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| For more information on these science news and feature story tips, please contact the public information officer at the end of each item at (703) 292-8070. Editor: Beth Gaston Contents of this Tipsheet:
ROBOTIC TELESCOPE SEARCHES FOR SUPERNOVASThe most sensitive fully robotic telescope anywhere, the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), will allow astronomers to search for and monitor supernovas or exploding stars without spending endless hours looking through a telescope. The KAIT, located at Lick Observatory at the University of California, can track an area of the sky for hours, better than any other robotic telescope now in operation, and can detect objects 10,000 times fainter than other such telescopes can recognize. The KAIT, funded largely through an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, obtains astronomical images using a separate charge-coupled device (CCD) imaging system for a guide star that allows it to remain precisely fixed on a given area of the sky. Other robotic telescopes use simpler tracking that allows a star to drift significantly in a couple of minutes. "There have been other robotic telescopes, but this implementation is the most complex, and addresses a complicated astrophysical problem," said Eileen Friel, program director for NSF's Division of Stellar Astronomy and Astrophysics. The KAIT will be used to check the night sky for flaring supernovas, to follow the brightness of variable stars and to observe changing objects. Since it is under computer control, it can also use complex software to analyze the data. The computer can automatically change the priority of a given target, depending on whether observations were successful in preceding nights. More broadly, the techniques of remote CCD imaging and software analysis have wide applications in other scientific fields and in medicine. [Cary Lee Hanes]
GREEN GLOW: NOT ONLY FOR HALLOWEENMore than two millennia ago, the Roman natural philosopher Pliny the Elder wrote of a "slime" that could be obtained from marine creatures and used to make objects glow green. Today, molecular and cellular biologists have turned this marvel into a powerful research tool used to illuminate the workings of genes and follow the wanderings of protein molecules inside a living cell. The source of the green glow is a unique protein, called green fluorescent protein (GFP), found in a Pacific Northwest jellyfish. NSF-supported biologists James Remington of the University of Oregon and Roger Tsien of the University of California at San Diego have determined the structure of an altered form of the protein and revealed the source of the green glow. "The unusual molecule responsible for the glow resembles a Chinese finger puzzle: a barrel-shaped structure with a coil of amino acids corked in the center," explained Kamal Shukla, program director in NSF's division of molecular and cellular biosciences, which funded the research. "The green color results from the collapse of one turn of the coil to form a ring of three amino acids." The researchers chose to study the modified GFP because it is more useful for cell biologists, glowing much more brightly than the natural variant. Modifications have also changed the color of the glow. The uses for GFP are almost unlimited, they say. In gene therapy, doctors could inject GFP along with the therapy substance, and by checking for fluorescence, determine whether the therapy had been properly delivered. By "tuning" the green dye to different colors, scientists studying vision may be able to gain insight into how the human eye is able to respond to so many different colors. Said Kamal Shukla, "Pliny the Elder probably never would have guessed where his original observations would lead." [Cheryl Dybas]
THE SWALLOWING OF EARTH'S OCEAN FLOORSAn international team of scientists representing nine countries is about to board the drill ship JOIDES Resolution--currently docked in San Diego, California--for an Ocean Drilling Program expedition to the continental margin off Costa Rica. The researchers hope to determine the ages and compositions of the area's rocks and sediments and their chemical and physical properties. They will also use a newly developed tool called "LWD," or Logging While Drilling. The LWD technique samples chemical and physical properties within the drill hole while drilling is occurring, giving scientists "pristine" results unaffected by the vertical movements of the drill. The NSF-supported team is led by geologists Eli Silver of the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Gaku Kimura of the University of Osaka in Japan. "The Costa Rica margin is an important location where tectonic plates collide," explained Silver, "forcing one plate to slide under the other, creating a subduction zone." Subduction zones are the most active features on Earth, added Bruce Malfait, director of NSF's Ocean Drilling Program. "They control the movement of plates, produce most of the world's volcanic and seismic activity, and play a key role in recycling surface material to great depths within the Earth." With this expedition, scientists hope to make major inroads into understanding this recycling process. [Cheryl Dybas]
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