2 Engineering Cornell wheat genetically CHRONICLE 3 The challenge to Aquino 3 Volume 18 Number 26 March 19, 1987 Ensemble's American debut Faculty power over students cited as harassment factor Many professors are not aware of the ward position. She cited unwanted com- power they have over students and the ments about physical beauty, attractiveness effect this power has on student perceptions of clothes and private social life and refer- of what is sexual harassment by faculty, ences such as "honey" as other examples of according to Catherine L. Murray-Rust, a the problem. member of the university's Advisory Com- She said that, instead of the current focus mittee on the Status of Women. on the need for victims —who are already Murray-Rust stressed this point at a afraid — to report incidents, "much more meeting of the Faculty Council of Represen- needs to be done with potential harassers" tatives last week when she discussed the and with sensitizing the entire faculty to the findings of the survey conducted last year of problem. upper-class and graduate female students. She said the survey shows that "students Sixty-one percent of the 786 respondents believe there is a coverup" by faculty and said they had experienced some sort of university officials, that they "all get "unwanted sexual attention." together and protect friends." Murray-Rust, an associate librarian, said, Murray-Rust said that, although there is "Faculty are in position where they can no way of telling from the Cornell survey, really harm or help a student if they chose similar surveys across the country show that to" and, as a result, students are afraid to actually a very few men are responsible for stand up for their rights. most incidents of harassment. "These per- "What distinguishes sexual harassment sons are responsible for harassing a large from flirting is the element of power," she number of women simultaneously or said. sequentially," she said. Murray-Rust pointed out that what Several faculty present, including Profes- would constitute flirting or normal social sor Urie Bronfenbrenner and Provost interaction among peers is often construed Robert Barker, said steps must be taken to Claude Levet as sexual harassment of a student by a sensitize the faculty to the overall issue and Karel Husa in rehearsal for last Sunday's concert in Bailey Hall, the culmination faculty member. Even a male faculty its subtleties. of the 19th Festival of Contemporary Music. member's luncheon invitation to a female Bronfenbrenner suggested that academic student, can place the student in an awk- Continued on page 8 Oxygen may become solid at high pressure: researchers Using diamonds, rubies, gold dust and diameter of a human hair (100 micrometers, the world's most powerful X-ray source, or millionths of a meter) — is a tiny steel Cornell researchers have made significant gasket with a hole about one-quarter the advances in exploring the effects of super- diameter of a human hair drilled in the high pressures on matter. middle. In a series of papers to be delivered The substance to be tested is added to the March 19 and 20 at a meeting of the Amer- hole, and the diamonds are mounted on a ican Physical Society in New York, they powerful vice, tip to tip with the gasket will announce: between them. When the diamonds are • The first evidence that oxygen may clamped together using a system of screws, become a solid metal at high pressures. scientists can achieve pressures well over one • The discovery of a new form of silicon megabar, the equivalent of 980,000 atmos- that appears at pressures over 780,000 times pheres. atmospheric pressure. To measure the immense pressures in • The discovery of three new forms of diamond anvil cells, scientists usually germanium, two of which appear above a include in the sample chamber a substance million atmospheres, the first time new that changes in a known way as pressure forms of any material have been discovered increases. For example, they may add an at such pressures. infinitesimal chip of ruby, which fluoresces • The highest pressures ever achieved at a wavelength that changes with the pres- with a vicelike "diamond anvil" that uses sure. Or, they may use a small sample of synthetic diamonds rather than natural gold powder, which reduces in volume at a ones, an achievement that could open the calibrated rate as it is squeezed. way for cheaper, stronger apparatuses for In one paper, Desgreniers, Vohra and achieving high pressures. Ruoff report the first studies showing that The advances were reported by a research oxygen may become a metal at one meg- team led by Professor Arthur L. Ruoff, abar. Claude 1 director of the Department of Materials In their experiments, the researchers sub- Steven J. Duclos, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engi- Science and Engineering. Members included jected oxygen samples to pressures up to neering, prepares to demonstrate a "diamond anvil" used to test the effects of very Serge Desgreniers, Yogesh K. Vohra, Keith 1.3 megabars using their diamond anvil great pressure on materials. E. Brister, Steven J. Duclos and Samuel T. apparatus. As had previous researchers, Weir. they saw the sample change from yellow to in structure occur because the atoms in the Cornell's high-energy physics particle accel- Ultrapressure research has enabled scient- red to opaque as the pressure increased. silicon crystal shift and rearrange themselves erator, the Cornell Electron Storage Ring, ists to produce and detect numerous new Then, at 1 megabar, the oxygen sample in different ways as they are squeezed closer operating at more than 5 billion electron forms of solids, said Ruoff, and these find- became reflective to infrared light, taking on and closer together. Researchers already volts. This "synchotron radiation" —the ings have contributed to better theories of the shine characteristic of metal. had discovered that silicon changes to such most powerful beam of X-rays available — chemical bonds and the behavior of elec- "We still have to test the electrical con- forms as "diamond cubic," "beta-tin," " is created by the bending of the particle trons in solids. He also said that the study ductivity of such a sample, to make sure primitive hexagonal" and "hexagonal closest beam as it speeds around the storage ring. of the earth's depths and of the structure of that it is a metal," said Vohra. "But this packed" with successive pressure increases. The X-ray beam is diverted into the labora- other planets had benefited from such high- discovery is nevertheless striking, because it The Cornell scientists found that the trans- tories of the Cornell High Energy Syncho- pressure studies. shows that oxygen is actually a very exotic formation to the new structure, called "face tron Source (CHESS), where scientists use The diamond anvil that scientists use to material at high pressures." centered cubic," occurs at about .78 it to deduce the structure of a substance by achieve high pressures typically consists of a The discovery of the new form of silicon megabars. studying how it diffracts the X-rays. pair of brilliant cut diamonds, each with a by Duclos, Vohra and Ruoff represents the They detected the new structure by sub- "Significantly, this is the lowest-atomic- tiny flat area polished off its tip. Mounted latest in a series of changes silicon is known jecting the diamond anvil to the intense number, or lightest, element that has ever on this flat area — which is about the to undergo at high pressures. These changes beam of X-rays generated as a byproduct of Continued on page 8 2 March 19, 1987 Notable Young Ithaca pianist to perform Briefs With the aid of well-known Ithaca Marina Gilman, who is director of the mezzo-soprano Marina Gilman, the young vocal coaching program at Cornell and President Frank H.T. Rhodes has been • Inventory Closings: The Cornell Campus Ithaca pianist Ishmael Wallace will present awarded the Corning Glass Works Higher sings frequently with the Ithaca Opera Store (central campus) will be closed March a program of piano music and songs of his Education Leadership Award, a Steuben Association and in recitals, will sing Walla- 25 for inventory. The store will re-open own composition in Barnes Hall, March 22 glass apple, which was presented to him ce's "She Appears to Me, Present," a set of March 26. Entrepot (lower level) and Wil- at 4 p.m. during the 1987 annual meeting in Albany four songs based on poems by Pedro Sali- lard Straight Copy Center will delay open- of the Commission on Independent Colleges Wallace, who is 15 years old and is best nas, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Cecilia Meireles ing on March 26 until 2 p.m. and Universities. The commission is the know locally for a series of operettas pro- and Dino Campana. duced at First Street Playhouse won first coordinating body and public policy forum • Nominations for the Advisory Commit- for 117 independent institutions of higher prize last year in the New York State Fed- The remainder of the program will be eration of Music Clubs' piano competition. tee on the Status of Women: The ACSW education in New York State. Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 109, Olivier reviews university policies and procedures as He studies piano with Phiroze Mehta at Messiaen's "Canteyodjaya," Chopin's Bal- they affect women as students, staff and Ithaca College and composition with Steven lade in A flat, and Ravel's "Le Tombeau de faculty members. Stucky at .Cornell. Couperin." The committee recommends changes to Barton Blotter: the associate provost and the Office of Equal Opportunity, reviews reports on the Clark Hall theft status of women and identifies issues and Future factories to be lecture topic strategies for addressing concerns.