News in Brief

C olumbia U niversity RECORD January 23, 2004 3 News in Brief Columbia Leads ACabinet of Curiosities Universities in Soot Speeds Global Warming Licensing Income ew research from Columbia University and NASA scientists suggests that olumbia was ranked highest in licens- emissions of black soot alter the way in which sunlight reflects off snow, ing income among major research N C according to an article that appeared online recently in the Proceedings of the universities in the 2002 fiscal year, National Academy of Sciences. Acomputer simulation showed that black soot may according to a recent survey by the Asso- be responsible for 25 percent of observed global warming over the past century. ciation of University Technology Man- Soot in higher latitudes of the Earth, where ice is more common, absorbs more of agers. Columbia garnered about $155.6 the sun’s energy and warmth than an icy, white background. Dark-colored black million in licensing fees, or about 15%, of carbon or soot—which is generated from traffic, industrial pollution, outdoor fires the nearly $1 billion earned by the 222 and household burning of coal and biomass fuels—absorbs sunlight, while lighter- U.S. and Canadian institutions that partic- colored ice reflects sunlight. ipated in the survey. Soot in areas with snow and ice may play an important role in climate change. The revenues come from research by Also, if snow- and ice-covered areas begin melting, the warming effect increases, faculty and students leading to commer- as the soot becomes more concentrated on the snow surface. “This provides posi- cialization of inventions, drugs and soft- tive feedback (i.e., warming); as glaciers and ice sheets melt, they tend to get even ware. The University of California sys- dirtier,” said James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Stud- tem, which reports the revenues from its ies at Columbia. nine schools in one lump sum, ranked sec- Hansen and Larissa Nazarenko, both of the Goddard Institute and the Earth ond, with $82 million. New York Univer- Institute, found soot’s effect on snow albedo (solar energy reflected back into sity came in third, reporting licensing space), which has been neglected in previous studies, may be contributing to income of $62.7 million. n 1986, in a cupboard in Windsor Cas- trends toward early springs in the Northern hemisphere, thinning Arctic sea ice Itle, David Freedberg, Columbia profes- and melting glaciers and permafrost. sor of art history and director of the Ital- French Prize for Danto ian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, made an extraordinary discov- rthur Danto, ery. He found “hundreds of the finest nat- Aemeritus John- ural historical drawings I had ever seen,” sonian Professor of ranging from mushrooms and corals to Philosophy at birds and a frog in amber. His search for Columbia and long- the mysterious provenance of the draw- time art critic for ings, many in color, led him to research a The Nation, was 17th-century group, founded by Federico recently awarded Cesi, which called itself the Academy of the Prix Philoso- Lynxes. The society, whose most famous phie at the Pompi- member was Galileo, sought to “docu- dou Center in Paris ment all of nature—both Old World and for the French edition of his book, The the New—in visual form,” Freedberg Madonna of the Future: Essays in a Plu- writes. ralistic Art World (University of Califor- His resulting book, The Eye of the Lynx: nia Press, 2001). The collection of essays Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History examines contemporary artists such as (University of PHOTO COURTESY NASA/USGS Nan Goldin and Bruce Nauman, 20th- Chicago Press, 2002), has just received Soot affects the melting of alpine glaciers. Some scientists believe the snow cap century masters such as Picasso and Mark the Ralph Waldo Emerson award for “out- of Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone in two decades. The Landsat satellite Rothko, as well as Old Masters like Ver- standing scholarly literature in the human- captured these images of Kilimanjaro in 1993 (left) and 2000. meer and Tiepolo. In a review of Danto’s ities and social sciences” from the Phi book in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Carlin Beta Kappa Society. The prize includes an Romano wrote, “He has no peer in Amer- honorarium of $2,500. Irwin Redlener, president of CHF. Half NEAGrants for the Arts ican art criticism. He’s the one contempo- will go to CHF’s national network of health-care programs for medically rary thinker about art that every intellec- he National Endowment for the Arts tual interested in the subject must read.” underserved poor and homeless children, Simon & Garfunkel Make he said. The other half will go to the T(NEA) last month awarded two separate Donation to Children’s Fund pediatric preparedness program CHF grants to Columbia. The NEAwill give runs in collaboration with Columbia’s $10,000 to a Miller Theatre environmental Mailman School of Public Health. At the opera project, Neither/Erwartung, support- NYBH Awards Pollin Prize Mailman School, Redlener is director of ing the first New York staging of Morton the National Center for Disaster Pre- Feldman’s opera Neither on a double bill ew York-Presbyterian Hospital preparedness. with Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung, Nsented the second annual Pollin Prize Simon and Redlener co-founded CHF The NEAalso awarded $7,500 to Teach- in Pediatric Research on Dec. 19 to four in 1987, after viewing the horrible con- ers College to support the African Diaspora scientists for their contributions in ditions faced by some of New York Film Festival, which will present more than advancing the treatment of acute lym- City’s homeless children. Their efforts 70 films from the United States and abroad. phoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most began with medical teams aboard spe- “These projects are a testament to the excel- common pediatric cancer. The prize was cially designed vans, using state-of-the- lence, imagination, and creativity of our awarded to Emil Frei (Dana-Farber Can- art equipment and a computerized nation’s arts organizations and the millions cer Institute in Boston), Emil J. Freireich patient tracking system to bring much of Americans we serve,” said Dana Gioia, (the University of Texas M.D. Anderson needed pediatric care directly to New chair of the arts endowment. Cancer Center), Donald Pinkel (Universi- York City’s homeless children. CHF has The Miller Theatre also recently received PHOTO BY JASON GREEN ty of Southern California ) and James F. since grown to a national network, in 16 a $100,000 capacity building grant from the Holland (Mount Sinai School of Medicine From left: Irwin Redlener, associate dean communities across the country, and Peter Jay Sharp Foundation as well as a in New York). and director of the National Center for treated nearly 300,000 children. $50,000 grant from the Francis Goelet Every year the disease is diagnosed in Disaster Preparedness at the Mailman Trust for new music programming. more than 2,000 American children. School of Public Health and president of Because of the physicians’ decades-long the Children’s Health Fund; Paul Simon; efforts, beginning in the 1950s, what Art Garfunkel, CC’62,; Karen Redlener, was once an incurable disease now has a executive director of the Children’s Quotable Columbian 75-percent survival rate. ALL causes Health Fund. bone marrow to produce cancerous leukemia cells in place of healthy white ric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, was a com- and red blood cells, leaving the patient Ementator during PBS’s two-part American Experience docu- vulnerable to infection or uncontrolled aul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who mentary Reconstruction: The Second Civil War, broadcast Jan. 12 bleeding. Preunited for the sixth biggest-grossing and 13. Among other subjects, he spoke about the Fourteenth The Pollin Prize, funded by the Linda tour of last year, collaborated on a differ- Amendment. “This is the origin of the concept of civil rights in and Kenneth Pollin Foundation, consists ent project recently—an extraordinary American society, rights which obtain to you as a citizen, which of a $100,000 award to the recipients and Christmastime gift of $1 million to the cannot be rescinded because of your race.” He summarized by say- a $100,000 fellowship stipend to be Children’s Health Fund (CHF). The $1 ing, “This really was a remarkable leap in the dark for world awarded by the recipients to a young sci- million gift will be split between two of history. It was the first large scale experiment in entist at one of their institutions. the CHF’s key areas of concern, said interracial democracy that had existed anywhere.”.

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