The third annual E@C Celebration:

The third annual E@C Celebration.

April 10-11, 2008 in Ithaca, NY

The third annual E@C Celebration will be held here in Ithaca on April 10-11, 2008. Highlights will include: Keynote address from the 2008 Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year; a gala dinner hosted by President Skorton; a resource and technology expo; symposia on the topics of entrepreneurship in hospitality, real estate, health, agriculture, food and life sciences, venture capital and sustainability; and a Cornell Entrepreneur Network (CEN event).

For more information or to be added to our mailing list to receive an invitation and registration information, visit the Celebration '08 web site at http://eship.cornell.edu/events/celebration08/.

New York, NY & Ithaca, NY, 23 October 2007-Millions of novice and accomplished bird watchers can make their fascination with nature add up for science and for the future during the 11th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, led by Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. During "Presidents' Day" weekend, February 15-18, 2008, anyone can count birds from wherever they are and enter their tallies online at http://www.birdcount.org/. These reports create an exciting real-time picture of where the birds are across the continent and contribute valuable information for science and conservation.

"These volunteers are counting not only for fun but for the future," said Tom Bancroft, Chief Science Officer for Audubon. "It's fun to see how many different kinds of birds can be seen and counted right in your backyard or neighborhood park. Each tally helps us learn more about how our North American birds are doing, and what that says about the health and the future of our environment."

"The GBBC is a great way to engage friends, family, and children in observing nature in their own backyard, where they will discover that the outdoors is full of color, behavior, flight, sounds, and mystery," said Janis Dickinson, Director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
People of all ages and experience levels are invited to take part wherever they are-at home, in schoolyards, at local parks or wildlife refuges, even counting birds on a balcony. Observers count the highest number of each species they see during at least 15 minutes on one or more of the count days. Then they enter their tallies on the Great Backyard Bird Count web site http://www.birdcount.org/.

The web site provides helpful hints for identifying birds. Participants can compare results from their town or region with others, as checklists pour in from throughout the U.S. and Canada. They can also view bird photos taken by participants during the count and send in their own digital images for the online photo gallery and contest.

In 2007, Great Backyard Bird Count participants made history, breaking records for the number of birds reported, and the number of checklists. Participants sent in 81,203 checklists tallying 11,082,387 birds of 613 species.

"Literally, there has never been a more detailed snapshot of a continental bird-distribution profile in history," said John Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "Imagine scientists 250 years from now being able to compare these data with their own!"
Already, the count results show how the numbers of some birds species have changed in recent years, such as a decline in Northern Pintails and an increase in Hooded Mergansers, consistent with trends from the Christmas Bird Count and Breeding Bird Survey.

"People who take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count see the results of their efforts in the news and in bird conservation work taking place across the country, said Audubon Education VP, Judy Braus. "Whether the counts occur at home, at schools or nature centers, they're more than engaging and educational science activities for young people and adults, they're a way to contribute to the conservation of birds and habitat nationwide."

Lt. Daniel Britt, who served in Iraq 16 months, is glad to be back home in Zimmerman, MN, where he and his sons plan to join the GBBC. "We get a bunch of birds in our backyard," Britt said, "but my oldest son, Daniel, and I may cross country ski into the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge to count birds there."

For more information on how to participate, including identification tips, photos, bird sounds, maps, and information on over 500 bird species, visit http://www.birdcount.org/.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is sponsored in part by Wild Birds Unlimited.

Comments;

Comments from last year's participants:

"I was thrilled to be part of something that would help shed light on the environment and the impact that humans have on this earth. It was a chance to use my hobby for a greater good." - Lauren, North Carolina

"My 4 1/2 year old grandson is very excited about it; he can already identify Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, and woodpeckers in general. We're working on identifying Red-bellied and Downy woodpeckers. It's very rewarding for me, and it makes him very proud of himself." - John, Maryland

"I am eight years old and have loved birds since I was a baby. Birds are very beautiful and the backyard bird count is a lot of fun." - Breanna, Ohio

"I had great fun participating. It is a quiet and peaceful project. In today's busy and exhausting lifestyle, everyone should sit still and observe birds." - Helen, Massachusetts

"I always feel honored that we citizens can contribute to science with our home observations." - Linda, Alaska

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a nonprofit membership institution interpreting and conserving the earth's biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds.

Audubon is dedicated to protecting birds and other wildlife and the habitat that supports them. Our national network of community-based nature centers and chapters, scientific and educational programs, and advocacy on behalf of areas sustaining important bird populations, engage millions of people of all ages and backgrounds in conservation. http://www.audubon.org/

The World's Smallest Trophy to be Awarded in NanoBowl Video Contest

A nano cancer that attacks cancer cells:


The American Physical Society is offering the smallest trophy ever made, and $1000 of (normal sized) cash, to the winner of the Physics Central Nano Bowl Video Contest.



To enter the NanoBowl video contest, make a video that demonstrates some aspect of physics in football. Upload the video to YouTube with the tag “nanobowl.” The deadline is January 15th.



Representatives of the APS will choose a winner, and award the trophy and prize money on Super Bowl Sunday, February 3, 2008.



The possibilities are endless. You could talk about air pressure inside the ball, the rotation of a spiral, the impact of a tackle, acceleration in a breakaway touchdown run, or anything else you can imagine.



A nanoscale trophy will be created in silicon and metal, which will be visible only under super high magnification electron or scanning microscopes. At such minuscule dimensions, the width of the features will be about a thousand times thinner than a strand of human hair.



The trophy is being made right now by physicists of the Craighead research group at Cornell University in Ithaca , NY.



Video Contest Rules:



- We recommend that the videos be two minutes or shorter. But if you feel you really need some extra time, go for it.



- All videos must be received by January 15, 2008.- Submitted videos may be used by the American Physical Society in its activities, including posting videos on the Internet.



- Please submit your video via YouTube.com



- Tag your YouTube video with the term ‘nanbowl’ and send an email to physicscentral@aps.org with 'nanobowl' in the subject line to alert us to your video's existence.



About Physics Central

PhysicsCentral.com communicates the excitement and importance of physics to everyone. hey invite you to visit their site every week to find out how physics is part of your world.



About APSThe American Physical Society is the world's leading professional body of physicists, representing over 46,000 physicists in academia and industry in the US and internationally. It has offices in College Park, MD, Ridge, NY, and Washington, DC.



American Physical SocietyJames mailto:Riordon301-209-3238riordon@aps.org http://www.aps.org/

New York City Housing Bubble - 'The BIG Picture': Danger Will Robinson: Apply Goop To Breach In Spaceship Housing Debt#links

2007 Solar Decathlon

Energy Department Announces 2007 Solar Decathlon Teams Each of the 20 Schools to Receive $100,000 in Funding

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Energy today announced that 20 teams have been selected to compete in the 2007 Solar Decathlon. The 20 teams selected for the competition will be awarded $100,000 over two years to support the Solar Decathlon’s research goal of reducing the cost of solar-powered homes and advancing solar technology.

“The next generation of leaders will have an opportunity to shine as they compete in the 2007 Solar Decathlon,” said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. “Supplying enough clean, affordable energy to fuel the world’s growing economies is one of the great challenges we will face over the coming years. By helping expand the use of solar energy technologies, the participants will help meet that challenge.”

The following teams have been selected to compete through a proposal system:

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, MI
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, NY
*Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
Team Montreal (École de Technologie Supérieure, Université de
Montréal, McGill University), Montreal, CANADA
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, GERMANY
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras and Mayagüez, PR
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, SPAIN
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO (Winner 2005)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
University of Maryland, College Park, MD
University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, MO
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

*Santa Clara University added as a participant; California Polytechnic State University withdrew from the competition.

The Solar Decathlon is an international competition that brings student teams from universities across the United States, Europe and Canada to compete in designing, building and operating highly energy-efficient, completely solar-powered houses. The teams will assemble their homes on the Mall and will be open to the public. Contest rules require that each house generate enough energy from the sun to operate a household, a home-based business and related transportation needs.

Teams are judged in ten different categories, seven of which focus on energy efficiency; others include design and comfort of the house. The team with the most points – the most energy-efficient and innovatively designed house – wins.

The Solar Decathlon takes place every other year; the 2005 winner was the University of Colorado.

For more information please visit http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar_decathlon/.
Santa Clara University added as a participant; California Polytechnic State University withdrew from the competition
Media contact(s):Tom Welch, 202/586-5806

The Birdhouse Network

The Birdhouse Network: A Decade of Dedication
Citizen scientists keep tabs on the lives of nesting birds


Ithaca, NY—For 10 years, a network of dedicated birders has made it their mission to help birds by providing nest boxes where birds can raise their families—and by recording information for scientists. Together, they’ve kept a decade of meticulous records about when the birds build their nests, how many eggs they lay, and when the gawky fledglings take their first flights. Combined, they have sent nearly 70,000 nest records to The Birdhouse Network, a citizen-science project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. These efforts have helped expand scientific knowledge about bluebirds, Tree Swallows, House Wrens, and other cavity-nesting birds for whom the motto may be rephrased, “Hole Sweet Home.”

Getting Oriented: Using records from participants, scientists have examined factors that affect the success of nesting birds across time and space. They have found, for example, that in northern latitudes, nest boxes facing east or northeast produce more fledglings. The hypothesis is that cavity entrances facing toward the sunrise remain warmer on cold spring mornings, increasing survival rates. In contrast, the orientation of the nest box has no effect in southern latitudes.

Some Don’t Like it Hot: A significantly higher number of eggs fail to hatch in the South than in the North. Researchers are investigating whether prolonged warm temperatures cause some of the eggs to start developing before the female begins incubating, leading to abnormal development. Birds in warmer climates tend to produce more broods—perhaps to balance the loss. Scientists will be keeping close tabs on rates of hatching in the face of global climate change.
The Birdhouse Network also invites participants to help in a special study called Personality Profiles. Participants follow an experimental protocol and observe how birds react to harmless novel objects placed near nest boxes. Scientists use the information to learn more about birds, such as why some species fare better in cities or around people. They invite anyone interested in animal behavior to help by joining the study.

People of all ages and skill levels can be part of The Birdhouse Network. “Without the data sent in by participants, we would not be able to track large-scale trends in the reproductive cycles of these birds,” says project leader Tina Phillips. “Whether they monitor one box or 100, our participants are so dedicated to the birds, and the data they provide us year after year are incredibly powerful.”

To sign up or find out more about The Birdhouse Network, visit www.birds.cornell.edu/birdhouse, or call (800) 843-2473. The project fee is $15 ($12 for Lab members). Join in this spring to “keep your eye on the birdy” and help scientists develop a clearer picture of the intricate and fascinating

NASA'S Mars Rover Finds Evidence of Ancient Volcanic Explosion

The lower coarse-grained unit shows granular textures toward the bottom of the image and massive textures. Also shown in this false-color view is a feature interpreted to be a "bomb sag," which is 4 centimeters across. Related Images


NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has discovered evidence of an ancient volcanic explosion at "Home Plate," a plateau of layered bedrock approximately 2 meters (6 feet) high within the "Inner Basin" of Columbia Hills, at the rover's landing site in Gusev Crater.



This is the first explosive volcanic deposit identified with a high degree of confidence by Spirit or its twin, Opportunity. There is strong evidence that those layers are from a volcanic explosion, said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres is principal investigator for the rovers' science instruments.



The findings about volcanic activity are reported in a paper published in the May 4 issue of the journal Science. Evidence shows the area near Home Plate is dominated by basaltic rocks. "When basalt erupts, it often does so as very fluid lava, rather than erupting explosively," Squyres said. "One way for basaltic lava to cause an explosion is for it to come into contact with water it's the pressure from the steam that causes it to go boom."



Scientists suspect that the explosion that formed Home Plate may have been caused by an interaction of basaltic lava and water. "When you look at composition of the rocks in detail, there are hints that water may have been involved," Squyres said. One example is the high chlorine content of the rocks, which might indicate that basalt had come into contact with a brine. One of the strongest pieces of evidence for an explosive origin for Home Plate is a "bomb sag" preserved in layered rocks on the lower slopes of the plateau. Bomb sags form in volcanic explosions on Earth when rocks ejected skyward by the explosion fall into soft deposits, deforming them as they land. Spirit arrived at Home Plate in February 2006 and spent several months exploring it in detail before driving to "Low Ridge" to pass the Martian winter.



Spirit has now returned to Home Plate to continue exploration there. "We decided to go back to Home Plate, once the Martian winter ended, because it is one of the most interesting places that we've found on Gusev Crater," Squyres said. "Last year we primarily explored the northern and eastern sides of it. This time we're hoping to get to the southern and western sides." Spirit's continued exploration of Home Plate will focus largely on testing the idea that water was involved in its formation process.



Spirit and Opportunity are in their fourth year of exploring Mars. They successfully completed their three-month prime missions in April 2004, and the missions have been extended four times. As of April 26, Spirit had spent 1,177 sols, or Martian days, on the surface of Mars and had driven 7,095 meters (4.4 miles), and Opportunity had spent 1,157 sols and driven 10,509 meters (6.5 miles)."



Considering their age, both rovers are in good health. All science instruments are functioning and continuing to return superb science data," said John Callas, project manager of the Mars Exploration Rover mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif

.

###

Guy Webster/Natalie Godwin 818-354-6278/0850Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CaliforniaDwayne Brown 202-358-1726NASA Headquarters, Washington D.C.

Cornell University to host inaugural Career Fair, Aug. 8

Registration for participants is required by July 25

WHAT: Inaugural Career Fair at Cornell
WHEN: Wednesday, Aug. 8, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
WHERE: Robert Purcell Community Center on Cornell University's North Campus

NOTE: Reporters who are interested in attending the fair must contact Joe Schwartz in the Press Relations Office at (607) 254-6235.

ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Office of Human Resources Recruitment and Employment Center at Cornell University will host its first-ever Career Fair Wednesday, Aug. 8, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Robert Purcell Community Center on campus. Open to the public, this university-wide event provides an excellent opportunity for anyone - including current employees - interested in learning more about career opportunities at Cornell.

Special Career Fair features include: free admission; free Career Fair packets and materials; free employment "overview" sessions; free on-site "general employment" sessions; free transportation to and from the fair; and an opportunity to meet with Cornell employers to explore available career opportunities.

The event is wheelchair accessible and interpreters are available on a first-come, first served basis.

Registration for the fair and for the overview sessions is required by July 25. Late registrations will not be accepted, so be sure to register soon. Attendees should come with their resumes and wearing business-casual dress. For more details, call the Recruitment and Employment Center at Cornell at (607) 254-8370 or visit http://www.ohr.cornell.edu/jobs.
Contact: Deb BillupsPhone: (607) 254-8239dav5@cornell.edu

New Cornell study suggests that mental processing is continuous, not like a computer.
By Susan S. Lang

ITHACA, N.Y. -- The theory that the mind works like a computer, in a series of distinct stages, was an important steppingstone in cognitive science, but it has outlived its usefulness, concludes a new Cornell University study. Instead, the mind should be thought of more as working the way biological organisms do: as a dynamic continuum, cascading through shades of grey.

In a new study published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (June 27-July 1), Michael Spivey, a psycholinguist and associate professor of psychology at Cornell, tracked the mouse movements of undergraduate students while working at a computer. The findings provide compelling evidence that language comprehension is a continuous process.
"For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have treated mental processes as though they involved passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next or in a string of individuated binary symbols -- like a digital computer," said Spivey. "More recently, however, a growing number of studies, such as ours, support dynamical-systems approaches to the mind. In this model, perception and cognition are mathematically described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space; the neural activation patterns flow back and forth to produce nonlinear, self-organized, emergent properties -- like a biological organism."

In his study, 42 students listened to instructions to click on pictures of different objects on a computer screen. When the students heard a word, such as "candle," and were presented with two pictures whose names did not sound alike, such as a candle and a jacket, the trajectories of their mouse movements were quite straight and directly to the candle. But when the students heard "candle" and were presented with two pictures with similar sounding names, such as candle and candy, they were slower to click on the correct object, and their mouse trajectories were much more curved. Spivey said that the listeners started processing what they heard even before the entire word was spoken.

"When there was ambiguity, the participants briefly didn't know which picture was correct and so for several dozen milliseconds, they were in multiple states at once. They didn't move all the way to one picture and then correct their movement if they realized they were wrong, but instead they traveled through an intermediate gray area," explained Spivey. "The degree of curvature of the trajectory shows how much the other object is competing for their interpretation; the curve shows continuous competition. They sort of partially heard the word both ways, and their resolution of the ambiguity was gradual rather than discrete; it's a dynamical system."

The computer metaphor describes cognition as being in a particular discrete state, for example, "on or off" or in values of either zero or one, and in a static state until moving on. If there was ambiguity, the model assumed that the mind jumps the gun to one state or the other, and if it realizes it is wrong, it then makes a correction.

"In thinking of cognition as working as a biological organism does, on the other hand, you do not have to be in one state or another like a computer, but can have values in between -- you can be partially in one state and another, and then eventually gravitate to a unique interpretation, as in finally recognizing a spoken word," Spivey said.

Whereas the older models of language processing theorized that neural systems process words in a series of discrete stages, the alternative model suggests that sensory input is processed continuously so that even partial linguistic input can start "the dynamic competition between simultaneously active representations."

Spivey's co-authors are Marc Grosjean of the University of Dortmund, Germany, and Günther Knoblich of Rutgers University.

A Cornell Fsih Story, and a good one too !

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell researchers are fine-tuning a new technique they developed to rapidly detect a deadly fish virus that has increasingly appeared in the Great Lakes and neighboring waterways. Current tests take a month, while the new technique, which measures viral genetic material, takes only 24 hours to identify the virus.

The Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS) virus has been isolated in a wide variety of dead fish from the St. Lawrence River, the Niagara River, Lake St. Claire, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and now Lake Huron. The virus detected in Lake Huron was only 22 miles from Lake Michigan. VHS is a rhabdovirus, a pathogen that has caused large fish kills in these areas and has been detected in muskellunge, New York's number two sport fish. Unreported in North America until 1988, the first case of VHS virus in New York state was detected from a massive fish kill of round gobies in the St. Lawrence River in May 2006.

New York Sea Grant has awarded Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine a two-year, $178,000 grant to develop the genetics-based test to spot the virus in both tissue and water samples. The grant will also be used to study optimal ways of handling specimens to be sent for testing.

"The virus is very unstable," said Paul Bowser, Cornell professor of aquatic animal medicine and one of the grant's lead investigators. "If fish are collected by a field biologist in a remote location, and they are not properly refrigerated, the virus will decompose by the time it reaches the lab."
The researchers will also investigate the virus' stability in fresh and turbid water to see how these conditions impact detection.

The grant will specifically focus on muskellunge fisheries in the St. Lawrence River, Chautauqua Lake and the Niagara River to determine the virus' prevalence in these populations and at different times of year.

Cornell received more than 1,300 fish samples between May and December last year, and researchers have tested all of them using the new technique. They are about two-thirds of the way through testing the same samples using the classic technique, which relies on cell cultures, to compare results.

The researchers hope to have the technique validated by the end of 2007 and the fieldwork completed by the end of 2008.

"Once this technique is accepted by national and international organizations, it will be adopted as the standard test," said Geoffrey Groocock, a postdoctoral associate at Cornell's Aquatic Animal Health Program. "Then, people can send samples to us or other programs to quickly and accurately diagnose the emergence of this disease."
There remains no way to vaccinate fish against this disease, and any measures to control its spread requires people to "apply procedures that existed prior to the discovery of vaccines, such as monitoring outbreaks and trying to isolate fish so they don't spread the disease," said Jim Casey, Cornell associate professor of veterinary microbiology and immunology and one of the grant's lead researchers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued an order to prevent movement of 37 fish species throughout the Great Lakes, with the exception of fish that have already been tested.
All cases of VHS virus must be reported to the World Organization of Animal Health. The international agency usually imposes restrictions on any host country with VHS virus to prevent fish from being moved to other areas and countries.

The New York State Sea Grant program is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the State University of New York and Cornell.
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Cornell's Economic Impact reports

Cornell University issues its first economic self study
Impact of New York's top research university exceeds $3 billion

Contact: Simeon MossPhone: (607)255-2281Cell: (607)227-0739 sfm4@cornell.edu

FOR RELEASE: Feb. 8, 2007

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University, the land-grant institution for the State of New York, has released its first-ever economic impact study. The report provides an in-depth portrait of a robust educational and research institution, which, in carrying out its missions, accounts for $3.3 billion in economic activity in the state - including $1.8 billion in Central New York and $1.06 billion in New York City alone.
"This report constitutes a new and important data point in our effort to understand the additional effects of our institution's far-reaching educational and research activities on the life of our region and the well being of our communities," said Cornell President David Skorton. "It helps underscore the fact that Cornell's contributions to the state's economy are the product of decades of investment in the institution - both public and private, both intellectual and financial."
Commenting on the 114-page report, which details Cornell's statewide economic impact in terms of human capital, research, technology transfer, business development and extension, Cornell Provost Biddy Martin stated that, "Too few people appreciate the broader economic and social impact of the world's leading research universities. These effects are a byproduct of our core commitments to research - basic and applied - teaching and the extension of both into a larger public sphere. The only way to ensure a positive social and economic impact is to protect and foster the best possible research and teaching.
"While Cornell's economic data illustrate the impact the university has on New York State's economy," Martin added, "this report also shows that the university's greatest contributions are directly related to the quality and dedication of its faculty, staff, and students, whose many accomplishments and contributions we have attempted to highlight."
Cornell is one of New York's largest nongovernmental employers, the report confirms, accounting for more than 36,000 jobs in 2005. The university purchased nearly
$425 million in goods and services from suppliers in New York State, and capital investments totaled almost $200 million, with nine out of every 10 construction dollars being paid to in-state contractors. And with $561 million in research spending in 2004-2005, Cornell is the state's leading research university, and it ranks 11th nationwide.
Cornell's statewide impact on jobs, innovation, and economic development is significant. Working in partnership with hundreds of New York businesses, both large and small, its researchers contribute regularly to the vitality of industries throughout the state - from apple growers, food processors, and wineries to software developers, investment companies, and biotech firms. And Cornell ranks first among New York's research universities in patents issued, first in commercial license agreements executed, and second in formation of start-up companies.
"Cornell's first Economic Impact Statement offers a wonderful look into the university's teaching, research and service contributions to the citizens of New York State," said Cornell Executive Vice President for Business and Finance Stephen Golding, under whose direction the economic study was performed. "It illustrates Cornell's $3.3 billion statewide economic activity; the breadth of services it provides through its cooperative extension programs; and the numerous ways Cornell's faculty contribute to teaching New York residents, conducting cutting edge research and fostering the commercialization of their technology."
Cornell has been critical in helping New York State develop and maintain the educated and talented workforce the state needs to be competitive in a global economy. In fall of 2004, more than 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students were enrolled at Cornell, of whom more than 8,500 were from New York State. And of the 202,000 Cornell alumni whose addresses are known, 28 percent are living and working in New York State.
In carrying out its land grant mission, Cornell provides a wide array of services to New Yorkers, their businesses and their communities - through outreach programs offered by all of the university's colleges, and especially through services provided by Cornell Cooperative Extension and its 54 county offices. An estimated 535,000 families, professionals, individuals, school children, small businesses, farmers, and community agencies throughout the state were direct beneficiaries of these services in 2005.
Cornell's impact on the upstate region from its Ithaca campus is also described in the report. The university's manifold operations in Ithaca, Tompkins County, and the surrounding upstate region make it one of Central New York's largest employers. In the spring of 2005, Cornell's Ithaca-based colleges and programs employed a total of 13,000 regular full- and part-time employees and 8,000 students who worked part-time. The Cornell in Ithaca payroll that year totaled $636 million. And between 2000 and 2005, Cornell increased the size of its work force by more than 10 percent, making it one of the fastest-growing major employers in Central New York. The Cornell campus in Ithaca spent $276 million on goods and services in New York State in 2005, supporting 2,300 full-time equivalent jobs. Some $98.9 million of that was paid to businesses in Ithaca and elsewhere in Tompkins County, generating 800 full-time equivalent jobs.
Weill Cornell Medical College and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences benefit the New York City region's health through world-class programs of education, research, and patient care. And through its spending on payroll, purchasing, and construction, Cornell also has a significant impact on New York City's economic health. Weill Cornell, regional offices of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and other Cornell programs based in the city employed 5,184 people in 2005, with a total payroll of $415 million. Payments to New York City-based suppliers and contractors supported 1,780 jobs in the city.
"By creating this report, the university seeks to demonstrate its stewardship of the assets provided to the institution and how that stewardship manifests itself in educational opportunities, new discoveries, commercial applications, and services to individuals, businesses, and communities throughout the state," Golding said.
The report, titled "Cornell University Economic Impact on New York State," was developed by Appleseed Inc., a leading economic development consultant based in New York City, and by staff and faculty at Cornell. The full report can be accessed online at this site:

The Full Report Study Here.

Cornell University Welcome Sign of Realities

Welcome Students and Scholars of Cornell University to Ithaca, New York.

The web site you are now examining are for those individual students, staff and faculty who desire an additional focus of campus life- mainly off - campus, in which to pursue a more realistic examination of your own social and cultural developments.

Campus life has a special protect " IVY ' of academic freedom in which even the most abstractural social, cultural and behavioral expressions are viewed as objective realities.

Nonetheless, once you go off campus and try to extend these expressions you will notice their irrelavancies and predelections of being some what absurb. Here, this site is an attempt to allow a transitional focus, which is supportive in terms of social - cultural - and at times - spirtual stage of development, in order for you as an individual successful life experience, and that it should, in the meantime of your education and its future impact of discovering a career, should be likewise pursued with youthful vigor.

Thus, and with deliberate and very mindful considerations, and indeed they all were intrinsically idealogical deep, this will have very little connections to the formal institutions of Cornell University iteslf. The primre factor, in which everyone should be aware, that in the legal circumstance, though some of the student sponsored events are estranged, the aupicies and agencies of Cornell University, very much like most repsonsiable institutions of higher education, have several internal and external self - impossed restrictions. Off campus activities are extremely garded within the legal circumstances of these restrictions.

Crux

Thus the nature of this site is to allow a larger opportunity window, in as much as when you are in to your Junior year, the social, cultural, and futuritive planning stages will need independent access and self-demonstrations of who you are, which can only be found off campus; though the strings to Cornell University, nonetheless, are important too

Cornell in Competition for Energy Grant

January 10, 2006Energy Department Announces 2007 Solar Decathlon Teams Each of the 20 Schools to Receive $100,000 in Funding

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Energy today announced that 20 teams have been selected to compete in the 2007 Solar Decathlon. The 20 teams selected for the competition will be awarded $100,000 over two years to support the Solar Decathlon’s research goal of reducing the cost of solar-powered homes and advancing solar technology.

“The next generation of leaders will have an opportunity to shine as they compete in the 2007 Solar Decathlon,” said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. “Supplying enough clean, affordable energy to fuel the world’s growing economies is one of the great challenges we will face over the coming years. By helping expand the use of solar energy technologies, the participants will help meet that challenge.”

The following teams have been selected to compete through a proposal system:

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, MI
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, NY
*Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
Team Montreal (École de Technologie Supérieure, Université de
Montréal, McGill University), Montreal, CANADA
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, GERMANY
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras and Mayagüez, PR
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, SPAIN
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO (Winner 2005)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
University of Maryland, College Park, MD
University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, MO
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

*Santa Clara University added as a participant; California Polytechnic State University withdrew from the competition.

The Solar Decathlon is an international competition that brings student teams from universities across the United States, Europe and Canada to compete in designing, building and operating highly energy-efficient, completely solar-powered houses. The teams will assemble their homes on the Mall and will be open to the public. Contest rules require that each house generate enough energy from the sun to operate a household, a home-based business and related transportation needs.

Teams are judged in ten different categories, seven of which focus on energy efficiency; others include design and comfort of the house. The team with the most points – the most energy-efficient and innovatively designed house – wins.

The Solar Decathlon takes place every other year; the 2005 winner was the University of Colorado.

For more information please visit http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar_decathlon/.
Santa Clara University added as a participant; California Polytechnic State University withdrew from the competition
Media contact(s):Tom Welch, 202/586-5806

National Science Foundation Newest Grants - Alert - 1/2007

This is an alert to inform both the students / scholars grads at both Cornell University and Ithaca College of what is most recent in world wide grants, such as the National Science Foundation - so they along with their faculty advisors can advise of future research proposals - who will likewsie take advantage of this information - of what and when to apply, and for future use.

January 9, 2007

Scientists will find improved ways of studying the structure, function and evolution of the genomes of economically important plants, thanks to $14 million in new awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Resources to be developed include genomic sequences, genetic markers, maps and expressed sequence collections. These are much-needed tools for researchers working in areas as diverse as genome evolution and plant breeding.

Awardees will address scientific questions including the role of polyploidy in genome evolution, the genomic basis of speciation, and the relationships between cultivated plants and their weedy relatives.

"If the Plant Genome Research Program has been making the bricks that build a conceptual framework for the genomes of economically important crop plants, these projects will provide the mortar," said James Collins, NSF assistant director for biological sciences. "The impact of genomics in evolutionary, ecological and population studies of crop plants will be far-reaching."
Many crop plants have large, complex genomes that in some cases are "polyploid" - containing multiple genomes. Polyploidy is widespread in plants and animals, and can lead to dramatic changes in gene content and genome organization that are only just beginning to be understood.
A project led by researchers at Iowa State University will develop sequence and map resources to study polyploidy in cotton, while researchers at the University of Missouri will look at the impact of polyploidy on plant form in Brassica species, which includes plants such as canola and Brussels sprouts. Other projects at the University of Georgia and the University of Arizona will develop sequence resources to study genome organization in wheat and rice.

The outcomes from these projects will allow researchers to understand how extra copies of genes function in these plants, and how genomes from different sources can work together in a single plant.

The ever-growing collection of genome sequences is shedding light on the variation between individuals within a species. For example, in a forest of trees or a field of corn, there may be many versions of a particular gene, each with minor sequence differences. These sequence differences can sometimes have dramatic effects on growth and development.

Projects based at the University of California at Davis and Cornell University will catalog variants in pine trees and in maize, respectively, to allow researchers to link genetic variation with changes in gene function. This information could have applications in plant breeding.
More than half of the world's most cultivated crops have relatives that are invasive weeds, competing with the crop for nutrients and water and leading to reduced yields.

One example is red rice, a weedy form of rice that reduces the yields of cultivated rice by as much as 80 percent and contaminating harvests with its small red-coated grains. A project led by researchers at Washington University St. Louis will examine the regions of the red rice genome associated with weediness to find out whether it originated from the domesticated crop or if it was introduced as a weed from Asia.

A related project led by investigators at Michigan State University will investigate differences in gene expression in weedy and cultivated radishes to uncover which genes are associated with invasiveness.The outcomes of these projects could lead to a great understanding of how plants become weedy and invasive, and yield possible avenues for better selective control of weeds, scientists believe.

"The outcomes of this new program will tie together studies of the evolution of gene structure, function and regulation across the whole plant kingdom," said Collins.

-NSF-
Media ContactsCheryl Dybas, NSF (703) 292-7734 cdybas@nsf.gov
Related WebsitesNSF Plant Genome Comparative Sequencing Program Awards: http://www.nsf.gov/bio/pubs/awards/pgcsp.htm

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of $5.58 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 1,700 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 40,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes nearly 10,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly.

Receive official NSF news electronically through the e-mail delivery and notification system, MyNSF (formerly the Custom News Service). To subscribe, visit www.nsf.gov/mynsf/ and fill in the information under "new users".

Useful NSF Web Sites:NSF Home Page: http://www.nsf.gov/NSF News: http://www.nsf.gov/news/For the News Media: http://www.nsf.gov/news/newsroom.jspScience and Engineering Statistics: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/Awards Searches: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/