A Cornell study finds student evaluations of teachers invalid; ratings on many measures soared when the professor simply used a more enthusiastic tone of voice in teaching the same material.
When young children are interviewed suggestively over a long period of time, they begin to believe the fictitious events questioned about. Experts can't distinguish between children telling false or true accounts.
The most frequently seen birds at feeders across North America last winter were the Dark-eyed Junco, House Finch and American goldfinch, according to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, which released its Project FeederWatch Top 10 Birds List. Project FeederWatchers also reported large numbers of downy woodpeckers, blue jays, mourning doves, black-capped chickadees, house sparrows, northern cardinals and european starlings.
Consumers can expect "unimagined innovation" as electric utility deregulation brings competitive suppliers to local distribution companies, Cornell University economist Richard E. Schuler is predicting. New technologies, materials and the packaging of all telecommunications and energy services in one super cable are possible outcomes of healthy competition among rival utility providers, he says.
Proving that even minor planets can survive cosmic fender-benders, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a large crater - with an estimated diameter at 285 miles and about 8 miles deep - on the asteroid Vesta. The crater is roughly the diameter of Ohio, and may be the source of many meteorites that reach the earth.
A new book by Joan Jacobs Brumberg discusses how early menarche and new focus on body parts put young girls in peril. They have become so preoccupied with their bodies that they spend much of their energy managing and maintaining their looks at the expense of their creativity and mental and physical health, she says.
Complex computing problems as different as modeling Earth's climate system or predicting effects of regulatory change in the dairy industry -- which once required massively parallel supercomputers -- will run on a scalable distributed network of powerful desktop computers, thanks in part to a $6 million grant from Intel Corporation to Cornell University. The grant from the Santa Clara, Calif., computing equipment manufacturer is one of 12 to American universities in Intel's three-year, $85 million "Technology for Education 2000" program .
Plant scientists from Cornell University and the University of Tasmania, Australia, have successfully cloned one of history's first-studied genes -- the gene found for stem growth in peas, according to a report in the journal The Plant Cell.
Complex, self-organizing polymers will have a profound effect on our lives, perhaps keeping airplane wings free of ice, according to a Cornell materials engineer in the latest edition of the journal "Science." These complex polymers are now seen as useful for creating films, replete with multiple, self-ordering layers, and each layer with different functions.
In a 15-year follow-up of nurse home visit program, University of Colorado/Cornell researchers find enduring benefits, including less use of welfare, less child abuse and fewer criminal problems.
The characteristic light flashes that summon male fireflies of the genus Photinus could come from female Photinus fireflies. Just as likely, the signaling females are from a different genus. The femmes fatales fireflies are luring unrelated males close enough to eat them. The males contain defensive chemicals that females need to repel predators, such as spiders.
Now that vaccination barrier zones are halting the northward spread of raccoon rabies in New York, Vermont and Ohio, Cornell University rabies-fighters are ready to extend the barriers across New Hampshire and Maine. Then the raccoon rabies vaccination could move southward, they predict, to turn back the viral disease in already-infected states.
With a burgeoning world population and fewer places to grow food, Cornell University scientists have begun to locate high-production genes from wild plants to put into domesticated, edible crop plants -- thus boosting food production worldwide, according to their report in the Aug. 22, 1997 issue of Science.
Evaluation of the workbook "Let's Talk About Living in a World With Violence," shows it can reduce aggression in children when the teacher is comfortable with the curriculum and integrates the material into other subjects.
The American system of farming grain-fed livestock consumes resources far out of proportion to the yield, accelerates soil erosion, affects world food supply and will have to change in the future, ccording to a Cornell University ecologist.
The "greening" of American backyards -- as more people turn to composting food scraps -- is turning some dogs a bilious shade of green. Certain microorganisms and the toxins they produce can sicken or even kill dogs that get into unprotected compost piles, a Cornell University veterinary toxicologist is warning.
A Cornell entomologist confirmed the summer's first adult Asian long-horned beetles have emerged from their larval stage and have been found in Amityville, N.Y. The beetles kill hardwood trees, such as Norway maples, and pose a possible threat to industries dependent upon hardwood.
Cornell/Yale study finds Graduate Record Examination (GRE) fails to predict success or failure in graduate school for psychology and probably other fields as well.
Cornell scientists are developing a biological approach to remediate compacted soils that involves rotating with deep-rooted cover crops that break up compacted soil layers and produce abundant organic matter. U.S. Department of Agriculture officials will tour Cornell's Homer C. Thompson Vegetable Research Farm in Freeville, N.Y., on Aug. 1, 1997, to see the fields used in testing the bioremediation procedures.
The Presidential Commission on Dietary Supplement Labels, chaired by Cornell's Malden C. Nesheim, issues its draft report calling for or more scientific research on supplements, guidelines for scientific substantiation of any statements of nutritional support and for government surveillance to identify safety issues.
Fusarium head blight, a plant disease also known as wheat scab, has taken aim at America's breadbasket and is now seriously threatening New York State's $30 million wheat-growing industry, according to Cornell plant pathologists. The plant scientists will be speaking on new ways to solving this threat at the American Phytopathological Society annual meeting, in Rochester, N.Y., Aug. 9-13.
Using electron-beam lithography, researchers at the Cornell University Nanofabrication Facility have built what they believe are the world's smallest mechanical devices, including a Fabry-Perot interferometer and, for fun, the world's smallest guitar, carved out of crystalline silicon and no larger than a single cell. The technology that could have a variety of uses in fiber optics, displays, sensors and electronics. Mechanical force probes can be made much smaller than a single cell, and forces associated with single biological molecules could be measured.
Elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere benefit some plants by making them more tolerant to cold temperatures. If carbon dioxide levels double within the next century as we are expecting, some plant species should be able to withstand temperatures a few degrees cooler than they can now. Northeastern farmers and home gardeners may be able to plant some crops earlier in the spring. This will also affect the distribution and mixture of species.
Atlantic City, N.J., was a relative cool spot as it broke five low temperature records and tied another in June, while Baltimore tallied three low temperature records, and Charleston, W. Va., marked its first 90-degree reading in more than a year, according to the climatologists at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University.
Scientists from Cornell University will help the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in Seneca Falls, N.Y., exact revenge against purple loosestrife, a beautiful but prolific weed that strangles wetlands. More than 20,000 Galerucella pusilla and G. calmariensis -- leaf-eating beetles without a common name -- will be released Thursday, July 17, at 9 a.m. at the refuge.
Cornell nutritionists play key roles in calling for and constructing new international growth references for infants and children. Current standards result in too many faulty decisions.
Significant progress in controlling poultry-borne infection was reported recently at a Cornell University meeting, the 69th Northeastern Conference on Avian Diseases. Still, two diseases (avian influenza or AI and infectious laryngotracheitis or ILT) threaten the economic health of the American poultry industry and at least one (Salmonella enteritidis) worries Americans who eat eggs.
When Mars Pathfinder lands on Mars on July 4, James Bell, research associate in the Cornell astronomy department's Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, will help determine what types of minerals and rocks are present on the Martian surface, making use of a video camera on the lander which uses about a dozen color filters to discriminate individual minerals.
Scientists at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research Inc., located at Cornell University, have discovered and cloned a protein that, when delivered into an insect's gut by way of a "trojan horse," attacks the pest's intestines, rendering the pest helpless against a companion virus.
Researchers from Cornell and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale found that Seven percent of college students said they had carried a weapon on campus, translating to some 980,000 students nationwide. That is less than for the general population and for high school students, but still a problem for campuses, since weapon-carrying male students also report that they drink more alcohol, engage in binge drinking and substance abuse, and get in more fights and arguments.
Mt. Washington, N.H., had its old monthly snowfall record crushed for May by a whopping 43.6 inches. The Northeast's cool weather continued through May, as the average temperature for the 12-state region was 4.4 degrees cooler than normal. This was the fourth coolest May in the last 103 years, according to Keith Eggleston, a climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University.
Chloroplasts, the green globules inside plant cells responsible for photosynthesis, communicate via slender tubules that exchange proteins, Cornell scientists find using a unique laser-micrscope.
Growth and health indicators in China have improved despite plant-based diet; more animal products not needed, according to an ongoing study of nutrition in China.
Poor rural women who don't always have enough food in their homes exhibit binge eating patterns and are only about half as likely as other women to consume daily the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables. Therefore, these women are less likely to consume adequate vitamin C, potassium and fiber, according to a new Cornell University study.
Cornell University's Integrated Pest Management program has started a new pest-forecasting service. Growers and farmers can now belong to the Northeast Weather Association and get the latest in bacterial, fungal and pest forecasts.
No ice is on the moon, according to a radar survey done at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico by Cornell and other researchers. This contradicts data from the military's Clementine mission last year, in which researchers suggested a small lake of ice might be around the South Pole. Not so, according to the Arecibo data.
Cornell women's health expert Andrea Parrot says teen girls get pregnant because they've nothing else to strive for and she calls for expensive, but proven, multi-dimensional community programs that provide hope and skills and prevent pregnancy.
Cornell University researchers report in the journal Science the isolation of a bacterium, coccoid Strain 195, that turns toxic tetrachloroethene and other chlorinated ethylene pollutants into nontoxic ethene gas. The discovery could lead to better bioremediation strategies for the nation's number-two ground water pollutant.
Young women with low body iron -- but who are not quite anemic -- must use more effort to do the same amount of physical work or exercise than women who are not iron- deficient, according to several new Cornell University studies.
Members of the national Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force, including the Cornell University Feline Health Center, recommend that cat owners and veterinarians reconsider the risk of exposure to certain infections before vaccinating cats. According to some estimates, as many as four out of every 10,000 vaccinations result in cancerous tumors at the vaccination site where certain vaccines are administered.
Three snowfall records were shattered in April in cities in the Northeast, all records fell before the month was 24-hours old, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. April's temperatures were cooler than normal and the month was also drier than normal.
To assist in the effective monitoring of whether a nuclear bomb has been detonated anywhere in the world, geologists are compiling an interactive Geographic Information System (GIS), a database of global seismological, geologic, geophysical remote sensing and geographic information so that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty can be verified.
Cornell/University of Utah time-use experts find that parents with two children put in 7.5 hours a day raising kids -- three times more than experts had previously estimated because they had only considered primary child care.
During the Blizzard of '96, news reports of roof failures throughout the Northeast corridor prompted Northeast Regional Climate Center, Cornell University and Kent State University researchers to prepare an "Evaluation of East Coast Snow Loads Following the January 1996 Storms." They found that had it not been for structures built "better-than-code," more roofs could have collapsed under the snow's heavy weight.
Cornell environmental psychologists compared children in a school in an airport flight path with similar children in a quiet school. They showed that chronic noise impairs reading scores of children through speech perception problems.
Global representatives from agricultural universities and research facilities met in Ithaca, N.Y., to hammer out details on diet and 'food systems' alliance to create agricultural demonstration projects that show how food systems could be improved in both developing and developed countries. An agreement also would begin the process of upgrading food-systems infrastructures and training within developing countries.
The Cornell University Institute for Animal Welfare has been established to foster discussion and research on issues concerning animals in agriculture, laboratories and the wild. Based in the College of Veterinary Medicine, the institute will provide financial support for studies by Cornell-affiliated researchers and will bring to campus speakers on a range of animal-welfare topics.
How science-based nutrition information can be used to improve policy is focus of new book, "Beyond Nutritional Recommendations: Implementing Science for Healthier Populations," edited by Cornell nutritionists.
A new self-administered true-false questionnaire developed at Cornell University Medical College and tested at Cornell University by psychopathologist Mark Lenzenweger, reliably identified persons with personality pathology.