Press Releases

By integrating satellite mapping, airborne-laser technology, and ground-based plot surveys, scientists from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, with colleagues, have revealed the first high-resolution maps of carbon locked up in tropical forest vegetation and emitted by land-use practices. These new maps pave the way for accurate monitoring of carbon storage and emissions for the United Nations initiative on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Spanish version

Superconductors are more efficient at carrying electricity than copper wires. But these materials have to be cooled below an extremely low, so-called transition temperature for electrical resistance to disappear. Researchers at the Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory, have unexpectedly found that the transition temperature can be induced under two different intense pressures in a three-layered bismuth oxide crystal. They believe this unusual two-step phenomena comes from competition of electronic behavior in different layers.

Scientists have discovered a new window into the Earth's violent past. Geochemical evidence from volcanic rocks collected on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic suggests that beneath it lies a region of the Earth's mantle that has largely escaped the billions of years of melting and geological churning that has affected the rest of the planet. Researchers believe the discovery offers clues to the early chemical evolution of the Earth.

The private sector and an Austrian research institute are chipping in to help support one of the most widely used public biological databases in the world. Although the majority of funding continues to come from the National Science Foundation, The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) database is now receiving support from other organizations as well. Two corporations have recently signed on as TAIR sponsors: Dow AgroSciences and most recently Syngenta Biotechnology Inc.