August 28, 1998
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Editor: Cheryl Dybas
Contents of this News Tip:
The world's largest scientific drillship, the research vessel JOIDES
Resolution, sailed into Australia's Sydney harbor on August 11th, completing
a two-month expedition to investigate an active seafloor fault zone off
the east coast of Papua New Guinea.
Scientists aboard the cruise, conducted under the aegis of the international
Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and funded in large part by the National
Science Foundation (NSF), gained a better understanding of how tectonic
plates slip, often causing large earthquakes and tsunamis that devastate
geologically unstable parts of the world. Specialized drilling equipment
aboard the ship was used to recover sediment and rock samples from more
than 900 meters (some 3,000 feet) beneath the seafloor. Sensitive instruments
were lowered into these holes to record the borehole temperature and to
measure the conditions at depth.
Earthquakes, faults, volcanoes, and hot springs attest to the active
tearing-apart of the Papua New Guinea continent, one of the most active
regions of continental break-up in the world. Knowing how earth's crust
in this region moved over time, scientists can reconstruct how the area
formed, and what its future might be. What was once a terrestrial area
of islands, swamps, and lagoons six million years ago, for example, now
lies several miles below sea level.
Early results from the cruise also have extended the known limit of
the deep sub-seafloor biosphere; living microbial life was found in hard
sedimentary rock as old as 15 million years, and as deep as 846 meters
(2,776 feet) under the ocean floor. [Cheryl Dybas]
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Could a tiny microchip placed in every food package at your neighborhood
supermarket help ensure that your family dinner is safe to eat? Could
genetic manipulation be used to prevent bacteria from forming on food?
Engineers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) are studying
these and other previously unimagined ways of enhancing food safety. This
week's announcement of a Presidential Food Safety Council demonstrates
that public concern over food safety remains high, years after a series
of well-publicized contamination incidents. Janie Fouke of NSF's bioengineering
and environmental systems division says, "Fifty years ago, most food products
virtually went from the garden to the kitchen table. Today, there are
many more steps in the process - each of which can be a site for contamination.
Finding slight, but dangerous, contamination in a large quantity of food
is quite a challenge. Food safety is an important issue that requires
a multi-disciplinary approach." [Joel Blumenthal]
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The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) is celebrating
the inauguration of the most powerful controlled-power magnet in the world.
The NHMFL expects the 60 Tesla [T] Long-Pulse Magnet to provide a powerful
research tool for scientists from industry, government and academia.
Supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and
the State of Florida, the NHMFL is a partnership between Florida State
University, the University of Florida and Los Alamos National Laboratory
in New Mexico.
When running at 60T, the magnet can generate fields roughly 1.5 million
times stronger than Earth's magnetic field. Since steady state magnets
tend to melt or explode when subjected to the physical stresses of producing
such high-energy magnetic fields, this magnet operates in pulses to create
and sustain powerful, yet more stable fields. Although only lasting for
milliseconds, these pulses can provide researchers with unique opportunities
to explore properties of materials in ways they previously could not.
In addition, scientists can tailor the shape, duration and power of
the magnetic field pulses to suit a variety of experiments. The magnet
will likely be able to provide scientists with insight on the development
of better superconductors or the nature of the magnetic properties of
organisms. Already, experiments with the magnet have demonstrated its
potential to revolutionize research using pulsed magnetic fields. [Greg
Lester]
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