Two years ago a 14-year-old boy in Genoa, N.Y., stood atop a mound of corn while unloading a tractor-trailer on the family farm. Suddenly the truck's unloading trough opened and he was engulfed by grain, and sank as if in quicksand. John Ducey, chief of the Genoa Fire Department, recalls that the boy "had swallowed and breathed in corn" and it appeared that "his time was about done."
"The born-to-dechlorinate bug" is what Cornell researchers called Dehalococcoides ethenogenes Strain 195 when they found the bacterium obligingly detoxifying the pollutant PCE, or perchloroethylene (a chlorinated solvent used for dry cleaning), in sludge from an Ithaca, N.Y., sewage treatment plant.
The Cornell University Public Service Center has been awarded AmeriCorps funding by the Federal Corporation for National Service, the New York State Commission on National and Community Service and the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, for the 2000-01 program year.
A surgeon at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City and a professor of textiles and apparel at Cornell's Ithaca campus have partnered to create a biodegradable artificial skin for burn victims.
James E. Turner, the founding director of Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center, was reappointed to the post for a five-year term by the provost, effective July 1. A professor of Africana Studies whose first stint as director lasted 17 years, Turner is a political sociologist specializing in African-American social movements and is a leading expert on Malcolm X.
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center has established the Cornell Institute of Robotic Urological Surgery within the Brady Department of Urology. Robotic prostate surgery for prostate cancer patients will be the centerpiece of the new program.
Nobel Prize winner Hans A. Bethe, Cornell University professor emeritus of physics, has a new award named in his honor established by the American Physical Society (APS). The APS will announce the award at a reception on the occasion of Bethe's 90th birthday on July 2.
Horticultural scientist Susan K. Brown is mining the apple genome for the keys to some revolutionary reconceptions of a long-familiar fruit. (June 5, 2008)
Forty-seven Cornellians from the classes of 1927 to 1971 were honored during Reunion in 1993 at the dedication of the Korean/Vietnam War Memorial in the rotunda of Anabel Taylor Hall at Cornell University. Since then, two additional alumni who were killed during the Vietnam War have been identified. Their names will be added to the memorial at a rededication ceremony June 6 during this year's Reunion events. Members of the rededication committee, chaired by alumnus Joseph Ryan '65, are determined that no alumnus who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to his or her country will be overlooked. With the aid of students in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), they are searching alumni lists and contacting Cornellians around the world to ask if they know of any alumni who were killed in service during the Korean War, Vietnam War, the Cold War or Desert Storm. This includes anyone who died even years later of injuries incurred during service. (February 12, 2003)
In fulfilling Cornell's land-grant mission to serve the state of New York, Cornell professor Nina Bassuk applies her research on growing plants and trees in urban areas by helping communities in the state better manage their urban forests.