Give My Regards To…
These Cornellians in the News
Cornell University, ranked the most adoption-friendly work-place in education, and number fifty-two overall, by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
President David Skorton, named 2009 Distinguished Alumnus by Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
Composer Steve Reich '57, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music for his piece "Double Sextet."
Professors John Hopcroft (engineering) and Eric Siggia (physics), elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Gerald Howard '72, vice president and executive editor at Doubleday, winner of the Perkins Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Fiction.
Biochemistry professor George Hess, named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Also inducted was novelist Thomas Pynchon '59.
Cornell computer science professor Jon Kleinberg '93, winner of a $150,000 prize from the Association for Computing Machinery.
McGill University engineering professor Wagdi Habashi, PhD '75, recipient of a $100,000 Killam Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Penn State University professor Timothy Simpson '94, named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Roald Hoffmann, professor emeritus of humane letters and Nobel laureate, given the 2009 Public Service Award from the National Science Board.
International studies professors Benedict Anderson, PhD '67, and Peter Katzenstein, elected to the American Philosophical Society, the nation's oldest learned society.
Chemistry professor Paul Chirik, winner of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from Germany's Humboldt Foundation.
R&D
More information on campus research is available at www.news.cornell.edu
Plant breeders are racing to develop wheat strains resistant to Ug99, a new stem rust threatening 90 percent of the world's varieties. "Wheat rust is always moving with the wind," says plant breeding professor Ronnie Coffman, PhD '71, head of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat project. "It never sleeps."
NASA's Cassini mission has discovered a sixty-first moon around Saturn. The satellite, about 500 meters in diameter, is embedded in the planet's outer G ring. The finding was published in an International Astronomical Union circular with research associate Matthew Hedman as coauthor.
By studying developing hearts in chick embryos, biomedical engineering professor Jonathan Butcher is gaining insight into what causes congenital heart defects, which affect about 1 percent of U.S. newborns. Butcher is working to recreate the conditions under which healthy valves develop.
Two-thirds of American women don't gain a healthy amount of weight during pregnancy, with most overweight women gaining too much, says nutritional sciences professor Kathleen Rasmussen. Her report shows the need for weight counseling to prevent health problems.
A study finds that parents who stay together for their kids' sake may not be doing them a favor. Teenagers in high-conflict families have similar rates of academic and behavioral problems as those from single-parent homes, says policy analysis and management professor Kelly Musick.
Cornell bioacoustics researchers have tracked the songs of blue whales seventy miles off the coast of New York City. Knowledge of their seasonal routes may help reduce the number of ship collisions with whales.
Working at the nanoscale, electrical engineer Michal Lipson has created an experimental device that bends and distorts light around objects, making them appear invisible. It is the first "cloaking device" to work at optical frequencies.
By studying monkeys' eyes, neurobiologist Barbara Finlay and colleagues have learned that minor dissimilarities in the timing of cell proliferation may explain major evolutionary differences among species. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Entomologist Elson Shields and plant breeder Donald Viands are working to reduce crop damage by the alfalfa snout beetle, which infests about 13 percent of New York agricultural land. Their two-pronged approach: developing resistant alfalfa and growing nematodes, natural beetle predators.
Engineers have used DNA strands as a structural support to create thin sheets of gold nanoparticles for use in electronic devices. The work, led by professor Dan Luo, was published in Nature Materials.