View releases by month by clicking the dates on the left. For the full text of any release, click on the headline. Electronic queries can be made to pressoffice@cornell.edu.
Peter Lepage, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will step down June 30, 2013, he announced May 16. He will have served for 10 years, longer than all but one of the college’s 19 previous deans. (May 16, 2012)
Genetic factors explain some of the variation in a wide range of people’s political attitudes and economic decisions – such as preferences toward environmental policy and financial risk taking. (May 16, 2012)
Gerard Aching, professor of Spanish and French literature, Cornell alumnus and a member of the graduate fields of African and African-American and Latin American studies, has been appointed director of the Africana Studies and Research Center. (May 15, 2012)
Fifteen men incarcerated in the Auburn Correctional Facility will become the first prisoners in New York to earn a SUNY degree since termination of their eligibility for Pell Grants in 1995 under the Clinton administration’s Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. (May 15, 2012)
Several of Cornell University’s leading voices on sustainability will address a range of topics at the National Academy of Engineering’s regional symposium, “Toward a Sustainable Future.” (May 14, 2012)
Cornell research suggests that some people use visual indications such as a clean plate or bottom of a bowl to tell them when to stop eating. (May 14, 2012)
Cornell University’s Kroch Library will host an exhibition “Treasures from the Walker Library of the History of Human Imagination” from June 7, 2012 through October. The exhibition will feature an original Soviet Sputnik satellite, an Enigma machine and an original copy of “Micrographia” from 1666. (May 11, 2012)
Genetic factors explain some of the variation in a wide range of people’s political attitudes and economic decisions – such as preferences toward environmental policy and financial risk taking – but most associations with specific genetic variants are likely to be very small, according to a new study led by Cornell University economics professor Daniel Benjamin. (May 10, 2012)
Teachers, consumers, and anyone interested in healthy eating – and healthy shopping – are invited to attend the annual multi-media Cornell Consumer Camp on Thursday, May 31, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Camp will take place in the Mann Library Conference Room 102 on the Cornell University campus. (May 10, 2012)
Faced with the possibility of picking up everything from darts to salad tongs, Cornell researchers have developed a new algorithm that allows a robot to learn complex grasping skills from experience, and to apply them in new situations. Inspired by the “universal jamming gripper” created in the lab of Hod Lipson, associate professor of mechanical engineering and computer science, the new method is
“hardware agnostic,” the researchers said, and will work with any type of robot gripper. (May 10, 2012)
Cornell Plantations, the only public garden in Central New York, begins a three-day celebration on National Public Gardens Day featuring help for moms who love to garden. (May 10, 2012)
To embody the spirit and the mission of the CornellNYC Tech campus, Cornell University has chosen Thom Mayne and Morphosis to design the first academic building for the planned campus on Roosevelt Island, Cornell University Architect Gilbert Delgado announced today. (May 9, 2012)
Puerto Rico is facing a dirty dilemma: The island is literally running out of places to put its garbage.
Its existing landfills are filling up at an astonishing pace, and there's nowhere else to put more. There were 64 landfills on the 3,515-square-mile island in 1994; by 2020, there are expected to be just four.
The Cornell Waste Management Institute has teamed up with the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems to help address the problem. (May 8, 2012)
As rice farmers around the world begin to turn from wet paddies to dry fields in an attempt to conserve water and mitigate climate change, they are facing a new foe:
Aluminum.
The third most abundant element in soil, aluminum can be toxic to plants in acidic conditions. Its harmful effects are diluted in the flooding of traditional rice paddies but are becoming an issue as farmers try new ways of raising their crops.
Cornell plant breeder Professor Susan McCouch is working to help make these new rice-rearing methods more viable. (May 8, 2012)
Whether it's a line from a movie, an advertising slogan or a politician's catchphrase, some statements take hold in people's minds better than others.
But why?
Cornell researchers who applied computer analysis to a database of movie scripts think they may have found the secret of what makes a line memorable. (May 8, 2012)
They are talented, energetic, and “totally pumped” for a 24-hour bout of non-stop birding.
They are The Redheads – five students representing the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at the 29th annual World Series of Birding competition in Cape May, N.J., on Saturday, May 12. The goal of any “Big Day” contest is to identify the most species of birds by sight or sound in 24 hours. (May 8, 2012)
Cornell Law School graduate, Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol of Thailand (J.S.D. ’05), will deliver a lecture, “Practical Approaches to Law and Diplomacy – A Brief Tour from Cornell to Thailand to the United Nations” at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, May 10. (May 7, 2012)
Historic Ithaca presented Cornell University with a Preservation Award in recognition of the “sensitive new addition” to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at the organization’s annual meeting last week. (May 7, 2012)
Former Carter, Clinton and Obama administration official John Deutch – who chaired a special federal panel that looked into the shale gas production in the U.S. – will speak about the risks and benefits of this expanding energy industry. (May 3, 2012)
Pregnant women may have added incentive to bulk up on broccoli and eggs now that a Cornell University study has found increased maternal intake of the nutrient choline could decrease their children’s chances of developing hypertension and diabetes later in life. (May 3, 2012)
With its two newest raspberry releases, “Big Red” Cornell University is going gold and crimson. “Double Gold” and “Crimson Night” offer small-scale growers and home gardeners showy, flavorful raspberries on vigorous, disease resistant plants. (May 1, 2012)
This fall, there will be a new big cheese on campus. Cornell Big Red Cheddar is slated to hit campus eateries and the shelves of the Cornell Store in November. (May 1, 2012)
Five top birders on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Team Sapsucker completed a marathon 24-hour blitz through Texas on April 27, tallying 264 bird species seen or heard. (May 1, 2012)
