What factors govern algae’s success as “tenants” of their coral hosts both under optimal conditions and when oceanic temperatures rise? A Victoria University of Wellington-led team of experts that includes Carnegie’s Arthur Grossman investigates this question.
Meredith Wilson, a postdoctoral associate in Steve Farber’s lab at the Department of Embryology, has been awarded Carnegie’s thirteenth Postdoctoral Innovation and Excellence Award. These prizes are given to postdocs for their exceptionally creative approaches to science, strong mentoring, and contributing to the sense of campus community. The nominations are made by the departments and are chosen by the Office of the President.
A system of categorization that reflects not just a mineral’s chemistry and crystalline structure, but also the physical, chemical, or biological processes by which it formed, would be capable of recognizing that nanodiamonds from space are fundamentally different to diamonds formed in Earth’s depths.
Aging-related inflammation can drive the decline of a critical structural protein called lamin-B1, which contributes to diminished immune function in the thymus, according to research from Carnegie’s Sibiao Yue, Xiaobin Zheng, and Yixian Zheng.Each of our cells is undergirded by a protein-based cellular skeleton. And each of our tissues is likewise supported by a protein matrix holding the cells that comprise it together. These protein scaffolds or structures are necessary for organs and tissues to be constructed during development. The research team set out to determine whether age-related deterioration of architectural proteins would contribute to the degeneration of an organ as a whole.
Determining how one species becomes distinct from another has been a subject of fascination dating back to Charles Darwin. New research led by Carnegie’s Matthew Evans and published in Nature Communications elucidates the mechanism that keeps maize distinct from its ancient ancestor grass, teosinte.
Palo Alto, CA—Photosynthesis makes our atmosphere oxygen-rich and forms the bedrock of our food supply.
The Office of the President has selected two new Carnegie Venture Grants. Peter Driscoll of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and Sally June Tracy of the Geophysical Laboratory were awarded a venture grant for their proposal Carbon-rich Super-Earths: Constraining Internal Structure from Dynamic Compression Experiments. Plant Biology’s Sue Rhee and Global Ecology’s Joe Berry and Jen Johnson were awarded a Venture Grant for their project Thermo-adaptation of Photosynthesis in Extremophilic Desert Plants.
The Carnegie Institution for Science Board of Trustees unanimously elected former president and chief executive officer of chip maker Intel Corporation, Craig Barrett, as Chairman of the Carnegie Board of Trustees. David Thompson, former president and chief executive officer of the global aerospace and defense company Orbital ATK, was unanimously elected as Vice Chair.
Detection of a supernova with an unusual chemical signature by a team of astronomers led by Carnegie’s Juna Kollmeier—and including Carnegie’s Nidia Morrell, Anthony Piro, Mark Phillips, and Josh Simon—may hold the key to solving the longstanding mystery that is the source of these violent explosions. Observations taken by the Magellan telescopes at Carnegie’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile were crucial to detecting the emission of hydrogen that makes this supernova, called ASASSN-18tb, so distinctive.
On April 26, 2019, the American Philosophical Society (APS) awarded former Carnegie fellow and current trustee Sandra Faber the 2018 Magellanic Premium medal. The APS also awarded trustee Mary-Claire King the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Science.
Which of Earth’s features were essential for the origin and sustenance of life? And how do scientists identify those features on other worlds? A team of Carnegie investigators with array of expertise ranging from geochemistry to planetary science to astronomy published this week in Science an essay urging the research community to recognize the vital importance of a planet’s interior dynamics in creating an environment that’s hospitable for life.
This week Carnegie’s Steve Farber will be recognized by New England Biolabs Inc. with its Passion in Science Award in the category of Mentorship and Advocacy. Farber co-founded a non-profit STEM education program called BioEYES, which gives K-12 students hands-on experience studying the life cycles of zebrafish. Participants learn about genetics and the cardiovascular system. They also bolster their science literacy with first-hand experience asking questions and designing experiments to probe for answers.
Earth is the only tectonically active, rocky planet that we know, so understanding the geology of how our continents formed is a crucial part of discerning what makes Earth habitable. New research from Carnegie, the Gemological Institute of America, and the University of Alberta uses diamonds to reveal how some of the planet's continents remain stable, which was essential for life to arise.
Changes in temperature and precipitation have already impacted the amount of nitrogen introduced into U.S. waterways, according to new research from a team of three Carnegie ecologists. This can lead to toxin-producing algal blooms or low-oxygen dead zones called hypoxia, such as the water-quality impairments in lake and coastal regions across the U.S. that have received extensive news coverage over the past several summers.
An ancient sliver of the building blocks from which comets formed was discovered encased inside a meteorite like an insect in amber by a Carnegie-led research team. The finding, published by Nature Astronomy, could offer clues to the formation and evolution of our Solar System.
A nearby system hosts the first Earth-sized planet discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite, as well as a warm sub-Neptune-sized world. This milestone sets the path for finding smaller planets around even smaller stars, and those planets may potentially be habitable.
Of what is the universe made? Recent observations suggest surprising results.
