices. This is an extension of a previous five-year program launched in 1998. IGERT is NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program for training a diverse group of scientists and engineers to take advantage of a broad spectrum of career options. More than 100 programs at doctorate-granting institutions are involved, including a second IGERT program at Cornell in Biogeochemistry and Environmental Biocomplexity. (December 5, 2003)
How can communication between physicians and their elderly patients be improved? How can community service agencies better help families with depressed older relatives? How can psychotherapy and physical therapy be united to help older adults suffering simultaneously from back pain and depression? A new center at Cornell University will address these kinds of problems with innovative applied research projects. The Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging (CITRA) is funded with $1.9 million from the National Institute of Aging (NIA), one of four Edward R. Roybal Centers funded nationwide this year. A collaboration of the fields of social science, clinical research and mental health, the institute embraces social scientists from Cornell's Ithaca campus, research clinicians in geriatric medicine at the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University in Manhattan, and researchers at the Psychiatric Division of the Cornell Institute for Geriatric Psychiatry in Westchester County, N.Y. (December 5, 2003)
The wall of a plant cell is no longer just a biological bulwark. It is a critical component in science. To update other biologists with fresh information about plant cell walls, Jocelyn Rose, a Cornell University assistant professor of plant biology, has edited a new book, The Plant Cell Wall, published by Blackwell Publishing. "This book is especially appropriate given the recent completion of the first plant-genome sequencing projects and our entry into the 'post-genomic' era," said Rose, who joined the Cornell faculty as part of the university's Genomics Initiative. "Such breakthroughs have given an exciting glimpse into the substantial size and diversity of the families of genes encoding cell wall-related proteins." (December 4, 2003)
The Executive Committee of the Cornell University Board of Trustees will hold a brief open session when it meets Thursday, Dec. 11, at 2 p.m. in the Fall Creek Room of the Cornell Club of New York, 6 E. 44th St., New York City. The short public session at the beginning of the meeting will include a report from Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman and a report of the Buildings and Properties Committee. (December 4, 2003)
The year in which IQ is tested can make the difference between life and death for a death row inmate. It also can determine the eligibility of children for special services, adults' Social Security benefits and recruits' suitability for certain military careers, according to a new study by Cornell University researchers. That's because IQ scores tend to rise 5 to 25 points in a single generation. This so-called "Flynn effect" is corrected by toughening up the test every 15 to 20 years to reset the mean score to 100. A score from a test taken at the end of one cycle can vary widely from a score derived from a test taken at the beginning of the next cycle, when the test is more difficult, says Stephen J. Ceci, professor of human development at Cornell. (December 3, 2003)
A $5 million gift from Samuel C. Johnson will give global environmental sustainability issues more prominence in MBA studies at Cornell University. The gift is the latest among many given to Cornell by Johnson, chairman emeritus of S.C. Johnson and Son of Racine, Wis., and a Cornell alumnus. His $20 million gift to the Johnson School in 1984, made with his family and company, is the foundation of the school's current endowment. Johnson earned his A.B. degree at Cornell in 1950. (December 3, 2003)
Spent nuclear fuel has been removed from Cornell University's inoperative research reactor at the Ward Center for Nuclear Sciences and deposited in a nuclear materials storage site maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy, university officials announced today (Dec. 2). The removal of the spent nuclear fuel from the Teaching, Research, Isotope, General Atomics (TRIGA) reactor is a phase of the decommissioning process for Ward Lab. The university shut down the small-scale teaching and research reactor June 30, 2002, so that the building can be used for other academic purposes. (December 02, 2003)
Most parents -- and not a few teachers -- think computer games are a waste of time. David Schwartz, Cornell assistant professor of computer science, thinks they can be a powerful teaching tool -- especially if you get students interested in creating their own. So Schwartz, aided by Rajmohan Rajagopalan, Cornell instructor in computer science, and Rama Hoetzlein, who graduated from Cornell in 2001 with a dual major in computer science and fine art, is teaching an experimental course in computer game design. The course is part of an overall plan Schwartz calls the Computer Game Design Initiative. He hopes that game design eventually can become a tool to interest high school and elementary school students in science and technology, while teaching a little physics, writing and other skills along the way. (December 2, 2003)
Mexican President Vicente Fox on Nov. 24 presented Mexico's most prestigious youth award, the Premio Nacional de Juventud (National Youth Prize), to Gerardo Chowell-Puente, a third-year Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, for his research in the mathematical modeling of communication in networks, which has provided new understanding of the way disease spreads through a population. In recent work as a visiting research assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Chowell-Puente and his Los Alamos colleagues modeled the transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong, Singapore and Ontario, Canada. The work validated the decision of Canadian health authorities to intervene with strict quarantines. Without that intervention, the model showed, the disease might have spread to some 200,000 people, instead of the few hundred who were infected. (November 26, 2003)
The vast majority of elderly Americans want to stay in their homes as long as possible, even if they become ill or disabled. But significant psychological benefits can be gained by planning ahead, well before the onset of infirmity.