Connecting Research and Experts with Journalists

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Some 240 million miles from Earth, a spacecraft hurtled through the black void of space, off its intended course. But thanks to the creation of a last-minute fix by Cornell University mission engineers during a tense 24 hours just before Christmas, the $150 million mission now has hundreds of new images of a distant asteroid.

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Couples who wish they could work less, who have demanding jobs or both work more than 45 hours a week report the lowest quality of life among working couples, according to a Cornell University sociologist. Couples in which both partners work regular full-time hours -- especially when the wives are in nonprofessional jobs -- report the highest quality of life, even higher than when one partner works part-time.

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American working, married couples would prefer to work less but they work more hours than ever. That's because today's workplace doesn't offer enough part-time jobs, reported a Cornell University sociologist. Many women choose to stay home rather than enter the 'all or nothing' workplace which has not adapted to the changing patterns of employee preferences, she said.

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Before settling down to spend the next five years raising a family, some mate-for-life termites use their brief honeymoon to find a better mate, a Cornell University biologist reports in the Jan. 22, 1999 Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B.

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The dying corals of the Florida Keys could be an early warning of tough times ahead for the planet's environment, Cornell University ecologists worry. The reason: Hundred-year-old corals are succumbing to diseases they previously survived.

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A few of the more than 30,000 non-indigenous species in the United States cost $123 billion a year in economic losses, Cornell University ecologists estimate. Alien weeds (cost: $35.5 billion), introduced insects ($20 billion), human disease-causing organisms ($6.5 billion) and even the mongoose ($50 million ).

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Thanks to a technique known as genetic mapping, Cornell University scientists have for the first time located genetic factors that make significant increases in rice production under upland conditions and used this information as a key to improving yields for poor farmers.

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The indigenous people and other inhabitants of the Amazon rain forest knew what worked for them but not why. Field studies, conducted in the Amazon rain forest by Cornell University undergraduate students of chemical ecology and published in the first issue of the first journal of its kind, are beginning to find the chemistry behind folk remedies and other uses humans and animals find for rainforest plants.

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The crowded metropolitan bus system in Buenos Aires could be responsible for 30 percent of new cases of tuberculosis in the city, a new study shows. According to a Cornell University biomathematician, taking public transportation "is a considerable component of transmission and probable evolution of the disease."

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Kids in elementary school are being put at risk by computer workstations that have been designed with little or no regard for children's musculoskeletal health, according to a Cornell University study.