 |
      |
 |
 |
||
 |
|
 |
||
 |
|
 |
||
|
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: Cheryl Dybas Contents of this News Tip:
UNDERSTANDING DEEP-OCEAN EARTHQUAKESWhat causes large faults in the earth's crust -- those that cause big earthquakes -- to move so easily? Scientists supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) are addressing this question during the current expedition of the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). The research vessel JOIDES Resolution departed Darwin, Australia, on June 12, and will return to Sydney, Australia, on August 11. Geologist Brian Taylor of the University of Hawaii is one of two co-chief scientists aboard the vessel. Faults, cracks in earth's crust, produce earthquakes when they move or slip. The movement of the largest faults, such as those involved in the motion of earth's plates, is hard for scientists to predict. To investigate this puzzle, the ODP scientific team will sample an active fault in the Woodlark Basin near Papua New Guinea. In this basin, the seafloor is spreading apart to form new oceanic crust. Researchers will drill at the western end of the basin, where faults associated with the basin opening reach up into the continental crust of the land on Papua New Guinea. "To understand what's different about this fault zone that enables it to so readily move, we have to sample the rocks and fluid in the place where it's slipping, which is no easy task," explains Taylor. The primary drillhole is intended to intersect the fault at 900 meters (more than 2,700 feet) below the seafloor, and may continue as far down as 1,200 meters (more than 3,600 feet). The team will have to work in an environment hostile to recovering geologic samples, says Taylor, because of the tremendous forces at work in this area, where earth's crust is rapidly pulling apart. [Cheryl Dybas] FEDERAL OBLIGATIONS FOR R&D; MIXED FOR 1998NSF's division of science resources studies (SRS) reports that for 1998, inflation-adjusted federal obligations for basic and applied research are headed upward by about one percent over projections for 1997. The new information on federal obligations for R&D; comes from a 1997 survey of 31 federal agencies as summarized in a newly published NSF Data Brief. The survey also revealed that while research obligations are on a modest upward turn, agencies are predicting an overall four-percent decline in development funding and a 15-percent decline for R&D; plant obligations for 1998, also inflation-adjusted from the previous year. The reports generated for the SRS survey showed that the major downturn in R&D; plant obligations was due primarily to a combined $325 million in projected reductions among three agencies - NASA and the Departments of Health and Human Services, and Agriculture. These reductions offset gains expected from all other federal agencies reporting. Basic and applied research now each comprises 21 percent of total federal R&D; obligations. In 1992, the research share was only 18 percent of the total in R&D.; [Bill Noxon] For the entire data brief, see: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/databrf/db.htm ENZYME MAY 'CLEAN UP' EXCESS NITROGEN IN WATERNSF-funded researchers at Michigan Technological University (MTU) in Houghton, Michigan, are studying an enzyme that is being used to help clean up the environment, and may be part of the solution to the global problem of excess nitrate and related nitrogen nutrients in water in lakes, ponds, and the sea. The enzyme -- nitrate reductase -- comes from plants, where it plays a central role in nitrate processing. Nitrate reductase is found in virtually every plant on earth, and is an efficient enzyme with an important job in nitrogen metabolism in plants, according to biochemist Wilbur Campbell of MTU's Phytotechnology Research Center. Plants don't need much nitrate reductase to get their nitrogen-reducing needs met, however, and so don't manufacture much of the enzyme. In an attempt to overcome what Campbell calls the "scarcity factor," he's working to develop a process that will result in production of large enough amounts of this enzyme to allow biologists to adequately study it. Explains Campbell, "This is the first step in making nitrate reductase available on a large scale, which will make it useful to industry." Nitrate reductase currently has a role in environmental biotechnology, where it's being used in a nitrate-based method of water quality testing. [Cheryl Dybas]
|
||||
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |