Category: About One Health + Planetary Health

Doctoral student named Future Leader in Science

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Ann Bybee-Finley, a second-year doctoral student at Cornell studying cropping systems resilience with a focus on Northeastern dairy producers, has been named a 2017 Future Leader in Science by the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA).

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Legalize recreational pot? More say ‘yes’ for economic benefits

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Legalize recreational pot? More say ‘yes’ for economic benefits

Niederdeppe

Niederdeppe

 Four states legalized recreational marijuana in November, nearly doubling the number of states where recreational pot is legal. As more states consider joining them, a range of arguments for and against legalization is swirling around the national conversation.

But which of these arguments resonate most strongly with Americans? It’s the arguments that support legalization, according to a new study co-authored by Jeff Niederdeppe, associate professor of communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

More than 60 percent of people surveyed in the study said they supported legalization because they agreed with arguments saying it would increase tax revenues, create a profitable new industry, reduce prison crowding and lower the cost of law enforcement.

In contrast, fewer people in the study agreed with anti-legalization arguments emphasizing the damage the policy would have on public health. These reasons included that legalization would increase car accidents, hurt youth’s health, expand the marijuana industry, increase crime and threaten moral values.

“The pro arguments are really practical: ‘Give us money and jobs. Keep our prison from being overcrowded, make law enforcement’s job easier,’” said Niederdeppe. “And the con arguments are a little more ideological: ‘This is going to lead to big industry and crime and undermine the fundamental values that make America great.’”

The study was led by Emma McGinty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Kathryn Heley and Colleen Barry, also from Johns Hopkins, co-wrote the study.

“Public perceptions of arguments supporting and opposing recreational marijuana legalization” appeared Feb. 9 in Preventive Medicine.

Niederdeppe emphasized that he and his colleagues are advocating neither for nor against legalization. Rather, their research offers a snapshot of public opinion at a time when legalization debates are in the air, he said.

“We’d better understand where the public stands on this issue if we want to develop policies that are responsive to democratic values and what people are concerned about,” he said. “Understanding where the public sees benefit and where it is nervous can help regulators … emphasize those things people agree are important.”

Survey respondents living in states where recreational marijuana is legal drove part of those results, Niederdeppe said. In legal states, 65 percent of survey respondents supported legalization. In contrast, only 45 percent in illegal states supported the policy.

The researchers also found a big difference in how people in legal and illegal states viewed the economic arguments supporting recreational marijuana. Just over 25 percent of people in illegal states agreed that legalization would increase tourism revenue; but more than twice – nearly 53 percent – in legal states said it would. This may indicate people had seen an increase in tourism firsthand, McGinty said.

“That suggests how the dynamic of public opinion might change if marijuana is legalized,” she said.

The researchers also found Democrats were far more likely to agree with arguments in support of legalization; Republicans were far more likely to agree with arguments against it. “Clearly, it’s a partisan issue,” Niederdeppe said.

The researchers surveyed 980 people, with about a third living in states that had legalized recreational marijuana. The participants were asked to rate the 13 most common arguments for and against marijuana legalization, gleaned from the media’s coverage of the issue 2010-14. They rated the arguments on how much they believed the argument, how much they agree or disagreed with it and whether the argument was strong or weak.

The support for recreational-use legalization builds upon the much higher support for medical marijuana, Niederdeppe said. While still illegal under federal law, half the states in America have legalized marijuana for medical use.

“Medicinal marijuana has a legitimizing component: ‘It’s helping people.’ That laid the groundwork for this recreational debate to even happen,” he said.

This article is written by Susan Kelley and was published in the Cornell Chronicle on March 8, 2017.

‘Servant-leader’ role suits Weber-Shirk, AguaClara program

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‘Servant-leader’ role suits Weber-Shirk, AguaClara program

AguaClara team leaders

Tom Fleischman/Cornell Chronicle. AguaClara team leads, left-to-right, Zoe Maisel ’18, Natalie Mottl ’18 and Erica Marroquin ’18, are pictured in the program’s Hollister Hall lab as students work in the background.

Monroe Weber-Shirk is the founder and director of the AguaClara program at Cornell, which has brought clean drinking water to approximately 65,000 people in Honduras over the last decade.

But his title does not mean that Weber-Shirk is calling all the shots. Far from it.

The current model for the highly successful service-learning program has evolved over the last few years, and his role has become more “suggester-in-chief” than head honcho. Much of the heavy lifting involved in the smooth operation of AguaClara falls on the students themselves, especially the three “team leads,” who oversee the group of around 60 students.

“Knowledge is no longer flowing down from professor to student – it’s primarily flowing student to student,” said Weber-Shirk, senior lecturer in civil and environmental engineering. “I’m providing guidance, but I’m no longer the source of knowledge. I’m a source of knowledge.”

The team leads oversee the research advisers, each of whom leads one of 19 research teams. The three-person teams focus on individual aspects of AguaClara – everything from filtration to public relations.

“We pretty much do everything,” Erica Marroquin ’18, an environmental engineering major in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering (BEE), said of the team leads. “Monroe will give us ideas and suggestions regarding fundraisers and presentations, and we do everything for it. We work a lot with our public relations team, we have a team lead [Natalie Mottl ’18] who does a lot with outreach and things like that. Pretty much, it’s all us.”

Zoe Maisel ’18, an environmental engineering major in BEE who’s in her second semester as a team lead, said it’s empowering to everyone involved that the learning takes place in a lateral direction rather than from the top down.

“I’m learning from my peers, and we’re guided by Monroe,” she said. “It’s not like he decrees something and we go along with it. We’re driven by the common understanding of what we’re trying to do, but how we get there is very much up to us.”

Mottl, who’s a civil engineering major in CEE and is in her fifth semester with the program, admitted to having struggled with the cooperative nature of the learning environment early on.

“I’d never sat down and looked at a problem and said, ‘How do I solve this problem by myself, with no instruction?’” she said. “Usually you see it on a projector and in a textbook, and then you write it down. There’s no textbook for this.”

AguaClara: Sustainable Water Supply Project is a three-credit course listed in the university’s Community-Engaged Learning Course Guide. Richard Kiely, a senior fellow for program evaluation in the Office of Engagement Initiatives, said AguaClara is an “exemplar” of Engaged Cornell in terms of service learning and community involvement.

“The long-term commitment of faculty leaders like Monroe and students who have participated in the program over the years, to making the world a better place through building meaningful relationships across borders … is simply awe-inspiring,” he said.

AguaClara has changed countless lives – and not just of the thousands of Hondurans who can now just turn on a tap and get clear water to drink. Students’ lives are changed, too – especially after a two-week trip to Honduras, which Weber-Shirk leads every January, to visit the facilities his program has helped build and stay with the people whose lives have been made better.

“They are a lot more aware of the incredible privilege we have,” he said, “to assume that you can turn on a tap and get safe drinking water. There’s also this recognition that we have so much in common, even with people who live in very different situations from us.”

This article is written by Tom Fleischman and was published in the Cornell Chronicle on March 16, 2017.

Cornell hosts Hong Kong sustainability meeting April 6-7

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Cornell hosts Hong Kong sustainability meeting April 6-7

Cornell’s wide-ranging, interdisciplinary expertise in global sustainability issues will be front and center when the university hosts a conference about sustainability research, community engagement and opportunities for collaboration in Asia, April 6-7 in Hong Kong.

“Sustainability in Asia: Partnerships for Research and Implementation” – organized by Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies – will bring together international scholars, scientists, business practitioners and policy influencers from the United States and Asia to advance sustainable practices and solutions throughout the world. The Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs provided financial support.

Conference registration deadline is March 27. There will be a reception and dinner on April 6, and the registration fee for April 6-7 is $160; and the fee to attend April 7 only is $130. Fees include meals and refreshment breaks.

“We are holding the sustainability conference in Hong Kong in honor of the late Cornell President Elizabeth Garrett, who carried the vision for an expanded Cornell global presence, beginning with renewed innovative collaborations in China. She saw the necessity for the university to focus its strengths on critical global problems as part of its leadership in the world,” said Laura Spitz, vice provost for international affairs. “Societies today are interconnected in complex ways – business, science and academia are global activities. Developing sustainable solutions requires comprehensive approaches that derive best from interdisciplinary thinking. That is why international partnerships are foundational in our teaching and research activities.”

David M. Lodge, the Francis J. DiSalvo Director of the David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, will give the initial keynote address, “Global Sustainability Progress, Challenges and Opportunities.”

Ronnie Coffman, the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor and director of International Programs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, will provide the second keynote, “Agricultural Engagement in Asia and Lessons for Successful Partnerships.”

Hirokazu Miyazaki, director of the Einaudi Center and the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies, will give the third keynote lecture, “Developing New Forms of Communication and Collaboration.”

A panel discussion, “Sustainable Energy Systems in Asia and Beyond,” will examine anthropogenic climate change and the cost of finding sustainable energy sources. The panel features Miyazaki; Lance Collins, the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering; Jeff MacCorkle, managing director of China’s Pacific Rim Resources; Supree Srisamran, senior analyst in the Economic Intelligence Center at Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank; and Satsuki Takahashi, professor of sustainability studies at Tokyo’s Hosei University.

“One Health” – a concept on how people, animals and the environment are intrinsically connected – will feature panelists Daryl Nydam, Cornell’s director of Quality Milk Production Services and professor of veterinary studies; Mike Van Amburgh, professor of animal science; Nancy Wells, professor of design and environmental analysis; Dirk Pfeiffer, professor of One Health at City University of Hong Kong; and Charles Shao, CEO of Wondermilk China.

“Rural-Urban Transitions to Sustainable Settlement Systems” will examine Asia’s economic growth through discussion focused on challenges and solutions facing individuals and societies in the transition from rural to urban spaces. The panelists are Kieran Donaghy, professor of city and regional planning; Robin McNeal, director of Cornell’s East Asia Program and professor of Asian studies; Neema Kudva, director of Cornell’s International Studies in Planning program and professor of city and regional planning; Jeremy Wallace, professor of government; Pratim Roy, co-founder of the Keystone Foundation, India; and Zhilin Liu, professor in the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, China.

In addition to Lodge and Collins, the closing panel will bring together Provost Michael Kotlikoff; Daniel Huttenlocher, founding dean and vice provost, Cornell Tech; and J. Gregory Morrisett, dean of the Faculty of Computing and Information Science.

This article is written by Blaine Friedlander and was published in the Cornell Chronicle on March 16, 2017.

Program to offer diagnostic services for animal shelters

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Program to offer diagnostic services for animal shelters

 

Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine has launched a pilot program to provide diagnostic services for animal shelters.

Animal shelters often struggle to pay for diagnostic testing for outbreaks, and even for individual animals, making it difficult to determine the right course of treatment. Many illnesses may go undiagnosed or untreated, or treatment may be delayed while funds are raised. Maddie’s Shelter Lab, a pilot program, aims to ease the financial burden many of these shelters continually face.

Maddie’s Shelter Lab offers a 50 percent discount on diagnostic services and supplies, as well as free shipping, to nonprofit humane organizations in New York state. Maddie’s Shelter Lab is subsidized by a gift from Maddie’s Fund, a national foundation established by David ’62 and Cheryl Duffield to revolutionize the status and well-being of companion animals. The services are offered in collaboration with the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at the College of Veterinary Medicine.

“This service will allow for assistance in diagnosing outbreaks in animal shelters – from respiratory outbreaks such as canine influenza, to gastrointestinal conditions such as parasites, parvovirus and panleukopenia,” said Dr. Elizabeth Berliner, the Janet L. Swanson Director of Shelter Medicine at Cornell. “In some cases, immune testing of exposed but asymptomatic animals will enable shelters to better manage outbreaks and reduce quarantine periods.

“Diagnostic testing can also serve life-saving efforts for individual homeless pets, particularly seniors or those with chronic conditions,” Berliner said.

Although the pilot program is limited to humane organizations in New York, it may be expanded to other states in the future. For more information visit the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at Cornell website.

This article was written by Claudia Wheatley and published in the Cornell Chronicle on March 15, 2017.

Cornell ranked among best in U.S. News grad school rankings

Cornell ranked among best in U.S. News grad school rankings

The 2018 U.S. News & World Report ranking of graduate schools is out, and Cornell has again landed in the top 10 for English and engineering programs.

At No. 4 in the nation, biological/agricultural engineering jumped two spots from last year’s ranking. Other engineering categories ranked in the top 10 were: computer engineering, No. 7; industrial/manufacturing/systems engineering and mechanical engineering, both No. 8; materials engineering, No. 9; and civil engineering, No. 10. The fields are ranked by engineering school department heads.

Overall, Cornell’s graduate engineering program ranked 13th among U.S. universities, down one spot from last year.

In the social sciences and humanities, English clocked in at No. 8 overall. Among English program categories, American literature before 1865 was ranked No. 5. Other notable fields were history, No. 11; economics, No. 16; sociology, No. 17; political science, No. 19; and psychology, No. 24.

“We are pleased that our commitment to providing an outstanding graduate experience continues to earn recognition,” said Barbara A. Knuth, senior vice provost and dean of the Graduate School. “This honor is a testament to the dedication and hard work of Cornell’s extraordinary faculty, students and staff.”

Cornell Law School ranked 13th overall for the fifth straight year. In a diversity measure, Cornell Law was rated as having an index of .63 out of a possible 1.0. This put Cornell among the top 15 most diverse law schools in the country.

The Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management was ranked No. 16 among graduate business programs.

Among medical schools, Weill Cornell Medicine ranked 18th for medical school research, the third year in a row it has received that ranking. In primary care, it ranked No. 41.

U.S. News surveys graduate programs in engineering, law, business, medicine and education annually. Data from peer assessment in other areas is collected on a rotating basis. Fine arts, health, public affairs and sciences were not ranked this year.

This article is written by Susan Kelley and was published in the Cornell Chronicle on March 14, 2017.

New environment and sustainability major approved

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New environment and sustainability major approved

A new environment and sustainability major in the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) was approved March 8 by the Cornell Faculty Senate and, pending approval by the New York State Education Department, will launch in fall 2018.

The cross-college major is a modified and broader version of the existing Environmental and Sustainability Sciences (ESS) major in CALS and has been expanded to include a humanities concentration, while retaining the existing social science and science concentrations. It will offer students additional ways to combine the study of physical and biological sciences with social science and humanities fields and explore the social, ethical and public policy dimensions of environmental issues.

“We’re very excited to partner with CALS in this new major, which will prepare students to be the next generation of leaders in environment and sustainability and equip them with the interdisciplinary skills to address complex environmental issues like climate change,” said Gretchen Ritter ’83, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences.

“CALS and Arts and Sciences are partnering to do what’s in the best interest of students in both colleges. Not only are students interested in environment and sustainability, but also there is a strong, growing need for students who can understand environmental issues from different disciplinary vantage points,” said Kathryn J. Boor, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of CALS.

According to the joint A&S-CALS Committee on Interdisciplinary Curricula in Environmental Studies and Environmental Sciences, chaired by Christine Goodale, associate professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, the major is intended for students who are interested in understanding the role the humanities, arts and social sciences play not just in producing solutions to environmental problems but in understanding how those problems arose, and sometimes in reconceptualizing them. For example, the committee noted that in discussing climate change, scientific models of sea-level rise are critical but so are the narratives people use to tell themselves about what a world with rising temperatures means; understanding ethical frameworks is as important to climate change policy as identifying renewable energy sources, according to the report.

An extensive process of community engagement went into crafting the major, noted Max J. Pfeffer, senior associate dean of CALS, involving faculty from the humanities, the social sciences and the sciences, and students in both colleges. “We anticipate considerable student interest in the new major, and we’ve been extremely pleased with the number of faculty in diverse fields who have expressed interest in teaching for the major as well as advising students.”

Given the interdisciplinary focus of the major, team-taught classes with professors from different fields and colleges will be emphasized, particularly for the introductory and capstone courses, said Nelson Hairston, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, who chaired the A&S-CALS committee for the second phase of the major’s development process.

The new major will help to consolidate Cornell’s strengths in environmental sciences, social sciences and humanities, which are dispersed across multiple departments, colleges and majors, said Ted O’Donoghue, senior associate dean of Arts and Sciences. “We expect it to enhance faculty collaboration in interdisciplinary teaching and research, as well as help the public recognize Cornell’s strengths in these areas,” he said.

This article is written by Linda B. Glaser and was published in the Cornell Chronicle on March 9, 2017.

Moss biopolymer reveals how plants first colonized land

Moss biopolymer reveals how plants first colonized land

A new study of mosses brings scientists one step closer to solving a mystery in plant biology: how plants made the transition from water to land 450 million years ago.

An international team of researchers report in the March 8 issue of Nature Communications that a gene found in a moss may hold the blueprint for a biopolymer that provided structure and a protective outer layer necessary for early land plants to survive life outside of water.

Land plants evolved from freshwater green algae, but needed to adapt to biomechanical stresses, desiccation, rapid temperature shifts and damaging UV light on land.

“The discovery is important for evolutionary biologists because it helps us understand how plants colonized land,” said Jocelyn Rose, professor of plant biology, director of the Cornell Institute of Biotechnology and a co-author of the paper. The study was led by senior author Danièle Werck-Reichhart, a plant biologist at the University of Strasbourg, France.

“If we can understand the nature and function of some of these polymers in plants, then maybe we can use them in biotechnology applications,” Rose said. These might include controlling water use in crops and breaking down polymers to create biofuels or other biomaterials.

Plant biologists describe three major types of biopolymers in modern land plants that create cuticles, outer layers of protective tissue. These include cutin, a water-resistant component of the cuticle; suberin, which regulates water movement in roots; and lignin, which enhances long-distance water transport and provides a supportive structure for erect growth in most land plants. Wood and bark, for example, are rich in lignin, and understanding how to break down lignin would greatly enhance biofuel development.

The research began when Werck-Reichhart and colleagues in France first discovered a gene in a moss (Physcomitrella patens) that resembled other genes found in modern plants that biosynthesize lignin. They were surprised since mosses and ferns and early land plants do not have lignin. So the group created a line of moss where they silenced that gene to discover its function.

Without the gene, the experimental moss lacked a protective outer layer. Its surface was very permeable; it withered and dried up and didn’t grow properly. The gene and the biopolymer it expressed were likely critically important for development and moss evolution, Rose said.

“We realized that in moss this polymer looks rather like the great-grandfather of cuticles and lignin; it has elements of both,” including the hydrophobic qualities of cutin, and it is rich in phenols, compounds that are the backbone of lignin’s structure and that are also found in suberin, Rose said.

“This looks like an ancestral polymer,” Rose said. “As all land plants radiated and developed and moved into new habitats, this ancient polymer evolved structurally into the lignin and cuticle polymers we see today.”

The finding hints that there may be many other types of similar biopolymers to be discovered beyond cutin, lignin and suberin, Rose said.

Eric Fich, a graduate student in Rose’s lab, provided the biochemical analysis of the moss polymer. Researchers from the University of Freiburg, Germany, also contributed to the study.

The study was supported by the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies and the University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Plant Genome Research Program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal and States governments and the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme and the French Ministry of Education and Research.

This article is written by Krishna Ramanujan and was published in the Cornell Chronicle on March 9, 2017.

New host-microbe institute connects campus researchers

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New host-microbe institute connects campus researchers

Esther Angert/Cornell Microbiology, CALS
Epulopiscium sp., the large cigar-shaped cells seen here, are giant bacterial symbionts of the tropical marine surgeonfish Naso tonganus.

The university has launched the Cornell Institute of Host-Microbe Interactions and Disease(CIHMID), an umbrella organization that brings together the wide-ranging community of Cornell researchers studying host-microbe biology and disease.

“The scope of the institute is host-microbe interactions ranging from beneficial to pathogenic in plant and animal hosts,” said Brian Lazzaro, the institute’s director and professor of entomology and of ecology and evolutionary biology.

The institute will provide a hub for researchers distributed across campus, and will initially include faculty from the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), Arts and Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Engineering and Human Ecology. It will likely expand to Weill Cornell Medicine in New York in the future.

Research areas cover beneficial and pathogenic interactions between hosts (plants and animals) and microbes (bacteria, viruses and fungi), including veterinary immunology, clinical research, agriculture, natural systems and basic research.

“We have a lot of people doing this kind of work at Cornell,” Lazzaro said. “By nature of the distribution [of researchers across campus] it means we can have more people working in these different areas without overloading a particular unit. But it also means people can be dispersed, and that’s not always optimal for interdisciplinary collaboration and communication.”

To start, the institute will offer:

  • a postdoctoral fellows program with two-year appointments, where postdoc researchers will be encouraged to bridge disciplines and groups;
  • a seminar series that will fund and invite high-profile speakers to campus;
  • undergraduate research internships;
  • facilitation and support for applying for large center grants, training grants and multiple-principal investigator grants among CIHMID faculty;
  • an annual research symposium; and

The institute will take advantage of existing graduate curricula, and will be affiliated with the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Master of Public Health program and the new Cornell-led Northeast Regional Center for Excellence in Vector Borne Diseases in the Department of Entomology.

The CIHMID is funded by CALS, the Office of the Provost, and the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station.

This article is written by Krishna Ramanujan and was published in the Cornell Chronicle on January 19, 2017.