December 4, 2000
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Contents of this News Tip:
NSF Director and microbiologist Rita Colwell was honored by The Explorer's
Club for her role in marine exploration. Colwell and 12 others received
the Lowell Thomas Award For Outstanding Achievement in Ocean Exploration
Nov. 28 in New York City.
Colwell calls exploration the "essence of NSF's mission." Her own fascination
with the sea began early in life and found root in the emerging field
of marine microbiology. Today, powerful new tools and infrastructure have
led to "the threshold of a new era of exploration" in oceanography as
well as other fields, she says.
The Explorers Club was created in 1904 to advance field research and
scientific exploration, and to champion the instinct to explore. Members
have included Teddy Roosevelt, Admiral Perry, Neil Armstrong and Carl
Sagan. The Lowell Thomas Award was begun in 1980 to periodically recognize
groups of particularly outstanding explorers. [Mary Hanson]
For more information on The Explorer's Club, see: http://www.explorers.org/
For a list of all awardees, see: http://www.explorers.org/programsfiles/lowell2000.html
Top of Page
A team of U.S. and European astronomers has detected X-rays from the
most distant quasar on record. The x-rays, detected with the XMM-Newton
satellite, came from a quasar with a redshift of 5.8 -- which means the
x-rays were emitted when the universe was less than one billion years
old.
The NSF-supported team, led by Niel Brandt of Pennsylvania State University,
is using x-ray observations to study some of the oldest and hottest objects
in the universe to learn more about how the first quasars and galaxies
were formed. The ancient radiation provides a glimpse of the universe
shortly after the dawn of the modern universe.
Quasars can emit 1,000 times the energy of our entire galaxy and are
believed to be fueled by supermassive black holes that in turn are powered
by material from their host galaxies. The findings will be published in
the February 2001 issue of The Astronomical Journal.
[Amber Jones]
Top of Page
In a study that adds to our basic understanding of ocean biology, scientist
Zbigniew Kolber of Rutgers University's Institute of Marine and Coastal
Sciences and colleagues have identified biophysical evidence that clearly
shows for the first time that aerobic bacterial photosynthesis is widespread
in the tropical surface waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean and in temperate
coastal waters of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean.
Aerobic photosynthetic bacteria differ from their evolutionary predecessors,
purple photosynthetic bacteria, in that they need oxygen for pigmentation,
and perform oxygen-based respiration. Prior to Kolber's work, aerobic
photosynthetic bacteria had been found exclusively in nutrient-rich but
geographically-limited ecological niches, such as beach sands, hydrothermal
vents, and certain bacterial mats formed of cyanobacteria. The distribution
of aerobic photosynthetic bacteria in the world's open oceans is not known,
but Kolber and colleagues believe that these bacteria may account for
some two to five percent of the photosynthesis in the upper ocean.
The research, say Kolber and colleagues Cindy Van Dover of the College
of William and Mary and Robert Niederman and Paul Falkowski of Rutgers,
may have important implications for global carbon cycling, and may ultimately
increase our understanding of global climate change. [Cheryl Dybas] Top of Page
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