These Cornellians in the News
Professors Scott Emr (cell and molecular biology) and Richard Durrett (math), elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Professors Andrew Clark (molecular biology and genetics), Steven Strogatz (theoretical and applied mechanics), Éva Tardos (computer science), and William Thurston (mathematics), named Jacob Gould Schurman Professors.
English professor Robert Morgan, winner of an Academy Award in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Cornell University, named a "best employer" for working moms by Working Mother magazine, and for people aged fifty and older by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).
Abraham Stroock '95, assistant professor of chemical and bio-molecular engineering, named a 2007 Young Innovator by Technology Review.
Marketing professor Brian Wansink, winner of an Ig Nobel Award from the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research for his often-quirky investigations of human eating habits. The award is given annually for "research that makes people laugh and then think."
More information on campus research is available at www.news.cornell.edu .
A study led by Purnima Menon, PhD '02, a research associate in nutritional sciences, has found that the nutritional supplement "Sprinkles"—a powder containing iron, vitamins, and minerals—cuts anemia rates among children in developing countries by more than half.
Scientists have discovered a new fruit fly gene called hydra, which is involved in sperm cell development and appears to be unrelated to other genes in any known genome. The find was published in PloS Genetics with Hsiao-Pei Yang, a senior researcher in molecular biology and genetics, as first author.
Simply viewing advertisements for smoking-cessation aids may increase the chances of quitting. A study of more than 28,000 current and former smokers conducted by policy analysis and management professor Alan Mathios found that just seeing the ads, regardless of whether the products were purchased and used, makes smokers more likely to try to quit.
Solving a century-old mystery, researchers at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research have found a signal—methyl salicylate—that alerts a plant's immune system to defend against invaders.The work on the phenomenon, known as systemic acquired resistance, was published in the journal Science in October.
Collaborative work by researchers from across the University—including the Vet, Ag, and Medical colleges—has shown that a novel group of E. coli bacteria is associated with intestinal inflammation in patients with Crohn's disease. The disease, an incurable inflammatory disorder of the intestine, affects one person out of 1,000 in Europe and North America.
A low-fat vegetarian diet may be efficient in terms of the amount of land required to support it—but adding some dairy products and a little meat may make it even more so. That's the finding of a study published in Renewable Agriculture and Food System. Researchers led by crop and soil sciences postdoc Christian Peters, PhD '07, compared forty-two diets with the same number of calories but varying amounts of meat and fat.