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CarnegieScience The Newsletter of the Carnegie Institution FALL 2013 EMBRYOLOGY N GEOPHYSICAL LABORATORY N GLOBAL ECOLOGY N THE OBSERVATORIES N PLANT BIOLOGY N TERRESTRIAL MAGNETISM N CASE: CARNEGIE ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION On the Inside Befuddling Blazar 6 First National Carbon Map 10 A Century of Discovery at Embryology 12 Plants Are Our Future 14

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Page 1: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

CarnegieScienceThe Newsletter of the Carnegie Institution

FA L L 2 0 1 3

EMBRYOLOGY N GEOPHYSICAL LABORATORY N GLOBAL ECOLOGY N THE OBSERVATORIES N

PLANT BIOLOGY N TERRESTRIAL MAGNETISM N CASE: CARNEGIE ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION

On the Inside

Befuddling Blazar 6

First National Carbon Map 10

A Century of Discovery at Embryology 12

Plants Are Our Future 14

Page 2: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

Carnegie Institution for Science1530 P Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20005-1910

202.387.6400www.CarnegieScience.edu

PresidentRichard A. Meserve

Director, Department of EmbryologyAllan C. Spradling

Acting DirectorGeophysical LaboratoryGeorge Cody

Director, Department of Global EcologyChristopher Field

Director, The ObservatoriesCrawford H. Greenewalt ChairWendy L. Freedman

Director, Department of Plant BiologyWolf Frommer

Director, Department of Terrestrial MagnetismLinda Elkins-Tanton

Director, Administration and FinanceCynthia Allen

Chief Advancement OfficerRick Sherman

Chief Information OfficerGotthard Sághi-Szabó

Director, External AffairsSusanne Garvey

EditorTina McDowell

Science Writer Natasha Metzler

The Department of Embryology turns 100 years old this year and, in September, I had the pleasure of attending a symposium celebrating this important milestone. Thedepartment used the occasion to look back on its history and accomplishments. In trueCarnegie style, however, the talks focused more on the future than the past. Speakersexcitedly described their latest findings and their newest ideas, stimulating discussion that continued informally throughout the meeting.

Past Embryology researchers and those at the former Department of Genetics not only weregiants in their respective fields, they defined those fields. The department’s first director,Franklin Mall, established the still-classic Carnegie embryo collection—the foundation forembryological research around the world. Elizabeth Ramsey made unprecedented studies of the interactions among the fetus, the placenta, and the mother. A host of remarkableaccomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates AlfredHershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to the present day. In 2006, former Carnegie investigator Andy Fire shared a Nobel prize for his work atCarnegie on RNA interference.

It is a wonder that the intentionally small scientific staff at Embryology, now nine individuals, hasdelivered a completely outsized impact. The department’s success is a validation of AndrewCarnegie’s vision that exceptional individuals, if given support and scientific freedom, wouldaccomplish exceptional things. Over the century, the department has hired creative and skilledscientists and provided them with the environment and the encouragement to pursue bold newventures that were off the beaten track. The results are nothing short of astounding.

I was particularly struck by the contagious enthusiasm of the 200 or so alumni and staff whoattended the centennial celebration. Almost to a person, they recounted that their experience at Carnegie molded them and shaped their careers. Former Carnegie researcher DougKoshland, now a professor at UC-Berkeley, remarked that Carnegie is distinctive both in thequality of the science and in the quality of its people. Former postdoc Shannon Fisher, now atthe University of Pennsylvania, explained that Carnegie’s atmosphere encouraged her to beadventurous in the pursuit of interesting questions. Geraldine Seydoux, now a Johns Hopkinsprofessor, said that many of the wonderful things that have happened in her life started witha letter inviting her to join Carnegie. Nipam Patel, a Carnegie staff associate in the 1990s andnow at UC-Berkeley, noted that the best decision he ever made was to follow advice fromGerry Rubin, a former Carnegie staff member now running HHMI’s Janelia Farm, that heshould join Carnegie.

As reflected by the attendees, the alumni of the department are highly regarded researchersat many prestigious institutions, including Stanford, NIH, Yale, UC-Berkeley, and elsewhere.Former director Don Brown observed that he had learned to take comfort in the fact thatCarnegie staff were always being recruited by other institutions. Director Allan Spradling, in turn, remarked that the department could be thought of as a stem cell, its graduates astransit amplifying cells, and their students and colleagues as downstream cells.

I believe that Andrew Carnegie would be pleased to see that his vision of support for exceptionalindividuals has served to strengthen science well beyond our borders. He would be profoundlyproud to see that his institution has indelibly influenced great minds around the world.

LETTER FROM THE PRES IDENT

Richard A. Meserve, President

EMBRYOLOGYTURNS 1OO!

Page 3: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

Carnegie Science | Fall 2013 3

Electrical contacts (inset in the middle) and electromagnetic coils (inset atthe bottom) measured pressure dependence of the transition temperatureto a superconducting state of a metal created by the team from a carbondisulfide molecule (top left).

The National Science Foundation’s Division of Materials Research, the Defense Threat ReductionAgency, the Deep Carbon Observatory’s Extreme Physics and Chemistry, and the Department ofEnergy’s Basic Energy Sciences supported this work.

uperconductivity is a rare physical state in whichmatter is able to conduct electricity, i.e., maintain a flow ofelectrons, without any resistance. This phenomenon is onlyfound in certain materials under specific low-temperatureand high-pressure conditions. Research to create supercon-

ductors at higher temperatures has been ongoing for two decades, withthe promise of significant impact on electrical transmission.

Research from a team including Carnegie’s Viktor Struzhkin,Takaki Muramatsu, and Stanislav Sinogeikin found unexpected su-perconductivity in the solid form of a compound called carbondisulfide, CS2 which is sometimes used in liquid form as a chemicalsolvent or insecticide. The research could help scientists better un-derstand the structural changes that create this rare phenomenon.

The team found that carbon disulfide enters a superconductingstate at about -449°F (6.2°K) at pressures ranging from about 493,000to about 1,698,000 times normal atmospheric pressure (50 to 172 gigapascals).

Their findings seem counter to the understanding of how super-conductivity normally works. Usually, but not always, superconduc-tivity is present in highly ordered molecular structures. But super-conductivity in carbon disulfide arises from a highly disorderedstate. Even more surprising, this disordered structure is preceded bya magnetically ordered state, which disappears when the material undergoes a structural change into the disorganized configurationand superconductivity starts. �................................Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published their work.

30 60 90 120 150 180P (GP3)

6.8

6.4

6.0

5.6

5.2

4.8

4.4

4.0

+32 mk/GPa

+42 mk/GPa

Tc(K)

S

Image courtesy Viktor

� Carnegie trusteeWill Hearst (backright), long-timesupporter of the CAO, enjoyed thedemonstration withtrustee Mike Long(front left).

� Supporter Len Baker (back right) asksquestions about theCAO’s operations.

� Greg Asner (left)describes some ofwhat goes into theairborne observatorywith Carnegie friendand supporterTomSteyer (right) andSteyer’s colleague Ted White (middle). Images courtesy Greg Asner, CAO

Flying ToursThe Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO)team, led by Global Ecology’s Greg Asner, hosted two daysof tours for supporters and friends. The guests were treatedto an airborne demonstration flight over the San FranciscoBay area to show how the CAO collects data to uncover thechemistry and structure of the ecosystem below. �

Trustee NewsSuperconductingSurprise

Page 4: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

Carnegie Science | Fall 20134

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute provided funding for this research.

“The question of whether mammals generate new eggs in adulthood using stem cells

has been controversial.”

emale mammals ovulate throughout their reproductive life-times, placing significant demands on their ovaries to produce eggs.The question of whether mammals generate new eggs in adulthoodusing stem cells has been controversial. If true, these “germ-line stemcells” might allow novel treatments for infertility and other diseases.New research from Carnegie’s Lei Lei and Allan Spradling surpris-ingly shows that adult mice do not use stem cells to produce neweggs. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published this work in April.

Before birth, mouse and human ovaries contain an abundant sup-ply of germ cells, some of which will develop into the eggs that will ultimately be releasedfrom follicles during ovulation. Around the time of birth these germ cells have formed alarge reserve of primordial follicles—each containing a single immature egg. Evidence ofnew follicle production is absent after birth, so researchers have long believed that the sup-ply of follicles is fixed at birth and eventually runs out, leading to menopause.

During the last decade, some researchers have claimed that primordial follicles in adultmouse ovaries turn over and that females use adult germ-line stem cells to constantly re-

supply the follicle pool and sustain ovulation.These claims were based on subjective observa-tions of ovarian tissue and on the behavior ofextremely rare ovarian cells following extensivegrowth in tissue culture, a procedure that is ca-pable of “reprogramming” cells.

Lei and Spradling used a technique that al-lows individual cells and their progeny within a living animal to be followed over time bymarking the cells with a new gene. This general approach, known as lineage tracing, has beena mainstay of classical developmental biology research and has greatly clarified knowledge oftissue stem cells during the last decade.

Lei and Spradling’s research shows that primordial follicles are highly stable andthat germ-line stem cell activity cannot be detected, even in response to the death ofhalf of the existing follicles. Their research placed a stringent upper limit on stem cellactivity that could exist in the mouse ovary and escape detection—no more than onestem cell division every two weeks,which is an insignificant level.

What about the rare stem-likecells generated in cultures of ovariancells? According to Spradling, thesecells “likely arise by dedifferentiationin culture,” and “the same safety andreliability concerns would apply asto any laboratory-generated celltype that lacks a normal counter-part” in the body. �

No Stem Cellsfor New Eggs

Lei Lei Allan Spradling

F

Page 5: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

Deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are required toprevent coral reefs around the world from dying off, accordingto a study from Carnegie’s Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira.They found that all existing coral reefs will be engulfed by inhos-pitable ocean chemistry conditions bythe end of the century if civilizationcontinues along its current emissionstrajectory.

Coral reefs are havens for marine biodiversity, and they underpin theeconomies of many coastal communi-ties. But these reefs are very sensitive tochanges in ocean chemistry resultingfrom greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to coastal pollution, warmingwaters, overdevelopment, and overfish-ing. Ricke and Caldeira focused on theacidification of open ocean water sur-rounding coral reefs and how it affectsa reef ’s ability to survive.

Coral reefs use a mineral called arag-onite to make their skeletons. Thismineral is a naturally occurring formof calcium carbonate, CaCO3. Whenthe ocean absorbs carbon dioxide, CO2,from the atmosphere, it forms carbonicacid—making the ocean more acidicand decreasing the ocean’s pH levels.This increase in acidity makes it moredifficult for many marine organismsto grow their shells and skeletons andthreatens coral reefs the world over.

Ricke, Caldeira, and their co-authors worked with resultsfrom simulations that were conducted using an ensemble ofsophisticated models. They calculated ocean chemical condi-tions that would occur under different future scenarios and

determined whether or not thesechemical conditions could sustaincoral reef growth.

Their results show that if our cur-rent emissions path continues then bythe end of the century there will be nowater left in the ocean with the chem-ical properties that have supportedcoral reef growth in the past. Theycan’t say with 100% certainty that allshallow-water coral reefs will die, butthey think this is a likely result.

Deep cuts in emissions are neces-sary in order to save even a fraction ofexisting reefs, according to the team’sresults. Chemical conditions that cansupport coral reef growth can be sus-tained only with very aggressive cutsin carbon dioxide emissions. �................................Environmental Research Letterspublished their work in July.

Carnegie Science | Fall 2013 5

The U.S. Department of Energy provided support tothe World Climate Research Programme’s CoupledModel Intercomparison Project, which developed asoftware infrastructure in partnership with the GlobalOrganization for Earth System Science Portals.

Coral reefs such as this one in Fiji are havens for marine biodiversity and underpin the economies of many coastal communities.

Images by Julie Bedford courtesy NOAA

Saving Reefs:

Ricke and Caldeira’s researchshows that there is a goodpossibility that in 100 years noocean conditions will remainhospitable to shallow-watercoral reefs, such as this one inthe Florida Keys NationalMarine Sanctuary.

Major Changes Needed

Katharine RickeKen Caldeira

CarnegieScience_Fall_Layout 1 11/1/13 10:44 AM Page 5

Page 6: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

Blazars are thebrightest of activegalactic nuclei, andmany emit very high-en-ergy gamma rays. New ob-servations of a blazarknown as PKS 1424+240show that it is the mostdistant known source ofvery high-energy gammarays. But its emission spec-trum is highly unusual.A team including

Carnegie’s Michele Fumagalli used data from theHubble Space Telescope to set a lower limit for theblazar’s redshift (z ≥ 0.6035). An object’s redshiftvalue is a measurement of how much the wavelengthof its light that reaches the Earth is stretched by theexpansion of the universe; it reveals the object’s ageand distance. This blazar’s redshift corresponds to adistance of at least 7.4 billion light-years.Researchers thought that such high-energy

gamma-ray sources could not be seen at such greatdistances. Extragalactic background light (EBL) isthe diffuse radiation from all stars and galaxies, adim but pervasive glow that fills the universe. Whena high-energy gamma-ray photon collides with alower-energy EBL photon, they annihilate each otherand create an electron-positron pair. The farther the

gamma rays have to travel, the more likely they are tobe absorbed by this mechanism. This limits the dis-tance to which sources of very high-energy gammarays can be detected.Considering PKS 1424+240’s distance, a substan-

tial proportion of its gamma rays should be ab-sorbed by the EBL. The team’s findings may indicatesomething new about the emission mechanisms ofblazars, the EBL, or the propagation of gamma-rayphotons over long distances. Their research shouldallow scientists to better understand cosmologicalmodels that predict the EBL.Measuring the EBL directly is extremely difficult

because there are many bright sources of light inour immediate neighborhood. In addition to esti-mates based on cosmological models, astronomershave used galaxy counts to set a lower limit for theEBL. Using a model close to this lower limit to cal-culate the expected absorption of very high-energygamma rays from PKS 1424+240, the team derivedan intrinsic gamma-ray emission spectrum for theblazar. The results, however, deviate from the ex-pected emission based on current blazar models,which are thought to result from a relativistic jet ofparticles powered by matter falling onto a super-massive black hole at the center of the host galaxy.�................................The Astrophysical Journal Letters published their work.

BEFUDDLING

BLAZAR

Carnegie Science | Fall 20136

NASA provided supportthrough grants awarded fromthe Space Telescope ScienceInstitute, which is operated bythe Association of Universitiesfor Research in Astronomy,Inc., for NASA; the NationalScience Foundation awardPHY-0970134; NASA grantsNNX08AC146 and NAS5-98043 to the University ofColorado at Boulder;NASA/Fermi grants GO-31089and NNX12AF12GA; NSFgrant AST-1211916; theChristopher R. Redlich Fund;the TABASGO Foundation; andNASA Hubble Fellowshipgrant HF-51305.01-A.

The Katzman AutomaticImaging Telescope and itsongoing operation are madepossible by donations fromSun Microsystems, Inc., theHewlett-Packard Company,AutoScope Corporation, theLick Observatory, the NationalScience Foundation, theUniversity of California, theSylvia and Jim KatzmanFoundation, and the TABASGOFoundation.

Artist's conception of a blazarImage used courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

Michele Fumagalli

Page 7: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

The Very Large Array is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the National Science Foundation (NSF) operatedunder cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This paper is based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescopeas part of the Palomar Transient Factory project. The authors acknowledge support from the Arye Dissentshik Career Development Chair; theHelen Kimmel Center for Planetary Science; the Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology, and Space; the Royal Society; NSF; the Israel ScienceFoundation; the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development; European Research Council; the U.S. Department ofEnergy; Gary and Cynthia Bengier; the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund; the Christopher R. Redlich Fund; and the TABASGO Foundation.

These images depict three stages in a supernova’s life—quiet, eruption, and explosion.

ype II supernovaeare formed when mas-sive stars collapse, initiat-ing giant explosions. Re-searchers believe thatstars emit a burst of massas a precursor to that ex-plosion. A better under-

standing of that emission process could helpscientists predict and study supernova eventsin their earliest stages. Several models for thesupernova creation process predict pre-explo-sion outbursts, but it has been difficult for scientists to directlyobserve this process.

Researchers believe emission lines that radiate from Type IInsupernovae represent interactions between the mass ejected dur-ing and prior to the star’s explosion. New observations from ateam of astronomers including Carnegie’s Mansi Kasliwal showa remarkable mass-loss event about a month before the explo-sion of a Type IIn supernova.

The Palomar Transient Factory team, including Kasliwal, observed an energetic outburst from Type IIn supernova

T SN2010mc that radiated at least 6 x 1040

joules of energy and released about 2 x 1028

kilograms (one hundredth of a solar mass).This mass-loss was observed 40 days beforethe supernova exploded.

Probability modeling showed that therewas only a 0.1 percent chance that the out-burst was due to random chance, indicatingthat the outburst and the explosion werelikely causally related. At the very least, suchoutbursts are two orders of magnitude morelikely to occur in the immediate run-up to

the star’s explosion than at other times in a star’s life.The team compared their observations to three proposed

models for the mechanism by which this mass is ejected. Theyfound one model that provided the best match: The high velocities lend credence to the idea that the mass is driven out to the envelope that forms the star’s atmosphere by thepropagation and dissipation of excited gravity waves. More work is necessary to confirm this model. �................................Nature published their work in February.

Carnegie Science | Fall 2013 7

Image courtesy M

ansi Kasliw

al

Mansi Kasliwal

Caught in theAct

Page 8: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

Using revolutionary new techniques, a team led by Carnegie’sMalcolm Guthrie has made a strikingdiscovery about how ice behaves underpressure, changing ideas that date backalmost 50 years. Their findings, pub-lished in the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences, could alter our under-standing of how the water molecule respondsto conditions found deep within planets andcould have implications for energy science.

When water freezes into ice, its molecules are boundtogether in a crystalline lattice held together by hydrogen bonds.Hydrogen bonds are highly versatile and, as a result, crystalline icereveals a striking diversity of at least 16 different structures.

In all of these forms of ice, the simple H2O molecule is theuniversal building block. In 1964 researchers predicted that, un-der sufficient pressure, the hydrogen bonds could strengthen tothe point where they might actually break the water moleculeapart. The possibility of directly observing a disassociated watermolecule in ice has lured scientists and driven extensive researchfor the last 50 years. In the mid-1990s several teams, including aCarnegie group, observed this transition using spectroscopictechniques. However, they were indirect and only revealed part of the picture.

A preferred method is to “see” the hydrogen atoms, or protons,directly. This can be done by bouncing neutrons off the ice andthen carefully measuring how they are scattered. However, applyingthis technique at high enough pressures to see the water moleculedissociate had simply not been possible in the past. Guthrie ex-plained, “you can only reach these extreme pressures if your sam-ples of ice are really small. But, unfortunately, this makes the hydro-gen atoms very hard to see.”

In this fragment of the crystal structure of the new ice, the oxygen atoms are blue and the molecular hydrogen atoms pink.Hydrogen atoms that have been pulled off the water molecules are gold. These appear to locate in polyhedral voids in the oxygen lattice (one of which is shaded light grey). Previously, these voids were believed to remain even after the watermolecule broke up under enormous pressures.Image courtesy Oak Ridge National Laboratory

The group is part of Energy Frontier Research in Extreme Environments (EFree), an Energy Frontier Research Center headquartered at Carnegie’sGeophysical Laboratory. EFree is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES). The Scientific User Facilities Division, Basic Energy Sciences, DOE supported the research conducted at the Spallation Neutron Source, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Carnegie Science | Fall 20138

In 2006 the Spallation Neutron Source opened at Oak Ridge Na-tional Laboratory in Tennessee, providing a new and intenselybright supply of neutrons. By designing a new class of tools thatwere optimized to exploit this unrivalled flux of neutrons, Guthrieand his team—Carnegie’s Russell Hemley, Reinhard Boehler, andKuo Li, as well as Chris Tulk, Jamie Molaison, and António dos San-tos of Oak Ridge National Laboratory—obtained the first glimpseof the hydrogen atoms themselves in ice at unprecedented pressuresof over 500,000 times atmospheric pressure.

“The neutrons tell us a story that the other techniques could not,”said Hemley. “The results indicate that dissociation of water mole-cules follows two different mechanisms. Some of the molecules be-gin to dissociate at much lower pressures and via a different paththan was predicted in the classic 1964 paper.”

“Our data paints an altogether new picture of ice,” Guthrie com-mented. “Not only do the results have broad consequences for un-derstanding bonding in H2O, the observations may also support apreviously proposed theory that the protons in ice in planetary in-teriors can be mobile even while the ice remains solid.” �

Image courtesy M

alcolm G

uthrie

Malcolm Guthrie is working in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory facility.

Page 9: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

A team of researchers has discovered evidence that an extrasolar planet may beforming particularly far from its star—abouttwice the distance between Pluto and the Sun.The planet lies inside a dusty, gaseous diskaround the small red dwarf star TW Hydrae,which has about 55% of the Sun’s mass. This discovery adds to the ever-increasing variety of planetary systems in our galaxy.

This dusty protoplanetary disk is the closest one to us, some 176 light-years away in theconstellation Hydra. The astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe it over awide range of wavelengths and modeled the color and structure of the disk in a way that hasnot been done before. They found a partial gap in the disk, at about 80 astronomical units(AU) (1 AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun). Their models indicate that this depression is about 20 AUs wide, just slightly wider than necessary for a planet-opening gapand consistent with a planet of between 6 and 28 Earth masses. The feature is seen at allwavelengths; the team believes it is a planet-formation gap.

Planet formation faraway from a small par-ent star is at odds withconventional planet-making dogma. Underthe most accepted sce-nario, planets form overtens of millions of yearsfrom the slow accretionof dust, rocks, and gas.That happens most eas-ily close to the centralstar, where orbitaltimescales are short.

Even under a disk instability scenario, inwhich planets can collapse quickly fromthe disk, it’s not clear such a low massplanet could form.

Carnegie astrophysicist Alan Boss, whoworks on disk instability models, said, “Ifthe mass of this suspected planet is as lowas it seems to be, this presents a real puzzle.Theory would say that it cannot exist!”

Lead author of the study, John Debes ofthe Space Science Telescope Institute andalso a former Carnegie postdoctoral re-searcher remarked, “Typically, you needpebbles before you can form a planet. So, ifthere is a planet in the gap and there is nodust larger than a grain of sand farther out,we have provided a challenge for tradi-tional planet-formation models.” �

ExoplanetFormationSurprise

The Astrophysical Journal published this research, authored byJohn Debes, Hannah Jang-Condell, Alycia Weinberger, AkiRoberge, and Glenn Schneider. NASA, through the SpaceTelescope Science Institute, operated by the Association ofUniversities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under contract NAS5-26555, provided support for this work. Debes, Jang-Condell,and Roberge are all former Carnegie postdoctoral fellows.

Carnegie Science | Fall 2013 9

“TW Hydrae is be-tween 5 and 10 mil-lion years old; itshould be in the finalthroes of planet for-mation before its diskdissipates,” remarkedCarnegie coauthorAlycia Weinberger,principal investigatorof the observations.“It is surprising to finda planet only 5% to10% of Jupiter’s massforming so far out. Planets should formfaster closer in. In all planet formation scenarios, it’s difficult to make a low-massplanet far away from a low-mass star.”

The astronomers’ goal was to understandwhether planets have formed, what condi-tions can result in planet formation, andwhat chemicals are available for new plan-ets. Models by coauthor Hannah Jang-Con-dell, a former Carnegie postdoctoral re-searcher, showed that the disk was brighterthan expected, which indicates that verysmall dust grains are being lifted high abovethe midplane. This is surprising becauseobservations with radio telescopes havepreviously shown that the disk containsdust that has conglomerated into pebbles.

Weinberger designed the observations tobe able to detect large water ice grains inthe surface layer of the disk. These grainsweren’t seen, which probably means thatthey have grown and sunk to the midplaneof the disk where they can aggregate intowater-rich planets.

Illustration

HST NICMOS

Gap

Disk

Locationof star

TW Hydrae DiskHubble Space Telescope - NICMOS

This NASA image and artwork showsthe location of a gap, believed to befrom a forming planet that iscollecting the material in the discaround the small red dwarf star TWHydrae. It is the farthest-formingplanet from its star thus far found. Images courtesy NASA/ESA

Carnegie’s Alycia Weinberger was the principal investigator

for the observations. Image courtesy Alycia Weinberger

Page 10: Carnegie Science · accomplishments were achieved by other Carnegie staff, including Nobel laureates Alfred Hershey and Barbara McClintock. And the remarkable advances continue to

or the first time, a team of researchers led byGreg Asner has mapped in high fidelity the abovegroundcarbon density of an entire country. The team integrated field

data with satellite imagery and high-resolution airborne Light Detection AndRanging (LiDAR) data to map the vegetation and to quantify carbon stocksthroughout the Republic of Panama. This nation has complex landscapes, withvariable topography, and diverse ecosystems (ranging from grasslands and man-groves to shrublands and dense forests). As a result, Panama is an ideal labora-tory to develop and test a method for quantifying aboveground carbon.

The researchers’ results are the first maps that report local carbon stocks in areas as small as a hectare (2.5 acres). Their system has the lowest demonstrateduncertainty of any carbon-counting approach yet—a carbon-estimation uncer-tainty of only about 10% in each hectare overflown with LiDAR, as compared tofield-based estimates. Importantly, the approach can be used across a wide rangeof vegetation types worldwide and can access millions of hectares in a short time.

This new mapping system, described in Carbon Balance and Management, willgreatly boost conservation and efforts to mitigate climate change through carbonsequestration. It will also help our understanding of how carbon storage can beused to assess other fundamental ecosystem characteristics, such as hydrology,habitat quality, and biodiversity. The approach provides much-needed technicalsupport for carbon-based economic activities, such as the United Nations Col-laborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and ForestDegradation (UN-REDD) program in developing countries.*

Asner, commented: “Three things make this national-scale study unique. First,Panama is an outstanding place for testing carbon-mapping approaches due inpart to the long-term forest studies that have been undertaken by our partners at

the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI).Second, we have applied the very latest techniquesusing high-performance instrumentation, resultingin demonstrably high accuracy at fine spatial reso-lution. And third, the partnership permitted us toestimate our errors in a novel way, and we did soover every point on Panamanian soil.”

Carnegie and STRI researchers worked with scien-tists from McGill University and the University ofCalifornia-Berkeley to combine measurement meth-ods—an extensive and essential network of ground-based plot sampling, satellite imagery, and LiDARmeasurements from the Carnegie Airborne Obser-vatory—to achieve this unprecedented accuracy.

LiDAR uses reflected laser light to image vegeta-tion canopy structure in 3-D. The scientists cali-brated the LiDAR measurements—taken at one-meter resolution throughout nearly one millionacres (390,000 hectares)—to the known carbondensity of 228 regional field plots, as establishedand sampled by the collaborating scientists. Theyused 91other plots to validate the LiDAR’s above-ground carbon density estimates.

“Rarely has such a large number of field plotsbeen available to validate LiDAR calibration inde-pendently,” remarked Asner. “Our collaboration

F

The brainchild behindthe Carnegie AirborneObservatory is GregAsner. He is posingwith instrumentationaboard the craft. Image courtesy CAO

10

Image courtesy Robin Kempster

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Carnegie Science | Fall 2013 11

with STRI and its partners was vital to assess theaccuracy of what we achieved from the air.”

Traditional carbon monitoring has relied uponon-the-ground sampling of field plots, but this ap-proach usually represents just small areas of landand is time-consuming. “There has been growing in-terest in using satellite imagery to cover larger areas,but it is low resolution both spatially and in terms ofthe structural information about the vegetation,” de-scribed Carnegie author Joseph Mascaro. “In someparts of Panama, different global methods disagreeby more than 100% at square-kilometer scale.”

This is where the airborne LiDAR comes in: Itdirectly probes the ecosystem’s physical structure,which Carnegie scientists have repeatedly proven tobe tightly linked to tropical carbon stocks. Thesemeasurements are the bedrock for mapping and es-timating the amount of carbon locked up in plants,from dense forests to shrublands. The researcherswere able to scale up the plot and LiDAR data withfreely available satellite data on topography, rainfall,and vegetation to model carbon stocks at the na-tional level.

The LiDAR and satellite combination was able toaccount for variations in the carbon pattern arisingfrom differences in elevation, slope, climate, and

This map of Panama is the firstnational-scale high-resolutioncarbon map. The highest carbonstocks are in the humid forests onthe Caribbean side (red) of thecountry; the lowest carbon stocksare in developed areas (blue). Image courtesy CAO

fractional canopy cover over the entire country. Forinstance, the scientists found that the highest car-bon levels are in humid forests on the Caribbeanside of Panama, often exceeding 110 tons of carbonper hectare. In contrast, large regions were defor-ested to very low carbon levels, such as in the devel-oped regions outside the protected watershed ofthe Panama Canal.

Human activity is the overwhelming driver ofcarbon stock patterns in Panama.

“Panama is one of the first UN-REDD partnercountries, and these new maps put the country atthe forefront of high-resolution ecosystem manage-ment,” said co-author and STRI’s director EldredgeBermingham. “The new carbon mapping approachcould be the model for other tropical nations.” �

The observatory’s instruments are mounted so that theycan peer through a hole in the bottom of the airplane. Image courtesy CAO

The Gordon and Betty MooreFoundation, the Andrew MellonFoundation, the GranthamFoundation for the Protection of theEnvironment, the Avatar AllianceFoundation, the John D. andCatherine T. MacArthur Foundation,the W. M. Keck Foundation, theMargaret A. Cargill Foundation, MaryAnne Nyburg Baker and G. LeonardBaker, Jr., William R. Hearst III, andTom Steyer and Kat Taylor make theCarnegie Airborne Observatory(CAO) possible. The researchreported in this article was based onfunding to the CAO and a GranthamFoundation for the Protection of theEnvironment grant to theSmithsonian Tropical ResearchInstitute (STRI), in addition toGrantham funding for the CAO,SIGEO/ForestGEO funds from theSmithsonian Institution and STRI,and support to the CAO Panamaproject from William R. Hearst III............................................

*The objective of UN-REDD is tocreate a financial incentive fordeveloping countries to protect theirforest resources in order to offsetincreasing carbon emissions. Bycreating financial value for thecarbon stored in trees, the aim is to protect standing forests.

Watch the Carnegie AirborneObservatory make the world’s

highest resolution carbon map of Panama in less

than one minute athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fQwv4coRR8

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experience as trainees whowere encouraged to de-velop independent re-search programs, the hall-mark of “Carnegie StyleScience.”

The afternoon session fo-cused on new technologywith ties to the department.Gerald Rubin, director ofJanelia Farm Research

Campus, showed how transgenic fruit flies provideinsights into the brain, while Jennifer Lippin-cott-Schwartz, investigator at NICHD, discussedengineered fluorescent proteins for imaging cells.Senior trustee Steven McKnight, chairman of theBiochemistry Department at UT-Southwestern,discussed protein regions that can trap molecules.

The final talks were from alumni who forged new research fields.Philip Beachy, professor at Stanford University School of Medicine,discovered a cell-signaling pathway. Haifan Lin implicated moleculesof small RNAs in stem cell self-renewal. Both projects could lead tonew cancer therapies.

For insights into the evolution of development, Alejandro Sánchez-Alvarado, professor at the University of Utah, probes the highly regen-erative flatworm, and Nipam Patel, professor at UC-Berkeley, exam-ines diverse crustacean species. Donald Brown, a staff member since1960 and director from 1977-1993, ended the day with a perspective.

The Maxine Singer Building showcased the department’s historyand its current programs. A temporary museum displayed artifactson loan from the National Museum of Health and Medicine includ-ing specimens and plaster models demonstrating the stages of hu-man development. The centennial was capped by a dinner at theScottish Rite Masonic Center in Baltimore. �

To celebrate their 100th anniversary, theDepartment of Embryology annual mini-symposiumwas expanded into a two-day event. Traditionally thesymposium is organized by postdoctoral fellows whoinvite scientists at the forefront of diverse fields. Thisyear, the 31st symposium—the “Biology of Sex,” waspreceded by a special alumni symposium to com-memorate the centennial.

The centennial symposium took place at the Baltimore Museumof Art. Carnegie president, Richard Meserve, and former president,Maxine Singer, gave opening remarks. Then, Embryology alumnispoke about choosing the “right” biological system to answer theirquestions. Joseph Gall, staff member emeritus, talked about his re-search spanning six decades with over 50 different organisms. Usingthe roundworm, Geraldine Seydoux, professor at The Johns Hop-kins University School of Medicine, described how a fertilized eggdetermines which cells become specialized reproductive germ cells.UC- Berkeley’s Douglas Koshland uses yeast genetics to understanddesiccation tolerance, while Igor Dawid, investigator at the NationalInstitute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD),spoke of gene expression in the African clawed frog during his termfrom 1962-1978.

Later, Shannon Fisher, assistant professor at the University ofPennsylvania, and staff associate Christoph Lepper, recounted their

A Century ofDiscovery atEmbryology

Image courtesy C

hristine Pratt

by TAGIDE DECARVALHO

� Carnegie alumnusand senior trusteeSteven McKnight(right) chats with other participants at a coffee breakduring the symposium.

� Dianne Williams peersthrough a microscope inthe museum that was setup for the festivities. Arecreated historicalsketch from one of theearly Contributions toEmbryology volumesaccompanies the exhibit.

� A symposiumparticipant looks atthe embryo modelexhibit set up for thecentennial at theMaxine SingerBuilding.

� A celebratory cake featured words thatalumni thought represented theirexperience atEmbryology, including “bold,”“unconventional,” and “inspiring.”

Embryology’s Maxine Singer Building wasdecorated with panels showcasingtheir history. Choosing the rightmodel organisms was a topic at thesymposium andfeatured on thisposter.

Carnegie Science | Fall 201312

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Carnegie Science | Fall 2013 13

Water is perhaps the most important molecule in our solar system. Figuring out where it camefrom and how it was distributed within and among the planets can help scientists understand how planets formedand evolved. Research from a team including Carnegie’s Erik Hauri demonstrates that water from the interiors of theEarth and Moon has a common origin.The Moon is thought to have formed from a disc of debris left after a Mars-sized object hit the Earth 4.5 billion

years ago, forming the Moon in an event called the Giant Impact. Scientists have estimated that the heat from animpact of that size would cause hydrogen and other volatile elements to boil off into space, meaning the Moon musthave started off completely dry. But recently, NASA spacecraft and new research on samples from the Apollo mis-sions have shown that the Moon actually has water, both on its surface and beneath.

Hauri and his teammates looked for evidence of this water’s origin by homing in on the element hydrogen andits heavier isotope deuterium. (Isotopes are atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons.) Theratio of these isotopes can tell scientists about the water’s origin. They determined the deuterium-hydrogen ra-tio for water trapped in extremely primitive volcanic glass samples from the Moon, which were brought backto Earth by the Apollo 15 and 17 missions. The measurements revealed that the hydrogen isotopesmatched those from a type of meteorite called carbonaceous chondrites.

Because the deuterium in Earth’s water is also matched by carbonaceous chondrites, the two bod-ies likely obtained their water from the same source. This suggests that the Earth was alreadywet at the time of the Moon-forming collision and that the water within the Moon was in-

herited from proto-Earth’s water, which survived the impact. �................................Science Express published their work.

MOON’S Water From?

Where is the

Hauri’s research demonstrates that lunar water samples likely came from the proto-Earth and were transferred during the giant impact that formed the Moon.

Hauri’s research shows the Moon and Earth’s water bothlikely originated from carbonaceous chondrites shown left.Image courtesy Harold C. Connolly, Jr., CUNY-Kingsborough College

NASA’s Cosmochemistry and LASER programs, along with the Brown/MIT NASA Lunar Science Institute, funded this research.

Erik Hauri

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Carnegie Science | Fall 201314

An international team of 12 leading plant biologists,including Carnegie’s Wolf Frommer, says their discoveries couldhave profound implications for increasing the supply of food andenergy for our rapidly growing global population. All of theirwork focuses on the mechanisms that plants use for transportingsmall molecules across their membranes and for controlling wa-ter loss, resisting toxic metals and pests, increasing salt tolerance,and storing sugar.

The group has discovered details about the biochemistry and ge-netics of plant transport proteins that could have a profound im-pact on global agriculture. Ina perspective piece publishedby Nature, the team arguesthat the application of theirfindings could help the worldmeet its increasing demandfor food and fuel, as theglobal population growsfrom seven billion people toan estimated nine billion by2050.

Frommer, director ofCarnegie’s Department ofPlant Biology, has workedon plant transporters forover two decades and hasidentified many of the keynutrient transporters inplants. He and his col-leagues state that many re-cent discoveries are belowthe radar, known only to asmall group of other plantbiologists. By widely disseminating their findings, the team hopesto educate policymakers and speed the eventual application oftheir discoveries to global agriculture.

“Of the present global population of seven billion people, almostone billion are undernourished and lack sufficient protein, fats, andcarbohydrates in their diets,” the paper says. Another billion are mal-nourished, which has an enormous negative impact on globalhealth, increasing susceptibility to infection and diseases and signifi-cant mental impairment. Upcoming climate change and populationgrowth will impose further pressures on agricultural production.

Simply increasing current practices will not increase yield or en-vironmental sustainability, but will rather increase ecological dam-

age. The paper continues, “Increasing food production on limitedland resources for sustainable production has to rely on innovativeagronomic practices coupled to the genetic improvement of crops.”

Another recent discovery has the potential to allow crops to growon the 30% of the Earth’s soil that is otherwise too acidic. Acid soilsdamage the root tips, inhibit growth, and impair water and nutrientuptake. By understanding how transport proteins control thisprocess, agricultural scientists could engineer crops accordingly.

Other recent transport protein developments could improve cropsalt tolerance, while still others could increase iron and zinc storageand thereby improve nutrition. Research from one member of theteam has already allowed agricultural scientists to engineer wheatplants that are more tolerant to salt in the soil, boosting wheatyields by a whopping 25% in field trials.

The scientists discovered plant transporters that allow crops touse phosphate more efficiently and to increase the uptake of nitro-gen fertilizers, which are costly to produce and wasteful—only 30%

to 50% of applied nitrogen is usedby plants. The leftover can yieldnitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas.

The biologists said crops couldbe made more drought resistantvia transport proteins that regu-late the pores on the surface ofleaves. Plants lose some 90% oftheir water through these pores.

Two other major agriculturalgoals are increasing the carbohy-drate content and pest-resistanceof crops. A recent discovery in theFrommer lab, the identification ofSWEET sugar transporters, hasbeen used to develop pest-resis-

tant rice plants,providing a novelway to simplify theengineering ofcrops for bothhigh yields andpest resistance. �

PLANTSAre Our Future

Julian Schroeder, a professor of biology at U.C.-San Diego, brought together the research team. In addition to Schroeder and Frommer, the co-authors of the paper are Emmanuel Delhaize of CSIRO inCanberra, Australia; Mary Lou Guerinot of Dartmouth College; Maria Harrison of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Ithaca, N.Y.; Luis Herrera-Estrella of the Center for Research and AdvancedStudies of the National Polytechnic Institute in Iraputo, Mexico; Tomoaki Horie of Shinshu University in Nagano, Japan; Leon Kochian of Cornell University; Rana Munns of the University of Western Australia inPerth; Naoko Nishizawa of Ishikawa Prefectural University in Japan; Yi-Fang Tsay of the National Academy of Science of Taiwan; and Dale Sanders of the John Innes Center, Norwich Research Park in the U.K.

Wolf Frommer

“…the team hopes to educate policymakers and speed the eventualapplication of their discoveries to

global agriculture.”

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ADMINISTRATIONAND TRUSTEES� Carnegie president Richard A.Meserve, with trustees Michael Long,William Hearst, III, and others, flew on the Carnegie Airborne Observatoryon July 8-9 from San Carlos, CA.Meserve provided a presentation at therollout of a report issued by the Center forStrategic and International Studies onnuclear power on July 11 in Washington,DC, and participated in council meetingsof the National Academy of Engineeringon Aug. 4-5 in Woods Hole, MA, and onOct. 4-5 in Washington, DC. He attendedthe GMT partner retreat in Tucson, AZ,on Aug. 23. He attended a meetingsponsored by the American Academy ofArts and Sciences to prepare a report onnew models for US science andtechnology policy on Sept. 4-5 inWashington, DC, and attended a meetingof the Secretary of Energy AdvisoryBoard on Sept. 12-13. He participated ona visiting committee to the MIT NuclearScience & Engineering Department onSept. 24-25 in Cambridge, MA. He andpresident emerita Maxine Singer providedremarks at Embryology’s centennialcelebration on Sept. 26 in Baltimore, MD.

EMBRYOLOGYAfter participating in BioEyes, a localhigh school teacher Takisha Reecewanted to do research to better teachher students about what scientists do.Steve Farber offered her a summer po-sition. During her time, she applied forand received an APS Research TeacherFellowship, which provides a stipend,funds to attend the Experimental Biologymeeting, and online professional devel-opment to help her. She also applied fora free zebrafish tank system for herclassroom use, which she also re-ceived—a tribute to the success ofBioEyes!

GEOPHYSICAL LABORATORY Russell Hemley gave the annual FlygareLecture at the U. of Illinois on May 8. OnMay 28, he presented an invited talk atthe Royal Swedish Academy of Science’sMolecular Frontiers Symposium. Hegave two invited talks at the StewardshipScience Academic Programs Sympo-sium in Albuquerque, NM, on June 28,on the Carnegie/DOE Alliance Centerand about HPCAT and DCS at APS. In

July, he co-organized a symposium onthe “Deep Carbon Budget” at the APS-SCCM/AIRAPT Joint Conference in Seattle,WA, and presented a talk. He steppeddown as director in Oct. George Cody isacting director. —Ronald Cohen received a European Research Council Advanced Grant to expand his research to include activitiesat U. College London (UCL), the LondonCentre for Nanotechnology, and theThomas Young Center for the Theoryand Simulation of Materials. He willmaintain his theory of materials pro-gram at GL.—� Yingwei Fei gave an invited talk onthe processes and chemistry of the deepEarth at the first GSC-GSA Joint Meetingin Chengdu, China, in June. He gave aninvited talk on terrestrial planetarycores at the APS-SCCM/AIRAPT JointConference in July in Seattle, WA. InAug., he attended the VM GoldschmidtConference in Florence, Italy, where he received the 2013 GeochemistryFellow award.

—Robert Hazen’s recent book The Story of Earth was selected for the Phi BetaKappa Book Award in Science short list,the Royal Society Winton Prize for Sci-ence Books long list, and the Kirkus Reviews list of top 25 nonfiction books of 2012. Hazen gave a keynote lecture at the Industrial Diamond Association’sconvention in Baltimore. He lectured on carbon at theextremes at aNobel Symposiumin Stockholm, andhe presented lec-tures on mineralevolution and ori-gins of life as a vis-iting professor at U.Milan, Italy. Hazenpresented the ple-nary lecture at theVM Goldschmidt Conference in Florence,Italy. He was featured in six lectures on aScientific American cruise to the Norwe-gian fjords in July.—Bjørn Mysen gave the keynote lecture atJpGU in Tokyo, Japan, in May. In June,he presented two invited lectures in theGraduate School of Science at Tohoku U. and one invited lecture at the World Premier Institute-Advanced Institute forMaterials Research at Tohoku U.—� Douglas Rumble organized a fieldtrip with a group of scientists, includingGL postdoctoral fellow Matthieu Galvez,to study graphite hydrothermal depositsin New Hampshire in July.—On July 21, postdoctoral fellow CeliaDalou gave an invited talk at the IAVCEIConference in Kagoshima, Japan, on theeffect of H2O on F and Cl solubility andsolution mechanisms in aluminosilicatemelts at high pressure and high temper-ature.—Postdoctoral fellow Xiaoming Liu wentto the ESWN workshop on leadershiptraining at Brown U. in May and attendedthe CIDER Summer Program at UC-Berkeley in July. She gave a talk at theVM Goldschmidt Conference in Florence,Italy, in Aug. NSF awarded Liu an ExTerra travel grant in Aug.—Stable isotope lab manager RoxaneBowden presented a talk about sulfur-bearing samples for δ34S and D33S onJune 4 at the Advances in Stable Isotope

Carnegie Science | Fall 2013 15

� President Richard Meserve (middle)talks with director of Embryology AllanSpradling (left) and Janelia Farm ResearchCampus executive director Gerry Rubin.Image courtesy Christine Pratt

InBrief

Hawk RescueStaff at Embryology haveenjoyed the company ofred-tailed hawk in theirarea for some time. It wasfound with severe headtrauma outside the build-ing in July (top). The birdwas rescued by thePhoenix Wildlife Center,where she made a full re-covery. They released herAug. 27 outside the build-ing, where she flew rightto her perch (bottom). �

2

Jamieson AwardDuring the July SCCM/AIRAPT Joint Conference,postdoctoral fellow Duck Young Kim receivedthe 2013 Jamieson Award. He presented a ple-nary talk about new prediction and synthesis ofmaterials under pressure and an invited talk. �Images courtesy Duck Young Kim

� Yingwei Fei received the GeochemistryFellow award at the 2013 VM GoldschmidtConference.Image courtesy Yingwei Fei

� Doug Rumble organized this groupto examine graphite and collectsamples at the Kearsarge graphitemine in New Hampshire.Image courtesy Doug Rumble

Images courtesy Zehra N

izami and Zheng-an W

u

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Techniques and Applications workshopin Calgary, Canada.—On Aug. 26, microbeam specialistKatherine Crispin was appointed to theorganizing committee for the IUMAS-6meeting Aug. 2-7 in Hartford, CT. Shewas the social media outreach coordina-tor for the meeting.—John Armstrong and Katherine Crispinattended the Microscopy & Microanaly-sis 2013 Meeting in Indianapolis, IN,from Aug. 5-8. They presented three papers regarding examining geologicalmaterials using high-resolution electronmicroprobe and doing SEM analysis withfield emission instruments.—Predoctoral fellow Derek Smith de-fended his Ph.D. thesis, submitted hisdissertation, and received an AgouronInstitute Postdoctoral Fellowship in Geobiology from Caltech.—HPCATHPCAT hosted a Paris-Edinburgh CellWorkshop on May 23-24. ChangyongPark, Yoshio Kono, and Guoyin Shenfrom HPCAT and Yanbin Wang fromGSE-CARS organized the event; HPCAT,COMPRES, and CDAC sponsored theevent; Changyong Park, Yoshio Kono,and Curtis Kenney-Benson from HPCATand Tony Yu from GSE-CARS gave hand-on training; and Freda Humble providedadministration. Changyong Park andYoshio Kono presented beamline postersat the COMPRES Annual Meeting in LakeGeneva, WI, on June 17-20.—Yoshio Kono, Changyong Park, CurtisKenney-Benson, Guoyin Shen, andHongping Yan presented posters at theAPS-SCCM/AIRAPT Joint Conference inSeattle, WA, on July 7-12.—Changyong Park and Dmitry Popovhosted a group of 12 graduate studentsfor 2013 Neutron and X-ray School onAug. 14-15 at HPCAT. The students re-ceived hands-on training for high-pres-sure X-ray diffraction experiments anddata analysis during the two-day class.—

SNSIn May, associate beamline scientistJesse Smith presented a poster describing HPCAT’s recent developmentof rapid compression-decompressiontechniques and apparatus at theAPS/CNM/EMC Users Meeting at Argonne National Laboratory. In Aug.,he presented an invited talk at the ORNL Neutron and Nano User Meeting.

GLOBAL ECOLOGY� Chris Field and his IPCC crew, MikeMastrandrea, Katie Mach, MonalisaChatterjee, Yuka Estrada, Eric Kissel,and Eren Bilir, traveled to Bled, Slovenia,for a lead-author meeting in July.—� Joe Berry attended the 16thInternational Congress on Photosynthesisin St. Louis, MO. He talked aboutmeasuring photosynthesis from space.—� Greg Asner talked at the TEDGlobalconference in Edinburgh, Scotland, onJune 11. In July, the Carnegie AirborneObservatory team, including ChrisAnderson, Asner, David Knapp, RobinMartin, Elif Tasar, Raul Tupayachi, andNick Vaughn, began mapping in thewestern Peruvian Amazon.—Carnegie’s spectranomics team, includingKatie Kryston and Peruvian membersNestor Jaramillo and Felipe Sinca,climbed hundreds of Amazonian trees inPeru for chemical information for the CAO.—� In Apr., Ken Caldeira and IvanaCvijanovic attended a sea ice workshopat Columbia U. Caldeira spoke at

Harvard U. in Apr. and at UC-Santa Cruz in May. He participated in a publicdebate on geoengineering at UC-Berkeley in May and a panel discussionat Carnegie headquarters in Sept.—� Anna Michalak gave invitedpresentations at the 2013 NASATerrestrial Ecology meeting in SanDiego, the Joint Statistical Meetings ofthe American Statistical Association inMontreal, the UC-Davis StatisticalScience Symposium 2013, the Workshopon Large-Scale Inverse Problems andQuantification of Uncertainty: Big DataMeets Big Models in Santa Fe, and theInternational Space Science Institute inBerne, Switzerland.—Jennifer Johnson of the Field and Berry labs defended her Ph.D. dissertation on Aug. 27.— Field lab’s William Andereggsuccessfully defended his Ph.D.dissertation on June 7. He is now apostdoctoral fellowship at Princeton U.Rebecca Hernandez, a Ph.D. student,was awarded several fellowships: aMcGee grant from Stanford U. to supportplant-soil biogeochemistry in theSonoran Desert, a Graduate SummerResearch Fellowship from Stanford’sCenter for African Studies for soilmicrobial ecology in Senegal, Stanford’sDiversifying Academia, RecruitingExcellence Doctoral Fellowship, and theJean Langenheim Fellowship from thenational Graduate Women in Scienceorganization. Emily Solly and JakobZscheischler, Ph.D. students from theMax Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry,

16

� Two of the IPCCteam members,Mike Mastrandreaand Katie Mach,are shown here.

� Joe Berry

� Ken Caldeira � Anna Michalak

� Carnegie Airborne Observatory’ssenior technician David Knapp

The Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) had alarge presence at the VM Goldschmidt Conference on Aug. 25-30 inFlorence, Italy, where Robert Hazen (GL) gave a plenary lecture on“Earth’s Carbon Through Deep Time.” Dionysis Foustoukos andAndrea Mangum (GL) participated in the DCO Bioreactor SandpitWorkshop: Designing and Building Pressure Tools for WorldwideBiological Investigations in Veyrier-du-Lac, France, on Aug. 26-29.Douglas Rumble and Matthieu Galvez (GL) participated in a fieldtrip on July 29-30 to hydrothermal graphite deposits in New Hamp-shire for the initiative on tectonic fluxes. Celia Dalou (GL), MarionLe Voyer (DTM), and Diana Roman (DTM) attended the Interna-tional Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Inte-

rior (IAVCEI) General Assembly on July19-24 in Kagoshima, Japan. Craig Schiffries(GL) participated in a DCO delegation to Riode Janeiro, Brazil, on Aug.13-15 to developDCO partnerships with Petrobras and uni-versities in Brazil. �

Images 4-9 courtesy Robin Kempster

The DCO delegation and Petrobras scientists pose, from left to right: Magali Ader (Institut de Physique du Globe deParis, France), Craig Schiffries (GL), Max Coleman (JPL-Caltech), Peter Szatmari (Petrobras), David Cole (Ohio StateU.), Alina Stadnitskaia (Royal Netherlands Institute for SeaResearch), Maria Jose Resende Oliveira (Petrobras).

Chris Field was awarded one of Germany’smost prestigious prizes, the Max Planck Re-search Prize, with Markus Reichstein “becausethey have significantly increased our knowledgeof how life on Earth responds to climate changeand what reactions can be anticipated betweenthe biosphere and the atmosphere.” �Image courtesy Robin Kempster

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visited the Field and Michalak labs.—On Aug. 13, Katharine Ricke of theCaldeira lab presented a webinar toChevron on geoengineering.—On July 11, Michalak lab’s Dan Obenourdefended his Ph.D. dissertation andbegan a postdoctoral position at NOAAGreat Lakes Environmental ResearchLaboratory. Jeff Ho was awarded theNatural Sciences and Engineering Re-search Council of Canada PostgraduateScholarship for Doctoral Study.Yuanyuan Fang, Vineet Yadav, andYoichi Shiga presented their work at the9th International Carbon Dioxide Confer-ence in Beijing, in June. In July and Aug.,Yuanyuan Fang was an invited partici-pant in the 12th Atmospheric ChemistryColloquium for Emerging Senior Scien-tists, the Gordon Research Conference:Atmospheric Chemistry, and the Na-tional Center of Atmospheric ResearchAdvanced Study Program summer re-search colloquium.—Asner lab graduate student Dana Chad-wick did fieldwork in the Los AmigosConservation Concession in the Peru-vian Amazon, studying soils and foreststructure. Postdoctoral researcherClaire Baldeck was selected to be aBarbara McClintock Fellow.—Summer interns arrived this year underthe Summer Undergraduate Research inGeoscience and Engineering (SURGE)program at Stanford U. for non-Stanfordstudents and the School of Earth Sci-ences Undergraduate Research (SESUR)program for Stanford undergraduates.The interns were Tera Johnson(SURGE), Tefiro Serunjogi (SURGE),Michael Sojka (SESUR), Beti Girma(SESUR), Catie Mong (SESUR), Maku-lumy Alexander-Hills (SESUR), andRosemary Mena-Werth (SESUR/SURGE).Johnson, Mena-Werth, and Serunjogipresented their work at the School ofEarth Science’s symposium on Aug, 15.—Jizhong Zhou spent the fall on sabbati-cal leave from U. Oklahoma.—Arrivals: Ivana Cvijanovic, Ph.D. fromCopenhagen U., joined the Caldeira lab asa postdoctoral research associate in May.Arrivals to the Michalak lab were Ph.Dstudent Eva Sinha in June and postdoc-toral research associate Chao Li in July.The IPCC welcomed graphic artist LeslieWhite in June, Stanford U. summer in-terns Beti Girma and Ian Sparkman, andISSME high school teacher CatherineLemmi. Abby Bethke began work in Juneas operations specialist.—

Departures: Ty Kennedy-Bowdoinleft the Asner lab on July 30 for a start-up company in the Bay Area. MattColgan took a postdoctoral position atU. Colorado and U. Florida but willcontinue working in the Asner lab. JoeMascaro left for a position with USAID.Linda Longoria retired at the end ofJune after 10 years as the departmentadministrator. Shouren Zhang returnedto the Chinese Institute of Botany inBejing.

OBSERVATORIESDirector Wendy Freedman participatedin a panel discussion about the Planckresults for cosmology at the 47th ESLABSymposium in Noordwijk, The Nether-lands, in Apr. She gave a lecture on Apr.22 at U. Pennsylvania as part of the ElonMusk Public Lecture 2013 series. OnApr. 27-30, she attended the NAS 150thAnnual Meeting in Washington, DC. InMay, she served as Chair of the GruberCosmology Prize Advisory Board for the2013 prize. In June, Freedman wasawarded an honorary doctorate fromher alma mater U. Toronto. She deliv-ered an invited convocation to the U.College graduating class. She spoke atthe Planck Workshop at CERN inGeneva and gave an invited plenary talkat the Cosmo Probes 2013 Conferencein Lausanne, Switzerland, in June.—Staff astronomer Luis Ho attended aneditorial board meeting of the Astro-physical Journal in Saskatoon, Canada.He gave an invited talk at the SecondChina-U.S. Workshop on Radio Astron-omy Science and Technology workshopin Shanghai.—� Staff astronomer Michael Rauchparticipated in workshops at the CGM-Galaxy Interface Workshop in Leiden,The Netherlands, and in a workshop ongalactic outflows in Santa Barbara, CA.He spoke at the conference “ThePhysical Link between Galaxies andtheir Halos” in Garching, Germany, andpresented a seminar at the Institute ofAstronomy, Cambridge.—Josh Simon gave a colloquium atGeneva Observatory on May 21 and acolloquium at UC-Riverside on June 4.On Aug. 9, he gave a public lecture atSanta Monica Amateur Astronomy Club.He gave a colloquium at Pontificia Uni-versidad Católica de Chile on Sept. 3. Inmid-Sept., he attended the workshop“Exploring Future Directions of StellarSpectral Analysis at Low and High Resolution” at UC-Santa Cruz.—

� Staff associate and Hale ScholarAndrew Benson gave a talk “Constraintson Outflows from Population Statistics”at UC-Santa Barbara in Aug.— Hubble-Carnegie-Princeton FellowMansi Kasliwal gave a colloquium atCaltech in Feb. and an invited talk at theInternational Meeting on Transients andTiming in Pune, India, in Mar. Her talkopened the Carnegie Lecture Series inPasadena in Apr. She gave an invitedreview at the American Physical SocietyMeeting in Boulder, CO, and an invitedreview at the 2nd PANDA Symposium onMulti-Messenger Astronomy in Xi’an,China, both in Apr. In May, she attendedthe Astrophysics Seminar at UC-Irvine,gave a colloquium at UC-Berkeley, andgave an invited talk at the LocatingAstrophysical Transients workshop inLeiden, The Netherlands. She attendedthe AAS plenary talk in Indianapolis, IN,in June.—Postdoctoral research associate RikWilliams gave the invited colloquium“Galaxy Assembly in the Thermal Era” at U. Alabama on Apr. 15.—On July 19, postdoctoral research asso-ciate Joshua Adams gave a talk at theAAS conference “Probes of Dark Matteron Galaxy Scales.”

PLANT BIOLOGYOn May 6-8, Wolf Frommer chaired apanel at the AIPI meeting at Cornell U.He was invited to Syngenta in Durham,NC, on May 9-10, to speak about nutri-ent transporters. On June 14, he spokeat the Mitochondrial Medicine 2013 con-ference in Newport Beach, CA, about op-tical sensors and in vivo biochemistry.On June 16-21 he spoke at the GordonResearch Conference: Mechanisms ofMembrane Transport at Mount HolyokeCollege, MA. On June 24, he spoke aboutsugar transporters at the Garvan Insti-tute of Medical Research in Dar-linghurst, Australia. On June 24-29, heattended the 24th International Confer-ence on Arabidopsis Research, Sydney,Australia, where he lectured and gave aworkshop on biosensors. On June 28, hetalked about the transporters in seeds atU. Newcastle-Callaghan, Australia.—On July 10, Winslow Briggs lectured atthe postdoc seminar “Scientific Talks: IsYours Boring and Incomprehensible, orExciting and Informative?” In May, he leda field trip about plant regenerationafter a wildfire for Jasper Ridge Biologi-cal Preserve docents.—Arthur Grossman gave the plenary lec-ture at the Carbon Concentrating Mech-anism Meeting in New Orleans, LA, onMay 27-30. On July 28-Aug. 2, he gave asymposium about the evolution of or-ganelles at the International Congress of Protistology in Vancouver, Canada.Grossman served as a member of the

Carnegie Science | Fall 2013 17

Rebbeca Hernandez

Linda Longoria (pink) opens a gift ather retirement party.

� Michael Rauch � Andrew Benson

Mansi Kasliwal � Li-Qing Chen

� Davide Sosso � Tingting Xiang

Marschner Young Scientist AwardPostdoctoral fellow Rubén Rellán-Álvarez received theMarschner Young Scientist Award from the InternationalPlant Nutrition Colloquium for “outstanding Ph.D. stu-dents and early-career researchers with the potential tobecome future research leaders.” �

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EPSCoR RII Track-1 external reviewpanel at U. Nebraska on Aug. 22-23. Hewas appointed to the scientific advisoryboard of the Boyce Thompson Institutefor Plant Research.—Zhiyong Wang gave a seminar on inte-grated plant signals at Chung-Ang U.,Korea, on May 13. He gave the same talkat the International Symposium on PlantCell Signaling and Systems Biology inGwangju, Korea, on May 15. At IPGSA’s21st International Conference, held inShanghai on June 18-22, he spoke onproteomic and genomic strategies forhormone research. On July 21-24, hepresented a plenary talk on plant hor-monal and environmental signals atASPB’s annual conference in Provi-dence, RI. During July 28-Aug. 2, he co-chaired the Gordon Research Conference:Posttranslational Modification Networksin Hong Kong and gave a talk. —May 29-31, José Dinneny gave a talk onenvironmental cues at the 30th AnnualInterdisciplinary Plant Group Sympo-sium “Root Biology” in Columbia, MO. InJune, he gave an invited talk about plantenvironmental responses at UC-River-side. He attended IPGSA’s 21st Interna-tional Conference, held in Shanghai, onJune 18-22, giving a seminar about localwater and root pattern development. OnJuly 20-24, he spoke on the same topic atASPB’s annual conference, and he held asimilar seminar at a FASEB conference inSaxtons River, VT, on Aug. 11-16.—� Frommer postdoctoral membersJonas Danielson, Cheng-Hsun Ho, Li-Qing Chen, and Davide Sossoattended ASPB’s Western SectionMeeting at UC-Davis, CA. Postdoctoralresearcher Alexander Jones spokeabout membrane-based interactomes.—� On May 11-26, Grossman labpostdoctoral researcher Dimitri Tolleterpresented talks on photosynthesis andcoral bleaching at U. Pierre and MarieCurie, Paris, and Institut de BiologieEnvironnementale et de Biotechnology,CEA, Cadarache, France. On Aug. 11-16,he spoke at the 16th PhotosynthesisCongress in St. Louis, MO, on a similar

topic. Graduate students Rick Kim andTyler Wittkopp presented posters at the congress. In June, postdoctoralresearcher Wenqiang Yang gave severaltalks while in China. On June 18, hepresented a seminar at Tsinghua U. onanoxic metabolism. On June 20, 25, and27, Yang spoke on related subjects atdifferent institutes of the ChineseAcademy of Sciences. Postdoctoralresearcher Tingting Xiang spoke aboutglucose and coral bleaching at the 10thInternational Phycological Congressheld in Orlando, FL, on Aug. 4-10.—Dinneny lab postdoctoral researcherRuben Rellan talked about a platformfor analysis of root structure and physi-ology in soil at the 30th Annual Interdis-ciplinary Plant Group Symposium “RootBiology” in Columbia, MO, on May 29-31.—� Jonikas graduate student ElizabethFreeman presented a poster about theFRET nanosensor for inorganic carbonat CCM8: The VIIIth InternationalSymposium on Inorganic CarbonUtilization by Aquatic PhotosyntheticOrganisms meeting at Loyola U., NewOrleans.—The following researchers presentedposters at the July ASPB meeting:Winslow Briggs, David Ehrhardt,Briggs’ senior researchers RajnishKhanna and Tong-Seung Tseng, post-doc Zhiping Den, and Briggs’ formerpostdoc David Nelson.—The department hosted 7th and 8thgrade students from East Palo AltoAcademy for an outreach program runby Stanford, who worked with José Din-neny to organize the event. The programwas centered on revealing plant biologyusing various microscopy techniques; atthe end, students presented picturesthey had taken.—Arrivals: Frommer lab postdoctoral

researcher Lily Cheung arrived fromPrinceton on July 2,and senior re-searcher RobertoDe Michele arrivedon July 22 from Institute of Plant Genetics-Palermo,Italy. The Rhee labwelcomed intern/labassistant LessleyPeterson on Apr. 15and postdoctoral researcher Jue Fanfrom Clark U. onMay 13. Postdoctoralresearcher RenateWeizbauer, from

Washington U. in St. Louis, joined theEhrhardt lab on June 1. On July 22, Re-becca Yue arrived from UC-Berkeley asa laboratory technician in the Jonikaslab. Richard Jorgensen arrived on Aug.19 as an advancement consultant. Theovan de Sande joined both Plant Biologyand Global Ecology on Apr. 22 as facili-ties manager. —Departures: Shruti Manoj Kumar, labtechnician in the Frommer lab, left onJuly 24. On Aug. 30, Grossman lab post-doctoral researcher Mark Heinnickelleft for Matrix Genetics in Seattle, WA.

TERRESTRIAL MAGNETISM � Director Linda Elkins-Tantonattended the June 2-7 Gordon ResearchConference: Interior of the Earth and theJune 23-28 Gordon Research Conference:Origin of Solar Systems at Mount HolyokeCollege, MA. Also in June, she debutedthe Discovery mission proposal to orbitthe asteroid Psyche at the Low-CostPlanetary Missions Conference atCaltech, and she attended studentBenjamin Black’s Ph.D. thesis defense atMIT. In July, Elkins-Tanton and AlbertoBehar installed a BENTO box to measurevolcanic gases and weather conditions onHengill volcano in Iceland. In Aug., sheand James Tanton conducted a weeklongEarth and space science educationworkshop for high-school teachers at U. Massachusetts-Amherst, and sheattended a Psyche mission planningmeeting at JPL in Pasadena, CA. Elkins-Tanton presented two keynote talks at theVM Goldschmidt Conference in Florence,Italy, in Aug., and she attended aCommittee on Astrobiology and PlanetaryScience meeting at NAS in Washington,DC, in Sept.—On June 29, a symposium was held inhonor of the scientific contributions ofsenior fellow Selwyn Sacks. Invitedspeakers included Ragnar Stefansson(Iceland), Kiyoshi Suyehiro (Japan),Alessandro Bonaccorso (Italy), formerDTM fellows Arthur Snoke and Fred Pollitz, and staff scientists David Jamesand Alan Linde.—� In June, Alan Boss chaired a NASAreview panel in Washington, DC, aboutdeveloping space telescope technologyto directly image extrasolar planets. He also participated in a workshop atWallops Island, VA, on developing a new roadmap for NASA’s AstrobiologyProgram. On June 25, Boss attended a Swiss Embassy event featuring theCHEOPS exoplanet mission, with LarryNittler and Rhonda Stroud (NRL). In July, Boss chaired a review sub-panel for

18

� From left to right: Alberto Behar,Linda Elkins-Tanton, and James Tantonare on a fumarole in Iceland with aBENTO box, which measures volcanicgases and weather conditions.Image courtesy Linda Elkins-Tanton

� From left to right: Alan Boss, WillyBenz (U. Bern), Larry Nittler, and RhondaStroud attended a CHEOPS exoplanetmission event at the Swiss Embassy.Image courtesy Catherine Boss

With Stanford U., Plant Biologyran a large internship programfor 25 high school students,undergraduates, and interna-tional students from Maythrough Aug. The interns per-formed hands-on lab work andattended weekly seminars.The program wrapped up witha pizza and poster sessionwhere the interns presentedtheir projects. �

� Elizabeth Freeman

Richard Carlson was inducted into theNational Academy of Sciences at their annualmeeting in Apr. In May, he was awarded the2013 Arthur L. Day Medal, which was pre-sented at the 2013 GSA Annual Meeting inDenver, CO, in Oct. �

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NASA on proposals for membership in the Solar System Exploration ResearchVirtual Institute. In Sept. in London, hegave a talk about the orbital migration ofprotoplanets in marginally gravitationallyunstable disks at the European PlanetaryScience Congress 2013.—Richard Carlson presented an invitedtalk about turning measurements into 4-D structures at the Gordon Confer-ence: Interior of the Earth in June. Hehosted three representatives from theGeochemical Society of Japan for thefirst planning meeting for the 2016 VMGoldschmidt Conference to be held inYokohama, and he presented an invitedtalk on the use of short-lived radionu-clides to understand early Solar Systemhistory at the Geological Society of Lon-don. In July, he taught at the CIDERSummer Program at UC-Berkeley. Carl-son attended the VM Goldschmidt Con-ference in Florence, Italy, in Aug., and hepresented a plenary. He participated inthe “Origin of the Moon” conference atthe Royal Society in London in Sept.—Steve Shirey spoke in June on his dia-mond research at headquarters’ “Lunchand Learn.” He also spoke about scientificresearch to teachers at Friendship Colle-giate Academy for CASE. In July, Shirey,Tim Mock, and postdoctoral fellows TerryBlackburn and Hanika Rizo hosted 22teachers for a lecture and laboratorypracticum as part of the Smithsonian Science Education Academy for Teachers.In Aug., he attended the VM GoldschmidtConference in Florence, Italy.—In July, Conel Alexander attended theMeteoritical Society meeting in Edmon-ton, Canada.—� Larry Nittler attended a JuneMESSENGER Science Team Meeting atCase Western Reserve U. in Cleveland. InJuly, he presented a paper at the annualmeeting of the Meteoritical Society, inEdmonton, Canada. In Aug., he presenteda keynote talk at the VM GoldschmidtConference in Florence, Italy.—In June, John Chambers attended theGordon Conference: Origin of Solar Systems at Mount Holyoke College, MA.—Diana Roman conducted fieldwork at Mt. Etna, Italy, in July and gave two talksat the IAVCEI General Assembly inKagoshima, Japan, which was also attended by Alan Linde and Carnegie fel-low Christelle Wauthier. In Sept., sheconducted fieldwork at Telica and San

Cristobal volcanoes, Nicaragua, andpresented a department seminar at U.North Carolina-Chapel Hill.—In Apr., astronomy Carnegie fellow SusanBenecchi gave a public talk and a studentseminar for the Outer Planets Collo-quium Series at U. Nebraska-Lincoln. InJune, she observed at the Las CampanasObservatory, Chile. In July, she talked atthe Pluto Science Conference hosted atAPL. From Jan. through the beginning ofJuly, Benecchi hosted a variety of speak-ers from U. Maryland, STScI, Princeton,APL, GSFC, Howard U., and The JohnsHopkins U. as part of the department’sastronomy seminar series.—MESSENGER fellow Paul Byrne gave aplenary presentation at the 30th MES-SENGER Science Team Meeting in Cleve-land, OH, in June. In July, he attended theNew Horizons conference at APL. Hecame in first in the online heats of the2013 FameLab competition in Aug.—In May, Vera C. Rubin fellow Joleen Carlberg gave an astronomy talk at thePontificia Universidad Católica de Chile inSantiago while visiting former DTM fellowJulio Chaname. In June, she presented atalk at the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IIIcollaboration meeting in Baltimore, MD,and received the AAS International TravelGrant to attend the “400 Years of StellarRotation” meeting to be held in Natal,Brazil, in Nov. Carlberg has been partici-pating in an outreach program at the National Air and Space Museum.—In June, MESSENGER fellow ChristianKlimczak presented at the 30th MESSENGER Science Team Meeting inCleveland, OH. In July, he conductedfieldwork in the Bohemian CretaceousBasin, studying the nature and distribu-tion of deformed sandstones along theGerman/Czech border.—DCO postdoctoral associate Marion LeVoyer participated in Career Day on Apr.26 at Samuel Ogle Middle School inBowie, MD. On May 6, she gave a talk atLDEO about volatiles in basaltic systemsas part of their geosystems series ofseminars. She also presented an out-reach talk on ocean floor geology at theShepherd’s Center of Annandale, VA, onMay 22. She chaired a session and pre-sented a talk at the IAVCEI conference,Kagoshima, Japan, on July 19-25.—NSF associate Ryan Porter and fieldseismologist Steven Golden installed aseismic network around Sunset Crater

near Flagstaff, AZ, in June and July, aspart of the Sunset Seismic Experiment incollaboration with Arizona State U. Porteralso presented at the May EarthScopeNational Meeting held in Raleigh, NC.—In July, electronic design engineer Brian Schleigh and IT/IS manager/sys-tems engineer Michael Acierno traveledto Montserrat to upgrade the data log-gers for the strainmeter network in col-laboration with Pyiko Williams of theMontserrat Volcano Observatory and Wade Johnson of UNAVCO.—In Mar., web coordinator Kasey Cunningham covered the 44th Lunarand Planetary Science meeting held inHouston for the DTM Web site.—Arrivals: In May, predoctoral studentTarzan Kwadiba (U. of the Witwater-srand) arrived to work on his Ph.D. the-sis with David James. Other May visitorsincluded Sandy Faber (UC Observato-ries) and Jack Wisdom (MIT). In June,Merle A. Tuve Senior Fellow DavidBercovici returned to present his Tuveseminar. Also in June, former fellow andcurrent visiting investigator Chin-wuChen returned for a two-week visit, coinciding with the Sacks Symposium. In July, former postdoctoral fellow Liping Qin (U. Science and Technology,Hefei, China), and her students Jia Liuand Jiuxing Xia, arrived to collaboratewith Rick Carlson and Conel Alexander.Valentina Taranovic (Ph.D. student fromIndiana U.-Bloomington) arrived to dosome analyses on the mass spectrome-ter. In Aug., Doug Wiens (WashingtonUniversity, St. Louis) began his visit as a Merle A. Tuve Senior Fellow. GrantBybee, a Ph.D. student from the U. of the Witwatersrand, also arrived.—Departures: Carnegie fellow FrancesJenner left for a position at The Open U. in Milton Keynes, UK, and astronomyfellow Christopher Stark joined GoddardSpace Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. In Aug., web coordinator and adminis-trative assistant Kasey Cunninghamdeparted for a multimedia journalist position at WECT TV6 in Wilmington, NC, and temporary assistant HayleyJohnson left for a position in NY. �

Carnegie Science | Fall 2013 19

Angela Schad (U. Delaware), a former summer scholar atGL, interned in the DTM-GL library this summer. She cataloguedphotographs of historic scientific instruments in the two depart-ments’ archives and developed a Web site about the collection. �

� Larry Nittler attended a MESSENGERmeeting to discuss a map of Mercury’scomposition projected onto a visualizationwall at Case Western Reserve U.Image courtesy Larry Nittler

Pioneering ResearchOn May 17, the American PhysicalSociety presented a plaque to sen-ior fellow Vera Rubin and formerDTM staff scientist Kent Ford, Jr.,“in recognition of the pioneeringresearch” they conducted at DTMthat provided evidence for the exis-tence of dark matter. �

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In July, Moody’s Investors Service affirmed Carnegie’s AAA ratings of Carnegie’s 2010 Se-ries A Bonds issued through the California Educational Facilities Authority (CEFA) and Series 2010 Bondsissued through the Maryland Health and Higher Education Facilities Authority (MHHEFA), affecting $65.1

million of rated debt. The AAA rating is Moody’s highest and is basedon Carnegie’s “strength of its reputation and balance sheet.” The ratingagency determined the institution’s outlook is stable. The AAA rating incorporates the significant reliance on grants and

contract revenues and investment income to support operations,which made up 85% of FY 2012 operating revenues. The stable outlook reflects the expectation that bal-ance sheet growth will continue to be healthy with sound investment practices. “Carnegie’s conservativefiscal practices and planning, high-caliber primary investigators, and diverse sources of research fund-ing we expect will mitigate expected pressures on operations from stagnant or declining federal researchfunding and future financial commitments.” �

Moody’s Affirms Carnegie’s AAA Rating

The AAA rating is Moody’s highest and is based on Carnegie’s “strength of its

reputation and balance sheet.”