News

As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is most often discussed in terms of its uncertain future. On Nov. 14 at a French studies workshop, "History and the Experience of Haiti," professors and students in the A.D. White House looked at Haiti in a different light -- its distinctive past and how its history relates to universal history -- the relationships of histories throughout the world. Full Story

The world won't be coming to an end on December 21, 2012, as said to be darkly predicted by the Mayan calendar, says an astronomer. Ann Martin, doctoral candidate in Cornell University astronomy department, points out that the Mayan calendar was designed to be cyclical, so the fact that the long count comes to an end in December 2012 is really of no consequence. Full Story

Composer Joseph Haydn, popularly known as the father of the symphony and the string quartet, excelled in every musical genre, a combination of artistry and diversity that made him famous across Europe. Haydn scholar and Goldwin Smith Professor of Music James Webster will give a pre-concert lecture Nov. 21 at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall, as part of a four-concert Haydn Festival presented by Cornell's Department of Music, Nov. 19-22, commemorating the 200th anniversary year of Haydn's death. Full Story

At 6 a.m. Nov. 15, 33 sleepy Cornellians left their "American bubble" in Ithaca for a one-day Russian immersion experience in New York City's Brighton Beach with its concentration of Russian émigrés. Full Story

Professor Scott MacDonald has accepted President David Skorton's offer to serve as a West Campus House System's new house professor-dean, starting in fall 2010. MacDonald, Ph.D. '86, the Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, will take up residence in Hans Bethe House. Full Story

Soon, Cornell's e-print arXiv of scientific papers will evolve from a simple database to a place where "authors, articles, databases and readers talk to each other" to help users identify a work's main concepts, see research reports in context and easily find related work. Full Story

Paul Chirik, Cornell's Peter J.W. Debye Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, has received the Blavatnik Award from the New York Academy of Sciences. The award recognizes young scientists in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut with "highly innovative, impactful, interdisciplinary accomplishments in the life sciences, physical sciences and engineering." Full Story

Back in high school, Brittany Jaso '13 didn't get much sleep. College started out pretty much the same way. Until about week four of her Psych 101 class.

Jaso is one of 320 students in the 1,200-student class taking part in the largest-ever objective study of the sleep patterns of individual college students -- a demographic that sleep researcher Jim Maas, professor of psychology and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, calls "perhaps the most sleep-deprived segment of our population." Full Story

Most Saturday mornings, senior Brittney Edmonds catches up on sleep. But the English major was awake early Nov. 7, and taking a step toward graduate school. She and four other Cornell students presented original research at the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program's 2009 Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference, held at the Africana Studies and Research Center. Full Story

The manuscript of Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished final work, "The Original of Laura," will finally be published next week, after years of controversy and despite the author's wishes that the manuscript be destroyed. Cornell will celebrate the long-awaited release of the book with early sales at the Cornell Store and a lecture by leading Nabokov scholar Brian Boyd. Full Story