Why tipsy flowers don’t tip over: A new Cornell study finds that a touch of booze is a great way to keep certain houseplants from getting too tall by stunting their growth. "Dilute solutions of alcohol—though not beer or wine—are a simple and effective way to reduce stem and leaf growth," said William Miller, professor of horticulture and director of the Flower Bulb Research Program at Cornell.
http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/public/comm/news/drunk-flowers.cfm

Cornell signs MOU with three British universities: CALS has signed a memorandum of understanding with three British universities to cooperate on research focused on rural change and policy in North America and Europe. The Cornell team is led by development sociologists associated with the Polson Institute for Global Development.
http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/public/comm/news/mou-environment.cfm

Social behavior of sweat bees evolved with Earth's warming a mere 20 million years ago: In the first study to link social evolution to climate change, Cornell University entomologists show that the social behavior of many species of sweat bees evolved simultaneously during a period of global warming. "We believe that climatic change was a critical factor in the evolution of social behavior in these bees," said Bryan Danforth, associate professor of entomology.
http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/public/comm/news/social-beesevolution.cfm

Cornell and Harvard researchers discover mechanism that could lead to new treatments for Alzheimer's disease: An enzyme previously associated with preventing the dementia of Alzheimer's disease now appears to play an even bigger role in safeguarding against the disease, bringing the promise of new targets for drug therapies. "The new finding provides a very specific molecular interaction that can be used as a target in drug discovery," said Linda Nicholson, co-principal investigator on the study and a Cornell associate professor of molecular biology and genetics.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March06/Alzheimers.kr.html

Sweet smell of success: Cornell aid could bring new line of maple products throughout New York state: To help New York's maple syrup producers learn how to make new products and market them, eight Cornell agricultural and marketing experts affiliated with the New York Ag Innovation Center are teaming up with the New York State Maple Producers Association to offer a series of workshops.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March06/maple.products.kd.html

Cornell partners with local industries to produce pesticide sprayers and 'biofurniture' to reduce air pollution: Researchers at Cornell are recipients of the first round of seed money that promises to turn research discoveries into marketable products. Two examples: the world's first hand-held sprayer for concentrated pesticides and microbe-loaded "engineered biofurniture" that processes toxic fumes.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April06/grants4growth.lmc.html

'Amazon.com' for vegetables helps gardeners pick and choose their varieties: "The Web site is like an Amazon.com for vegetable varieties, only we don't sell the seeds," says Lori Bushway, a senior extension associate in the Department of Horticulture. "Just as avid readers visit Amazon to see what books are available and what other readers recommend, vegetable enthusiasts can visit our site to learn what varieties are available and what their fellow gardeners think of them."
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April06/veggies.web.site.cc.html

Cornell plans how to seed New York Harbor, planet's most urban estuary, with oyster reefs, wetlands, and bird-nesting isles: Mark Bain, director of Cornell's Center for the Environment, and his colleagues at Cornell and the Hudson River Foundation have been awarded a one-year, $300,000 grant from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to detail how to go about improving the bottom topography, shorelines and adjacent wetlands of the Hudson-Raritan Estuary.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April06/Hudson.restoration.ssl.html

How 10,000 bees decide where to go when they fly the coop – decision-making to rival a department committee: When 10,000 honeybees go hunting for a new home, they have a unique method of deciding which site is right: With great efficiency they narrow down the options and minimize their bad decisions. Their technique, says Cornell University biologist Thomas Seeley, includes coalition building until a quorum develops. His group's study might well be used to help improve human group decision-making, he says.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April06/swarm.quorum.ssl.html

CALS signs memorandum of understanding with Paris’s Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS): The agreement supports the intentions of Cornell and ENS to form a strategic partner relationship between Cornell's Center for the Environment and the ENS Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherche sur l'Environnement et la Société. The four objectives of the agreement are: scholarly exchanges and visits, cooperative research, student exchange and exchange of research materials.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May06/MOU_environment.ssl.html

NYS budget provides long-sought funding for Fredonia and other Geneva Experiment Station projects: The "growing" season arrived early for the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station's vineyard research programs when the legislature provided funding for several Cornell initiatives in the recently passed New York State budget.
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pubs/press/current/060509FredoniaFunds.html

How now green cow? Not just another sod story: For final projects in The Art of Horticulture II (HORT 203), most students created works of art such as bean mosaics, baskets dyed with plant fibers, paintings made from plant dyes or turfgrass projects such as grass handbags and chairs with sod cushions. Danielle Hodgins '08 decided to think bigger. Her creation? A larger-than-life sod cow in front of Morrison Hall.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May06/turfcow.html

Cornell enters into an alliance for processed apples with Cadbury Schweppes: Maintaining a world-class apple research program can be expensive. To help sustain Cornell’s research program as well as the New York state apple industry, Cornell has entered into a 10-year research alliance with Mott's, a Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages (CSAB) company. The agreement will give CSAB exclusive rights to new processing-apple varieties for use in the development of Mott's products in exchange for the company's help in supporting Cornell's apple breeding program.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May06/cadburyapple.lmc.html

Moo over Mann: Cornellia tops off newly renovated library roof: The cow jumped over the Mann on April 26, minus little dogs or dishes and spoons to behold the spectacle. The iconic fiberglass cow Cornellia, on loan from Cornell's Department of Food Science, was the centerpiece of a "topping off" celebration that marked the placement of the highest roof beam of the renovated Mann Library building.
http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/public/comm/news/cow-topping.cfm

Kids Growing Food produce gardens in some 300 schools across the state: Simply by planting gardens of fruits, herbs and vegetables at school, thousands of students across New York state and at nearly two dozen schools in Maryland, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. are learning how to grow food and better understand agriculture in Cornell University's agricultural education program, Kids Growing Food.
http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/public/comm/news/kids-grow-food.cfm

Migratory birds are unlikely to infect humans or poultry in U.S. with deadly avian flu, say Cornell bird experts: For the virulent H5N1 strain of avian flu to establish itself on U.S. soil via wild birds, a string of events must come together, none of which can be predicted, say experts who are part of a new avian influenza task force at Cornell's Lab of Ornithology that is intent on understanding, tracking and relaying accurate information to the public about avian influenzas.
http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/public/comm/news/migration.cfm

Methanogens—an essential organism involved in global climate change—are finally isolated from peat bogs for study: Methanogens are the largest natural sources of atmospheric methane—a heat-trapping greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. But efforts to take methanogens from acidic peat bogs and then isolate and culture them in the laboratory under peat bog conditions have been unsuccessful—until now.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May06/methanogens.kr.html

For more news, go to the CALS Newsroom.