Press Releases

Monday, April 30, 2012
Old Star, New Trick

Audio
For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of arsenic and selenium, neighboring elements near the middle of the periodic table, in an ancient star in the faint stellar halo that surrounds the Milky Way. Arsenic and selenium are elements at the transition from light to heavy element production, and have not been found in old stars until now.

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Monday, April 30, 2012
Carnegie’s Richard Meserve Elected President Harvard Board of Overseers

Carnegie Institution for Science president Richard A. Meserve has been elected president of the Harvard Board of Overseers for 2012-2013. The Overseers provide advice and approvals of important actions about educational policies and practices. Members are elected by Harvard and Radcliffe graduates for six-year terms. Meserve has been a member of the Board of Overseers since 2007. The article about the election appears in the April 30, 2012, Harvard Gazette.

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Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Wolf B. Frommer Receives Bogorad Award for Excellence in Plant Biology

The American Society for Plant Biology (ASPB) awarded Wolf B. Frommer, director of Carnegie’s Department of Plant Biology, the Lawrence Bogorad Award for Excellence in Plant Biology Research for “his major contributions in the development of fundamental tools and technologies essential for breakthrough discoveries that advance our understanding of glucose, sucrose, ammonium, amino acid, and nucleotide transport in plants.”

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Thursday, April 12, 2012
Probing hydrogen under extreme conditions

Audio
How hydrogen--the most abundant element in the cosmos--responds to extremes of pressure and temperature is one of the major challenges in modern physical science. Moreover, knowledge gleaned from experiments using hydrogen as a testing ground on the nature of chemical bonding can fundamentally expand our understanding of matter. New work from Carnegie scientists has enabled researchers to examine hydrogen under pressures never before possible.

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Monday, April 2, 2012
Giant Telescope Project Partners Pass on Federal Funds

The board of directors of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO) has informed the National Science Foundation (NSF) that they will not participate in an upcoming funding opportunity. The partners in the project feel that they are making such rapid progress that they have chosen to press ahead at full speed, looking to link up with the NSF at a later date when the needs of both organizations are better aligned.

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Thursday, March 29, 2012
New Databases Harvest a Rich Bounty of Information on Crop Plant Metabolism

Audio
The Plant Metabolic Network (http://www.plantcyc.org/), which is based at Carnegie’s Department of Plant Biology, has launched four new online databases that offer an unprecedented view of the biochemical pathways controlling the metabolism of corn, soybeans, wine grapes, and cassava—four important species of crop plant. The new databases will serve as a critical resource for scientists working with these species to increase crop production, enhance biofuel development, or explore novel medicines.

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Monday, March 26, 2012
Carnegie’s Greg Asner Named Energy/Climate Fellow by U.S. State Department

Carnegie staff scientist Greg Asner has been selected as one of 22 experts to serve the U.S. government as part of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) through the Senior ECPA Fellows Program. Fellows will work with local government agencies, civil society groups, and universities throughout the Western Hemisphere to discuss regional impacts of climate change and energy policy, and develop relationships for continued multi-lateral cooperation.

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Friday, March 23, 2012
First Blast of Las Campanas Peak in Chile For the Giant Magellan Telescope

With Video
On Friday, March 23, the first blast (Big Bang Event) occurred at Las Campanas Peak in Chile, at high noon US Eastern Daylight Time. It marked the beginning of mountain leveling and site preparation for the Giant Magellan Telescope.

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Friday, March 23, 2012
Mountaintop Blasting to Mine the Sky with the Giant Magellan Telescope

Astronomers began to blast 3 million cubic feet of rock from a mountaintop in the Chilean Andes today to prepare for the world’s largest telescope at the Carnegie Institution’s Las Campanas Observatory. Over the next few months, more than 70 controlled blasts will break up the rock while leaving a solid bedrock foundation for the telescope and its precision scientific instruments.More information about the telescope is here

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Thursday, March 22, 2012
New understanding of Earth’s mantle beneath the Pacific Ocean

Audio
Scientists have long speculated about why there is a large change in the strength of rocks that lie at the boundary between two layers immediately under Earth’s crust: the lithosphere and underlying asthenosphere. Understanding this boundary is central to our knowledge of plate tectonics and thus the formation and evolution of our planet as we know it today. A new technique for observing this transition, particularly in the portion of Earth’s mantle that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean basin, has led Carnegie and NASA Goddard scientist Nick Schmerr to new insight on the origins of the lithosphere and asthenosphere.

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