Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 4:51pm
Plate Tectonics May Take a Break
Plate tectonics, the geologic process responsible for creating the Earth’s continents, mountain ranges, and ocean basins, may be an on-again, off-again affair. Scientists have assumed that the shifting of crustal plates has been slow but continuous over most of the Earth’s history, but a new study from researchers at the Carnegie Institution suggests that plate tectonics may have ground to a halt at least once in our planet’s history—and may do so again.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - 7:27am
Mysterious Space Blob Discovered at Cosmic Dawn
Video Press Release
A team of astronomers, led by Carnegie’s Masami Ouchi, has discovered a mysterious, giant object that existed when the universe was only 800 million years old. Dubbed an extended “Lyman-Alpha blob,” it is a huge body of gas. It is named Himiko for a legendary Japanese queen and stretches for 55 thousand light years, a record for that early point in time. Its length is comparable to the radius of the Milky Way’s disk.
Thursday, May 7, 2009 - 2:03pm
Bioelectricity Promises More ‘Miles Per Acre’ Than Ethanol
Biofuels such as ethanol offer an alternative to petroleum for powering our cars, but growing energy crops to produce them can compete with food crops for farmland, and clearing forests to expand farmland will aggravate the climate change problem. How can we maximize our “miles per acre” from biomass? Researchers writing in the online edition of the May 7 Science magazine say the best bet is to convert the biomass to electricity, rather than ethanol. They calculate that, compared to ethanol used for internal combustion engines, bioelectricity used for battery-powered vehicles would deliver an average of 80% more miles of transportation per acre of crops, while also providing double the greenhouse gas offsets to mitigate climate change.
Audio Interview
Friday, June 5, 2009 - 11:10am
‘Colossal’ Magnetic Effect Under Pressure
Audio Press Release
Millions of people today carry around pocket-sized music players capable of holding thousands of songs, thanks to the discovery 20 years ago of a phenomenon known as the “giant magnetoresistance effect,” which made it possible to pack more data onto smaller and smaller hard drives. Now scientists are on the trail of another phenomenon, called the “colossal magnetoresistance effect” (CMR) which is up to a thousand times more powerful and could trigger another revolution in computing technology.
Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 2:37pm
Red Dust in Planet-Forming Disk May Harbor Precursors to Life
Astronomers at the Carnegie Institution have found the first indications of highly complex organic molecules in the disk of red dust surrounding a distant star. The eight-million-year-old star, known as HR 4796A, is inferred to be in the late stages of planet formation, suggesting that the basic building blocks of life may be common in planetary systems.
Thursday, November 13, 2008 - 3:10pm
Mineral Kingdom Has Co-Evolved with Life
Evolution isn’t just for living organisms. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found that the mineral kingdom co-evolved with life, and that up to two thirds of the more than 4,000 known types of minerals on Earth can be directly or indirectly linked to biological activity. The finding, published in American Mineralogist, could aid scientists in the search for life on other planets.
Monday, January 28, 2008 - 9:24am
Hyperfast star proven to be alien
A young star is speeding away from the Milky Way so fast that astronomers have been puzzled by where it came from; based on its young age it has traveled too far to have come from our galaxy. Carnegie astronomers Alceste Bonanos and Mercedes López-Morales, with collaborators, determined that it came from our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and may have been ejected from that galaxy by a yet-to-be-observed massive black hole.
Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 9:26am
MESSENGER Reveals Mercury as a Dynamic Planet
Audio Press ReleaseAnalyses of data from the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft’s second flyby of Mercury in October 2008 show that the planet’s atmosphere, magnetosphere, and geological past are all characterized by much greater levels of activity than scientists first suspected. These results are published in the May 1st
Science magazine and are discussed in a NASA press telecon today.
Thursday, April 17, 2008 - 11:10am
Changing Jet Streams May Alter Paths of Storms and Hurricanes
The Earth’s jet streams, the high-altitude bands of fast winds that strongly influence the paths of storms and other weather systems, are shifting—possibly in response to global warming. These changes have implications for the frequency and intensity of future storms, including hurricanes.
Friday, February 15, 2008 - 2:54pm
Stabilizing Climate Requires Near-Zero Carbon Emissions
Now that scientists have reached a consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the major cause of global warming, the next question is: How can we stop it? Can we just cut back on carbon, or do we need to go cold turkey? According to a new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution, halfway measures won’t do the job. To stabilize our planet’s climate, we need to find ways to kick the carbon habit altogether.
Thursday, October 2, 2008 - 2:18pm
“Little Bang” triggered Solar System formation
For several decades, scientists have debated whether the Solar System formed as a result of a shock wave from an exploding star—a supernova—that triggered the collapse of a dense, dusty gas cloud that contracted to form the Sun and the planets. Now, astrophysicists at the Carnegie Institution have resolved the debate and shown for the first time that a supernova could indeed have triggered the Solar System’s formation under conditions of rapid heating and cooling.
Video Press Release
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 10:32am
New Process Promises Bigger, Better Diamond Crystals
Audio Press Release
Researchers at the Carnegie Institution have developed a new technique for improving the properties of diamonds—not only adding sparkle to gemstones, but also simplifying the process of making high-quality diamond for scalpel blades, electronic components, even quantum computers.
Friday, January 9, 2009 - 11:15am
Half-baked Asteroids Have Earth-like Crust
Audio Press Release
Asteroids are hunks of rock that orbit in the outer reaches of space, and scientists have generally assumed that their small size limited the types of rock that could form in their crusts. But two newly discovered meteorites may rewrite the book on how some asteroids form and evolve.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 9:06am
Building blocks of life formed on Mars
By analyzing organic material and minerals in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001, scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory have shown for the first time that building blocks of life formed on Mars early in its history instead of by meteorite impacts or ancient Martian microbes.
Thursday, October 11, 2007 - 2:07pm
Green algae—the nexus of plant/animal ancestry
Genes of a tiny, single-celled green alga called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii may contain scores more data about the common ancestry of plants and animals than the richest paleontological dig. This work is described in an article in the October 12, 2007, issue of Science.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 2:35pm
Surprises Stream back from Mercury’s MESSENGER
The MESSENGER spacecraft, the first probe to visit Mercury in over 30 years, produced a stream of surprises that is amazing and delighting the science team. The 1,213 mages conclusively show that the planet is a lot less like the Moon than many previously thought, with features unique to this innermost world. The puzzling magnetosphere appears to be very different from what Mariner 10 discovered and first sampled almost 34 years ago. And the tiny spacecraft discovered a unique feature that the scientists dubbed, “The Spider.” This type of formation has never been seen on Mercury before, and nothing like it has been observed on the Moon. For images see http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/multi03.html
In a recent video interview, available for download, Dr. Sean C. Solomon discusses the MESSENGER probe and its significance.
Thursday, December 13, 2007 - 3:20pm
Coral Reefs Unlikely to Survive in Acid Oceans
Stanford, CA — Carbon emissions from human activities are not just heating up the globe, they are changing the ocean’s chemistry. This could soon be fatal to coral reefs, which are havens for marine biodiversity and underpin the economies of many coastal communities. Scientists from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology have calculated that if current carbon dioxide emission trends continue, by mid-century 98% of present-day reef habitats will be bathed in water too acidic for reef growth.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - 1:11pm
Superconductors get a boost from pressure
Superconductors can convey more than 150 times more electricity than copper wires because they don’t restrict electron movement, the essence of electricity. But to do this, the materials have to be cooled below a very low, so-called, transition temperature, which often makes them impractical for widespread use. Now for the first time, scientists have found that in addition to chemical manipulation, the superconducting state can be induced by high pressure in so-called high-temperature superconductors.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - 1:42pm
New Twist on Life’s Power Source
A startling discovery by scientists at the Carnegie Institution puts a new twist on photosynthesis, arguably the most important biological process on Earth. Two studies suggest that certain widespread marine microorganisms have evolved a way to break the rules of normal photosynthesis—they can harvest solar energy without a net release of oxygen or uptake of carbon dioxide.
