Cornell in the National News, August 9, 2005
Sunday August 14, 2005 Category: News Permanent Link
The following is a sampling of recent major news stories, courtesy of the Cornell News Service.
Researchers Find Mothers Face Obstacles in Workplace
Associated Press, August 8 (picked up by several outlets including WRGB, the CBS affiliate in Albany)
An experiment by social researchers at Cornell University found that mothers looking for employment face several disadvantages.
Virtual Reality Helps Calm 9/11 Anxiety
Associated Press, August 8 (picked up by several outlets including The New York Times)
For years, virtual reality has been used to treat common phobias such as a fear of airplanes, storms and speaking in front of crowds. Dr. JoAnn Difede, director of the Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Studies Program at Weill Cornell Medical College, found the practice extremely effective and, after 9/11, thought it could be adapted to treat World Trade Center survivors.
She and other researchers developed a program for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder that incorporated animated 3-D images of the 9/11 attacks. She said she has been treating patients with it for more than a year with very promising results.
Cornell University Honours Nandlal P. Tolani
Press Trust of India (wire service, equivalent to AP or UPI in the U.S.), August 5
A leading university in the US Friday honoured Nandlal P Tolani, chairman of a Mumbai-based shipping company and a promoter of higher education, by naming a permanent faculty chair in his honour.
“A pioneering benefactor of higher education in India has been honoured with the naming of a permanent faculty chair at Cornell University,” a statement from the University’s headquarters in Ithaca, New York, said.
“The establishment of the Tolani Senior Professorship in International Trade Policy will ensure that future graduates of our college have the opportunity to gain unique perspectives on international business and trade,” Susan Henry of Cornell’s a Dean of Agricultural and Life Sciences division said at the dedication ceremony.
Scientists Hope to Listen for Whales so Ships Can Aviod Them
Associated Press – August 5 (picked up by several outlets including WBZ, the CBS affiliate in Boston)
Scientists say an underwater listening system they’re developing will dramatically improve detection and reduce whale deaths.
The project, led by Cornell University expert Christopher Clark, uses underwater microphones about the size of a soda can, called “hydrophones.” When a right whale is heard, its location can be transmitted via cell phone or satellite phone.
Nonfiction Review: Roving Mars By Steve Squyres
Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune, August 5
“Roving Mars” is almost spiritual in nature, reminding us that despite the politics, financial hurdles, compromises and glitches, there’s something almost sacred in our quest to reach out to the rest of the universe. It’s an exceptional story exceptionally well told – especially once you master all the acronyms. Squyres joins Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould in the pantheon of scientists who successfully popularized their discipline.
Dog Cloning Could Lead to Insights into Human Disease
Health Day, August 5 (picked up by more than 25 broadcast outlets including WECT, the NBC affiliate in Wilmington, NC)
The breakthrough could give scientists better insights and tools to study and possibly treat human diseases, experts said.
“The dog is a very good model,” said Alexander Travis, an assistant professor of reproductive biology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine’s Baker Institute for Animal Health. “The dog genome has just been sequenced, so we now have a lot of good genetic information. It’s a lot more similar to a person than a mouse is and there are three or four hundred diseases that dogs get that have homologues in humans.”
(Also quoted in the piece: Robert Foote, Ph.D., professor emeritus, animal physiology, Cornell)
There’s a Hidden Price for Being a Cheat
New York Times, August 4
Article by Robert Frank of the Johnson School discusses cheating in business and compares it and it’s causes and effects to cheating in sports. He describes some of the different motivations – keeping up, versus winning – and the different results – a passive affect of not being offered premium positions and salaries in the business arena versus the more empirical ‘loss’ in sports. He also discusses ability to be able to instinctively identify cheaters and how this ability can affect the perception of trustworthiness and denigrate opportunity in business.
Frank: “If the people who make promotion decisions in business can make sufficiently accurate character judgments, honest candidates have an inside track for promotion into well-paying positions that require trust. That explains why honesty is often a winning strategy in business.”
A New Kind of Birdsong: Music on the Wing in the Forests of Ecuador
New York Times – August 3Dr. Richard Prum, a Yale ornithologist and Dr. Kimberly Bostwick of Cornell University, believe they have solved the mystery of the bird that can sing with its wings.
Club-winged manakins rake their feathers back and forth over one another, using an acoustic trick that allows crickets to sing. While the technique is common among insects, it has never been documented before in vertebrates.
“The convergence is simply stunning,” said Dr. Ronald Hoy, a Cornell expert on insect sounds.
Dr. Bostwick and Dr. Prum reported their findings in the July 29 issue of the journal Science.
Vindication for Ivory-Blled Woodpecker and its Fans
News York Times, August 3
Even the most skeptical ornithologists now agree. They say newly presented recordings show that at least two of the birds are living in Arkansas.
Richard O. Prum, an ornithologist at Yale University and one of several scientists who had challenged the most recently claimed rediscovery of the ivory bill, said Monday after listening to the tape recordings that he was now “strongly convinced that there is at least a pair of ivory bills out there.”
Mark B. Robbins, an ornithologist at the University of Kansas, who had also been a skeptic, listened to the same recordings with a graduate student and said, “We were absolutely stunned.”
Dr. Robbins said the recordings, provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, were “astounding.” Of a paper questioning claims of the woodpecker’s discovery that he, Dr. Prum and another scientist had planned to submit to a scientific journal, he said, “It’s all moot at this point; the bird’s here.”
‘Circuits’
News York Times, August 3
Column focuses on new alarm clocks in the marketplace. American Innovative’s Neverlate clock earns a very positive review in the column. American Innovative is owned and managed by Adam Hocherman, Cornell Johnson School MBA ‘06.
Ivory-Billed Recordings Convince Doubters
CNN – August 2
Audio recordings of the ivory-billed woodpecker’s distinctive double-rap have convinced doubting researchers that the large bird once thought extinct is still living in an east Arkansas swamp.
“We sent [the skeptics] some sounds this summer from the Arkansas woods,” said John W. Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell ornithology lab. “We appreciate their ability to say they are now believers.”
The Cornell researchers plan to release the audio publicly at the American Ornithologists Union in Santa Barbara, California on August 23.
Men Overcomensate for Masculinity Threats
UPI – August 2 (picked up by several outlets, in the U.S. and internationally including the Washington Times)
A Cornell University researcher says he has determined men will assume much more macho attitudes when they believe their masculinity is being threatened.
Dueling over Derivatives
U.S. News and World Report, July 25
Article about the derivatives market quotes the Johnson School’s Professor Robert Jarrow.
Jarrow believes that the credit derivatives market, when run right, contributes greatly to the financial health and flexibility of the economy and that hedge funds, although the weakest link in the chain, are still unlikely to make the sort of dangerous miscalculations pioneered by the financial wizards at Long-Term Capital Management.
“As long as the people who issue the contracts are responsible, then credit derivatives are welfare improving and make the system work better,” says Jarrow. “But there will always be things that can’t be anticipated, and there will always be human error and human greed.”
Odyssey Film Forum: Digital Technology and Film
Chicago Public Radio, July 22
Show featured a discussion on digital technology and its effects on movies and movie audiences with Timothy Murray, professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell and Thomas Looser, an associate professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at New York University.
Audio of July 22 program available at Chicago Public Radio.
