Diet for small planet may be most efficient if it includes dairy and a little meat, Cornell researchers report: Although vegetarian diets in New York state may require less land per person, they use more high-valued land. "It appears that while meat increases land-use requirements, diets including modest amounts of meat can feed more people than some higher-fat vegetarian diets," said Christian Peters, M.S. '02, Ph.D. '07, a Cornell postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of the research.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/diets.ag.footprint.sl.html

Faculty and students getting involved in making climate neutrality a classroom focus: At least 12 faculty members, from such fields as engineering, biology, architecture and communication, are devoting all or part of an academic course this fall to evaluating options for Cornell to achieve a cleaner, greener campus. This is part of a universitywide effort to tackle head-on the enormous challenge of creating a plan to make Cornell climate neutral. The committee, which expects that Cornell's eventual plan could become a template for other institutions to use, will soon begin coordinating efforts with another committee, being formed by Stephen Golding, the Samuel W. Bodman Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration, and Vice President for Planning and Budget Carolyn Ainslie, and co-chaired by Tim Fahey, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Natural Resources, and Vice President for Facilities Services Kyu Whang.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/sust.courses.aj.html

Profits, not poaching, is message Cornell food scientists are aiming at Zambian farmers: In an effort to improve lives and at the same time save African wildlife, Cornell researchers are helping farmers in Zambia, Southern Africa, develop such products as peanut butter and tofu under the It's Wild! brand name. The goal? Enabling farmers to reap more financial rewards from the food they grow so they won't poach threatened wildlife or destroy forests.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/FoodHygiene.kr.html

Cornell team helps Bulgarian university develop master's program in regional development: More than a dozen Cornell professors -- from development sociology, applied economics and management, natural resources, crop and soil sciences, as well as the Cornell Law School and city and regional planning in the College of Architecture, Art And Planning -- have collaborated for several years to help Bulgaria's University of Rousse develop a 15-course curriculum for an on-campus master's degree program and an off-campus educational certification program, both in regional development management. "These programs have now been institutionalized and are part of the university's regular offerings -- the first group of master's degree students graduated earlier this year," says David L. Brown, Cornell professor of development sociology, who with Gerald White, Cornell professor of applied economics and management, led the collaborators. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/Bulgaria.masters.sl.html

Cornell to break ground for new grape lab in western N.Y.: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/grape.newlab.ag.html

Two major gifts will advance energy and sustainability research at Cornell: University Council member David R. Atkinson '60 has pledged $1 million per year over three to five years to seed program activities and research in energy, the environment and economic development through the center. Trustee David Croll '70 has pledged $5 million for the establishment of the David D. Croll Professorship of Sustainable Energy Systems in the College of Engineering and related programmatic funds. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/Croll.Atkinson.html

CU's debating team climbs to 13th in national rankings: This year's Class of 1894 Debate Tournament featured more than 25 teams of Cornell undergraduates. The intense, daylong competition, hosted by CALS in Warren Hall, drew students from across campus. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/CU.debate.ag.html

Land-grant experts explain how Cornell's historically state mission has now gone global: How Cornell's historic land-grant mission is still viable today in helping an increasingly globalized community was discussed in a presentation to the Cornell Board of Trustees by Ronald Seeber, vice provost for land grant affairs and professor in the ILR School, and Max J. Pfeffer, professor and chair of the Department of Developmental Sociology as well as co-director of the Community and Rural Development Institute.
http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/public/comm/news/save-world.cfm

CALS business program to offer advanced accounting, thanks to Ernst &
Young gift: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/Ernst.Young.ag.html

Thanks to Cornell research and help from CCE, maple marshmallows are on shelves across New York: Although most research at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences eventually makes a difference on farms, the maple confections initiative has farm-level impact almost immediately. The initiative came about in late 2005 when it was selected for funding by the New York Farm Viability Institute. Maple syrup producers across New York state quickly felt the effects. First, maple confection research, in collaboration with the Food Venture Center at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y., established how to use glucose-measuring equipment to analyze levels of invert sugar in maple syrup. Additional research worked out the mathematics of blending syrup with varying invert sugar levels for consistency. Then came the outreach. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/maple.marshmallows.html

CALS students use sheep to teach children about sustainable strategies to reduce poverty: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Members of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Honor Society, Ho-Nun-De-Kah, taught this popular folk concept to local children Oct. 22 by bringing a Jacob sheep to their 4-H Urban Outreach Afterschool Program at West Village in Ithaca and teaching them about Heifer International.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/CALS.Heifer.sl.html

CU launches program to develop business leaders who value diversity: The Business Opportunities in Leadership and Diversity (BOLD) Program, launched Sept. 27-28 in the Department of Applied Economics and Management, will accept its first group of undergraduates in December. Each accepted student will be paired with a leadership mentor -- a faculty member who has held a leadership position -- who will work with the student for the next three years to ensure that he or she obtains adequate experiences on the personal, group and organizational/community levels to build the expected set of competencies in leadership and diversity. "Our alumni have told us that in the corporate world, they see a real need for students to be educated and have experiences in both diversity and leadership," says Cindy van Es, senior lecturer in statistics and director of the new program. "Students moving into the business world should have some sense of working in diverse environments as well as have a handle on the theories of leadership. We're trying to help our students build competencies in both of these arenas."
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/BOLD.program.sl.html

In an international study, the humble fruit fly gives clues to genetic adaptation and immune system evolution: From the results of the research, the Cornell scientists coordinated one of the two papers published this week in the journal Nature. The team, known as the Drosophila 12 Genomes Consortium, represented 16 countries and was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health National Human Genome Research Institute. "By looking at a wider number of species, we had much greater power to detect genes and regulatory elements from the way the sequences diverged between species, and to test models of what evolutionary pressures those genes and regulatory elements must have faced," said Andrew Clark, Cornell professor of population genetics and one of the paper's co-authors. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/DrosophilaGenomes.kr.html

Understanding gene regulation: Drosophila continues to offer signs -- and questions: In the cells of the tiny fruit fly (Drosophila), researchers in the 1930s found valuable resources known as polytene chromosomes -- giant bundles of chromosomes, banded into distinct segments corresponding to specific genetic loci. Polytene chromosomes give geneticists a window on the mechanics of gene activation and transcription, particularly with the advent of new optical and molecular imaging techniques that allow studies of living tissue in real time. John Lis, the Barbara McClintock Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell, notes in the current issue of Nature that those new studies -- combined with other genetic and biochemical data on Drosophila and mammals -- could lead to a shift in the way scientists understand how gene expression is regulated in cells. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/DrosophilaGenomes.kr.html

Brown root rot -- a potentially serious forage crop disease -- is found throughout the Northeast: Cornell plant pathologists have detected brown root rot -- a potentially serious forage crop disease -- in the northeastern United States. It is widespread in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire and has been detected in Pennsylvania and Maine. The findings are published in the October issue of the journal Plant Disease. "It's pervasive. These were arbitrarily chosen fields, and it is present in a majority of alfalfa fields tested in the Northeast," said Gary Bergstrom, Cornell professor of plant pathology. "At this point, we have not identified effective controls for it," he added, explaining that scientists are exploring disease-resistant varieties that are adapted to the Northeast. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/brown.root.rot.html

Student-created labyrinth plants the way for a perennial path to peace: By May Day, Cornell will be home to what might just be the first perennial-paved labyrinth in the country, perhaps in the world. More than 14,000 bulbs—mixes of daffodils, grape hyacinths and tulips—went into the ground Nov. 13 to define a walking labyrinth at Cornell's Bluegrass Lane Turf and Landscape Research Center off Warren Road. The labyrinth is a class project in Professor Bill Miller's Herbaceous Plant Materials course, aka Annuals and Perennials (Horticulture 300).
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/labyrinth.bulbs.sl.html

Fellowship from DuPont to support plant breeding research: DuPont has announced that Cornell is a recipient of a $60,000 fellowship, renewable annually for five years. The fellowship will support two graduate students in the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics. The recipients will be chosen by faculty members at Cornell. The gift is one of five such awards to universities and is part of a total contribution of $1.5 million by DuPont—through its Pioneer Hi-Bred seed business—to support graduate student research and education in plant breeding through university fellowships.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/Dupont.plantbreeding.html

New Cornell photo collection shows little-known aspects of Liberia during WW II: When George "Doc" Abraham, CALS '39, enlisted in the army, he was handed a camera and the assignment to document life in Liberia during the war. Much of Abraham's work never came to public light until his children, Leanna Landsmann and Darryl Abraham, recently donated his collection to the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC). http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/WWII.Africa.collection.html

Surveillance as art at the Johnson Museum: Visitors who came to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art to watch monks creating a sand mandala for the recent visit of the Dalai Lama were themselves part of a new art form translating movement into sound. As they clustered around to view the mandala or moved in or out of the room, cameras in the ceiling tracked their movements. The behavior of the crowd triggered subtle changes in the background sounds playing in the room.While all that may seem a bit ethereal, the technology that makes it possible could, paradoxically, increase opportunities for video surveillance in public places while at the same time enhancing the privacy of those observed. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/Museum.tracking.ws.html

Computational biologists use evolution-tracking method to discover 300 new human genes: The research is reported by Adam Siepel, Cornell assistant professor of biological statistics and computational biology, Cornell postdoctoral researcher Brona Brejova and colleagues at several other institutions in the online version of the journal Genome Research, and it will appear in the December print edition. What's important, the researchers say, is that their discovery shows there still could be many more genes that have been missed using current biological methods. These methods are very effective at finding genes that are widely expressed but may miss those that are expressed only in certain tissues or at early stages of embryonic development, Siepel said.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/Siepel.newgenes.ws.html

American Indian Program volunteer tutors help Native American high school students succeed: Students, staff and faculty in Cornell's American Indian Program (AIP) are helping high school students in LaFayette Central Schools to succeed, with a weekly tutoring program that began this semester. The goals are to establish relationships as mentors to the younger Native American students and help open the way for them to go on to college.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/Native.tutors.da.html

Brian Wansink accepts 14-month appointment as executive director of USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion: Sworn in Nov. 19, Wansink reports to Nancy Johner, undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services. He is responsible for overseeing the planning, development and review of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the food pyramid known as MyPyramid.gov and programs including the Healthy Eating Index, the USDA Food Plans, the Nutrient Content of the U.S. Food Supply and the cost of raising a child.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/Wansink.toDC.sl.html

Bee- and breakfast-themed ice creams lick competitors in Cornell class contest: This year's enrollment for the course broke all previous records with 85 students; only about 25 are food science majors.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/iceCreamClass.sl.html

After long road to Cornell Ph.D., Kelvin Grant gives back with library scholarship: Although he has been working only a few months, Grant has pledged $5,000 a year for 10 years so that Mann Library can hire minority students to work at its main desk. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov07/alum.grant.aj.html

Cornell team shows how Tompkins County can cut its 'carbon footprint' by two-thirds: Timothy Fahey, professor of natural resources, says local community planners need to get a better handle on their county's "carbon budget" -- how much does the county emit into the atmosphere and how much does it sequester? Along with Timothy Vadas, biological and environmental engineering; Ruth Sherman, natural resources; and David Kay, applied economics and management, Fahey found that Tompkins County is emitting 361,558 tons of carbon per year. The lion's shares come from transportation -- people drive long distances to work, shop and play -- Cornell's energy use, and residential and commercial heating.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Dec07/Tompkins.carbon.lc.html

Fulbright awards take Cornellians pursuing 'any study' around the world: Cornell students have received 21 Fulbright U.S. Student awards and four Fulbright-Hays fellowships in the 2007-08 academic year. The winners included CALS students Rachel Dunn, biological and environmental engineering (Fulbright-Hays fellow), and Fulbright award winners Emily Bielecki, public health; Allison Conti, sociology; Matthew Hoffman, sociology; Amanda Koltz, oceanography; Dana Shapiro, environmental studies; and Tarah Sullivan, biology. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Dec07/FulbrightAwards07.html