Before deciding where to move after graduation, it might be a good idea to take a look at a new scientific study that suggests that there could be a correlation between higher levels of precipitation and increased incidences of autism in children.

The study, published in The American Medical Association Journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, hypothesizes that there is an environmental factor that influences the development of autism in genetically vulnerable children. The lead author of the study was Michael Waldman, the Charles H. Dyson Professor of Management and professor of economics at the Johnson School of Management.

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Faculty members, alumni and beneficiaries gathered yesterday evening to dedicate the Joan and Sanford ’55 Weill Hall and the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology.

Weill Hall — which cost $162 million to build and features state of the art equipment — will serve as the base for Cornell’s New Life Sciences Initiative and its Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology.

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“It would be a place where we tangibly support our efforts of sustainability. It would be a place where innovative ideas will be developed from the bench to the bedsides,” President David Skorton said at the ceremony.

Imagine looking out from the Statue of Liberty and seeing not only the New York City harbor, but also one of the most endangered mammals living today. We now know that this is a possibility, as researchers from the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) have, for the first time, recorded the presence of the northern right whale, along with four other species, in the water.

According to Chris Clark, the director of the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the study found the presence of sei whales, blue whales, minke whales, humpback whales and northern right whales in clusters by New York Harbor between JFK airport and New Jersey.

Overworked husbands push their wives out of the workforce, according to a study by Youngjoo Cha, a graduate student in Cornell’s department of sociology.

The study, presented Aug. 1st during a meeting of the American Sociological Association in Boston, was based on data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation, a longitudinal study managed by the U.S. Census Bureau. It was funded by a research grant from the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center.

Two Cornell professors won a $25 million grant for a new interdisciplinary scientific research and education center at Cornell, announced the Global Research Partnership of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology yesterday.

The KAUST-Cornell University Center for Research and Education will be co-led by Prof. Emmanuel Giannelis, materials science and engineering, and Prof. Lynden Archer, chemical and biolomolecular engineering, the Marjorie L. Hart Professor of Engineering. Giannelis and Archer’s proposal is selected as one of the four winners among the 41 initial applications submitted in late 2007.

The Hartwell Foundation — which provides funds for translational biomedical research aimed at helping children — recently issued three grants and a fellowship to Cornell researchers. These funds, totaling $1 million, make Cornell the first research university to receive three faculty grants simultaneously from the foundation.

Cornell is renowned for its various fields of research, which comes most prominently from the graduate community. However, as the spring undergraduate forum held by the Cornell University Research Board showcased last night, undergraduate research is also prevalent at C.U.

The forum featured presentations from undergraduates of all the colleges, each of whom had different motivations for being there.

Eric O’Hanon ’10, spoke about the danger of Bovine Growth Hormone, a hormone present in milk in American cows.

“I did this research for a class, and I figured this [forum] was the best way to present it to interested people,” he said, explaining his motivation for participating in the forum. “And, I just like talking to people,” he added

A Cornell medical researcher has been vindicated in his claim that a recently-released HIV vaccine would be unsuccessful after the drug was pulled last month from the market in South Africa.

Dr. Kendall A. Smith of Cornell Weill Medical College explained that the leading pharmaceutical company Merck’s vaccine went on to Stage II testing in South Africa because “the vaccine had no adverse affects in Stage I.”

Smith described that testing the effectiveness of this and all HIV vaccines is so difficult because there is no animal model for HIV. While doctors do test some vaccines on monkeys, because they have SIV (which affects simians as opposed to humans) it is difficult to find matching cures.

Nearly 70.3 million Americans over 12 years of age used tobacco at least once a month in 2004 according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This statistic is of increasing concern, as findings recently published by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College linked nicotine and atherosclerosis.

Nicotine, the addictive ingredient found in tobacco, stimulates reward pathways and releases certain neurotransmitters in the brain, according to the NIDA. These events lead to feelings of pleasure which shortly dissipate, creating a powerful addiction.

Not only is nicotine highly addictive, but it also presents other serious health risks.