CarnegieScienceThe Newsletter of the Carnegie Institution

S U M M E R 2 0 1 3

EMBRYOLOGY N GEOPHYSICAL LABORATORY N GLOBAL ECOLOGY N THE OBSERVATORIES N

PLANT BIOLOGY N TERRESTRIAL MAGNETISM N CASE: CARNEGIE ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION

On the Inside

7 Rare Triplet Quasar Discovered

8 New Cancer Diagnostic Technique

10 Male Lions: Not Slackers After All

12 Sleuthing Early Tectonics

Carnegie Institution for Science1530 P Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20005-1910

202.387.6400www.CarnegieScience.edu

PresidentRichard A. Meserve

Director, Department of EmbryologyAllan C. Spradling

Director, Geophysical LaboratoryRussell Hemley

Director, Department of Global EcologyChristopher Field

Director, The ObservatoriesCrawford H. Greenewalt ChairWendy L. Freedman

Director, Department of Plant BiologyWolf Frommer

Director, Department of Terrestrial MagnetismLinda Elkins-Tanton

Director, Administration and FinanceCynthia Allen

Chief Advancement OfficerRick Sherman

Chief Information OfficerGotthard Sághi-Szabó

Director, External AffairsSusanne Garvey

EditorTina McDowell

Science Writer Natasha Metzler

Mike Gellert has served as the chairman of the Carnegie board for the last10 years and as a board member for 18. At our recent board meeting, he turned overthe helm to our new cochairs, Suzanne Nora Johnson and Steve Fodor. I write here toacknowledge that we are deeply appreciative of Mike and all he has done for the CarnegieInstitution. Carnegie owes much of its current vitality to his decade of leadership.

Mike became chairman at the same time that I became president, and I havegreatly benefitted from his counsel and wisdom. Moreover, the entire institution hasadvanced as a result of his philanthropy and guidance. He has helped all of ourscience and educational programs, and he has been pivotal in the resolution of amyriad of institutional issues that have arisen over the past decade. Carnegie hasprofited from the many insights Mike has offered as a member of various boardcommittees and as chairman.

Mike demonstrates his commitment by his actions. He is among the first to makea pledge and the first to fulfill it. Only four others have surpassed him in giving overour entire history. Moreover, Mike has also actively encouraged philanthropy by others.Over the years, he has hosted numerous events and has traveled countless miles tohelp broaden the circle of Carnegie friends.

In addition to his exemplary philanthropy, Mike has engaged personally in thepursuit of several noteworthy projects. He was deeply involved with establishing theDepartment of Global Ecology, our newest department. With only five senior staff,Global Ecology has made revolutionary advances in studying ecosystems using theCarnegie Airborne Observatory (page 10-11), understanding ocean acidification,unraveling the causes of aquatic algal blooms, exploring the carbon and nitrogencycles, and much more. The accomplishments of the department are nothing short ofastonishing and amply demonstrate Mike’s wisdom in advancing a department toconfront vital environmental challenges.

During Mike’s term, we were also able to complete a new building for theDepartment of Embryology on The Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus. It was essential to upgrade the facility and to provide cutting-edge microscopy andgenomics facilities to remain at the forefront of cellular, developmental, and geneticsbiology. The facility is a model for others. Mike understands the necessity of high-quality infrastructure in the pursuit of significant scientific advances.

Mike is also committed to long-term projects, one of which is the Giant MagellanTelescope (GMT). In 2003, our astronomers advanced the dream of building atelescope that would dwarf anything previously built. Mike realized that thecommitment would take many years to fulfill, and if we did not get started we woulddepart from our century-long legacy of pioneering telescope and instrumentationdevelopment. Like Andrew Carnegie, Mike knew that success would be measuredlong after he left the chairmanship of the Carnegie board. The GMT will exploresome of the most tantalizing scientific questions that now confound us—the possibleexistence of life on other planets, the nature of dark energy and dark matter, and thestructure of the universe.

We are indebted to Mike for his extraordinary, unselfish, and generous support.From all of us at Carnegie, thank you Mike!

LETTER FROM THE

PRESIDENT

Richard A. Meserve, President

Thank You Mike Gellert!

he board of trustees held their 138th meeting at theWashington, D.C., administration building on May 2nd and 3rd. MichaelGellert, chairman of the board for the last ten years, stepped down as chair.He remains an active member of the board and is succeeded by cochairsSuzanne Nora Johnson and Steve Fodor, who will share duties.

The Employee Affairs, Finance, and Development committees met onMay 2nd, followed by the first session of the board. That evening trustees and guests at-tended a dinner in honor of Michael Gellert’s service. During the dinner PresidentRichard Meserve announced that the administration building’s stunning rotunda wouldbe named the Michael E. Gellert Rotunda.

Norman Augustine was the evening’s speaker. He is the retired chairman and chief ex-ecutive officer of Lockheed Martin Corporation and a longtime proponent for ensur-ing that science and engineering remains a national priority. He chaired the NationalAcademy of Sciences commission that conducted a congressionally requested study thatbecame the landmark report Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employ-ing America for a Brighter Economic Future released in 2005.

Augustine talked about the enormous impact of globalization and information technology on societies. “Distance is dead,” he said. “America now has to compete for jobswith people across the planet.” He then described the challenges the U.S. faces in this environment, stressing that innovation—particularly through research and develop-ment—is key to successful competition. Augustine talked about the reasons for the recent decline the U.S. has witnessed in science and technology education and how the U.S. now stacks up against the world, and he suggested some possible ways tochange course.

The evening concluded with music by pianist and composer Hayk Arsenyan. The nextday the Audit committee and second session of the board met. �

T

Left: Carnegie president Richard Meserve(left) unveils the plaque naming the MichaelE. Gellert Rotunda.

Below: Trustees and guests applaud MikeGellert’s (sitting) service to Carnegie aschairman of the board over the last decade.

Bottom: The Gellert family gathers in therotunda that now bears Michael Gellert’sname. From left to right: daughter CatherineGellert, brother Martin Gellert, Martin’s wifeJacqueline Michaud, wife Mary Gellert,Michael Gellert, daughter-in-law SamanthaGellert, and son John Gellert.

Images courtesy G

ediyon Kifle

Carnegie Science | Summer 2013 3

Trustee News

Serving ScienceCarnegie president Richard Meserve presentedtwo Service to Science Awards for 2012 before theCarnegie Evening lecture on May 1. The award was cre-ated to recognize “outstanding and/or unique contri-butions to science by employees who work in Carnegieadministration, support, and technical positions.”

The first recipient of the 2012 award was KathiBump. Kathi started with the Department of Plant

cont inued on pg 4Kathi Bump (left) with Wolf Frommer Steve Coley

Greg Asner compared his work in the GlobalEcology department to giving an ecosystem’slandscape an MRI—using technology to deter-mine its construction and components. Asner dis-cussed his research in a talk titled “Exploring andManaging the Earth from the Sky” at the MayCarnegie Evening lecture in Washington, D.C.

Asner’s revolutionary technology combines laserand spectral instrumentation aboard a fixed-wingaircraft called the Carnegie Airborne Observatory(CAO). Researchers use this instrumentation to re-veal an ecosystem’s chemistry, structure, biomass,and biodiversity and create stunning 3-D maps.The technology allows surveys over extensive areasin a way not possible before.

“We had limited types of information aboutecosystems; the Carnegie Airborne Observatory[is] designed to overcome that,” Asner told thegroup. By using CAO’s laser and spectral tech-nology, “we can look at something from afar andunderstand, for example, its carbon content [and]its … nutrient content.”

Most of Asner’s talk focused on his work in theAmazon, which he said is “where my science heartlies.” The region is thought to contain about halfof all species on Earth and at least 100-billion tonsof carbon. The team has completed maps of theentire carbon stocks of Peru, Colombia, andPanama. Activities are underway to map for thefirst time the biological diversity of the westernAmazon region—a global hotspot for species di-versity.

Carnegie Science | Summer 20134

The Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Avatar Alliance Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Grantham Foundation for theProtection of the Environment, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, Mary Anne Nyburg Bakerand G. Leonard Baker, Jr., the W. M. Keck Foundation, and William R. Hearst III helped make the Carnegie Airborne Observatory possible.

Unfortunately, land development for energy,food, and minerals is dismantling the Amazonbasin. The Amazonian climate has also already be-gun to change, and species are migrating to survive.

“I’m trying to understand the system while it’schanging, and it’s changing in ways that aren’teven the same year to year,” Asner said. “There’s somuch going on and there’s not one answer.”

Using the CAO, the team is able to uncover ille-gal gold mining and palm oil holdings, which arenegatively affecting the Amazon’s ecosystem. Theyare also studying drought patterns in the wake ofthe 2010 Amazon megadrought.

Outside of the Amazon, CAO technology is be-ing used to study wildlife, as well as plant life. As-ner discussed exciting research in South Africa’sKruger National Park where their mapping hasshed light on the hunting behavior of male lions,revealing that they aren’t the slackers they’ve longbeen believed to be. Their hunting behavior is justless well-observed, because it takes place in densevegetation “where nobody in their right mind isgoing to go. Believe me I've been there and I was-not in my right mind,” Asner joked. These resultshelp park officials make decisions on managingthe land to best protect the animals.

At the end of the talk, Asner said his goals for CAOinclude seeking out ecological frontiers that are stillunknown and unappreciated, to support environ-mental decision making, and to teach and inspire.

�

Biology in 1995 as an ad-ministrative assistant. Sheheld various positions at thedepartment until 2006,when she was named thebusiness manager of thePlant Biology and GlobalEcology departments thatshare space on the StanfordUniversity campus. Kathi’slevel of dedication is leg-endary. She handles issuesranging from accounting,inventory, facilities, and thecare of students and visitorsto the proper functioning ofthe soda machine.

The second 2012 recipientwas Steve Coley. Steve joinedthe Geophysical Laboratoryas an instrument maker in1983. He has provided essen-tial support in developingand maintaining complexand highly specialized equip-ment at the GeophysicalLaboratory. The instrumentsand equipment that Stevedeveloped have been essen-tial to the cutting-edge re-search and groundbreakingdiscoveries of the scientificstaff at the Geophysical Lab.Due in large part to Steve’sabilities, the facilities of theGeophysical Laboratory areexceptional among Earthand materials science labora-tories around the world.

The panel that reviewedthe nominations and se-lected the award recipientswere Alan Dressler, staff sci-entist at the Observatories;Steve Farber, staff scientist atthe Department of Embryol-ogy; and Cady Canapp,manager of human re-sources. �

Global Ecology’sGreg Asner was thisyear’s CarnegieEvening speaker.

cont inued f rom pg 3

Carnegie Evening: Asner’s “Science Heart”

New theoretical modeling by Carnegie’s Alan Boss providesclues as to how our Solar System’s gas giant planets—Jupiter and Sat-urn—might have formed and evolved. The Astrophysical Journal pub-lished this work in March.

New stars are surrounded by rotating gas disks during the early stagesof their lives. Gas giants are thought to form in the presence of these disks.Observations of young stars that still have these gas disks indicate that sun-like stars undergo periodic episodes—lasting about 100 years—thattransfer mass from the disk onto the young star, increasing its luminos-ity. Researchers think that these short bursts of mass accretion are drivenby marginal gravitational instability in the gas disk.

There are competing theories for how gas giant planets form aroundprotosuns. One theory proposes that the planets form from slowlygrowing ice and rock cores, followed by rapid accretion of gas from thesurrounding disk. The other theory proposes that clumps of dense gasform in spiral arms, increasing in mass and density, forming a gas gi-ant planet in a single step.

Boss developed highly detailed 3-D models demonstrating that, re-gardless of how gas giants form, they should be able to survive periodicoutbursts of mass transfer from the gas disk onto the young star.

One model similar to our Solar System was stable for more than 1,000years, while another model containing planets similar to Jupiter andSaturn was stable for more than 3,800 years. The models showed thatthese planets were able to avoid being forced to migrate inward and beswallowed by the growing protosun or being tossed completely out ofthe planetary system by close encounters with each other.

Scientists have found extrasolar gas giant planets around about 20%of sun-like stars, which is a reassuring out-

come. It suggests that our improvedtheoretical understanding of

the formation and orbitalevolution of gas giants ison the right track. �

This research was supported in part by theNASA Origins of Solar Systems Program andcontributed to in part by the NASA AstrobiologyInstitute. The calculations were performed onthe Carnegie Alpha Cluster, the purchase ofwhich was partially supported by an NSF MajorResearch Instrumentation grant.

GasGiants Hard to Destroy

Alan Boss

Image courtesy N

ASA

Alan Boss is developing theoriesabout how gas giant planets likeJupiter formed and survived inthe early days of our SolarSystem. Jupiter and its fourplanet-sized moons, the Galileansatellites, were photographedand assembled into a collage.

Mineral evolution is an approachto understanding Earth’s ever-changing near-surface geochem-istry. All chemical elements werepresent at the start of our Solar Sys-tem, but at first the elements formedfew minerals—perhaps no more than500 different ones in the first billion years.As time passed, novel combinations of elementsled to new minerals. A team led by Carnegie’sRobert Hazen is conducting research with the min-eral molybdenite, and their work provides impor-tant new insights about the changing chemistry ofour planet as a result of geological and biologicalprocesses.

Molybdenite is the most common ore mineral of the criticalmetallic element molybdenum. Hazen and his team, which in-cluded fellow Geophysical Laboratory scientists Dimitri Sverjenskyand John Armstrong, analyzed 442 molybdenite samples from 135locations with ages ranging from 2.91 billion years old to 6.3 mil-lion years old. They specifically looked for trace contamination ofthe element rhenium in the molybdenite. Rhenium is a trace ele-ment that is sensitive to oxidation reactions (the transfer of elec-trons) and it can be used to gauge historical chemical reactions withoxygen from the environment.

The team found that concentrations of rhenium increased signifi-cantly—by a factor of eight—over the past three billion years. They

suggest that this change reflectsthe increasing near-surface oxida-

tion conditions from the Archean eonbeginning more than 2.5 billion years ago

to the Phanerozoic eon less than 542 millionyears ago. This oxygen increase was a consequenceof what’s called the Great Oxidation Event, whenthe Earth’s atmospheric oxygen levels skyrocketedas a consequence of the emergence of oxygen-producing photosynthetic microbes.

In addition, the team found that the distributionof molybdenite deposits through time roughly correlates with five pe-riods of supercontinent formation: the assemblies of Kenorland,Nuna, Rodinia, Pannotia, and Pangaea. This correlation supportsprevious findings from Hazen and his colleagues that mineral for-mation increases markedly during episodes of continental convergenceand supercontinent assembly and that a dearth of mineral depositsform during periods of tectonic stability.

Overall, this work further demonstrates that a major driving forcefor mineral evolution is hydrothermal activity associated with collid-ing continents and the increasing oxygen content of the atmospherecaused by the rise of life on Earth. Earth and Planetary Science Letterspublished this work in February. �

The Carnegie Institution for Science provided a grant to support the initial development of the Mineral Evolution Database. NASA Astrobiology Institute and the Deep Carbon Observatory, aswell as an NSF-NASA collaborative research grant and DOE, supported this work in part.

Spotlight on Molybdenite

Robert Hazen

Robert Hazen’s research shows that molybdenite distributioncorrelates with five periods ofsupercontinent formation, including that of Pangaea.

Image courtesy USGS

Image courtesy John C

hapman W

ikimedia C

omm

ons

6

Molybdenite (dark) is shown on quartz.

Hubble Carnegie/Princeton FellowMichele Fumagalli

This research was based on observations collected at the La Silla Observatory with the NewTechnology Telescope of the European Southern Observatory and at the Calar Alto Observatorywith the 3.5 m telescope of the Centro Astronómico Hispano-Alemán. Societa Carlo GavazziS.pA., Thales Alenia Space S.pA., Germany’s National Research Center for Aeronautics andSpace, and NASA supported this work.

RareTriplet QuasarDiscovered

For only the second time in history, a team of scientists—in-cluding Hubble Carnegie/Princeton Fellow Michele Fumagalli—has dis-covered an extremely rare triple-quasar system. This rare phenomenonwill help scientists understand how cosmic structures assemble in the uni-verse and the basic processes by which massive galaxies form.

Quasars are extremely bright and powerful sources of energy that sitin the center of a galaxy; they surround a black hole. In systems with mul-tiple quasars, the quasars are held together by gravity. They are believedto be the product of galaxies colliding.

It is very difficult to observe triplet quasar systems because of obser-vational limits that prevent researchers from differentiating multiplenearby bodies from one another at astronomical distances. Moreover,such phenomena are presumed to be very rare.

By combining multiple telescope observations and advanced mod-eling, the team found the triplet quasar named QQQ J1519+0627. Thelight from these quasars traveled 9 billion light-years to reach Earth,which means the light was emitted when the universe was only a thirdof its current age.

Advanced analysis confirmed that what the team found was indeedthree distinct sources of quasar energy and that this phenomenon is ex-tremely rare.

Two members of the triplet are closer to each other than the third.This means that the system could have been formed by interaction be-tween the two adjacent quasars but was probably not triggered by in-teraction with the more-distant third quasar. Furthermore, researcherssaw no evidence of any ultraluminous infrared galaxies, which is wherequasars are commonly found. As a result, the team proposes that thistriple-quasar system is part of some larger structure that is still un-dergoing formation. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societypublished this work in March. �

Image courtesy M

ichele Fumagalli

Image courtesy Em

anuele Paolo Farina

Carnegie Science | Summer 2013 7

This image shows thequasars—A, B, and C—in the rare triplet system.

Cancer cells break downsugars and produce the meta-bolic acid lactate at a muchhigher rate than normal cells.This phenomenon provides atelltale sign that cancer is pres-ent and possibly offers an av-enue for novel cancer therapies.Carnegie’s WolfFrommer workedwith a team ofChilean scientists todevise a molecularsensor that detectslevels of lactate inindividual cells inreal time. Prior tothis advance, noother measurementmethod could nonin-vasively detect lactatein real time at the single-celllevel.

Over the last decade, theFrommer lab has pioneered theuse of Förster resonance energytransfer (FRET) sensors tomeasure the concentration andflow of sugars in individual cellswith a simple fluorescent colorchange, revolutionizing thestudy of cell metabolism. Usingthe same underlying physicalprinciple and inspired by thesugar sensors, Frommer and theChilean scientists invented a

new type of sen-sor based on atranscription factor. A mole-cule that nor-mally helps bac-teria adapt to its

environment hasnow been tricked

into measuring lactate for re-searchers.

Lactate shuttles between cellsand inside cells as part of thenormal metabolic process. Butlactate is also involved in dis-eases that include inflammation,inadequate oxygen supply tocells, restricted blood supply totissues, and neurological degra-dation, in addition to cancer.Standard methods to measurelactate are based on reactionsamong enzymes, which requirea large number of cells in com-

plex cell mixtures. This makes itdifficult or even impossible tosee how different types of cellsact when cancerous. The newtechnique lets researchers meas-ure the metabolism of individ-ual cells, giving them a new win-dow for understanding howdifferent cancers operate. Animportant advantage of thistechnique is that it may be usedin high-throughput format,which is required for drug de-velopment.

The research team used a bac-terial transcription factor—aprotein that binds to specificDNA sequences to control the

flow of genetic informationfrom DNA to mRNA—as ameans to produce and insert thelactate sensor. They turned thesensor on in three cell types:normal brain cells, tumor braincells, and human embryoniccells. The sensor was able toquantify very low concentra-tions of lactate, providing anunprecedented sensitivity andrange of detection. The re-searchers found that the tumorcells produced lactate three tofive times faster than the non-tumor cells. The open accessjournal PLOS ONE publishedthis work in March. �

NewCancer

DiagnosticTechnique

Carnegie Science | Summer 20138

The Chilean government, through the National Commission for Scientific and TechnologicalResearch’s (CONICYT) Basal Financing Program for Scientific and Technological Centers ofExcellence, the Gobierno Regional de Los Ríos, and the National Fund for Scientific andTechnological Development (Fondecyt); the National Institutes of Health; and the CarnegieInstitution for Science supported this work.

Frommer’s teamdevised a newmolecular sensor thatdetects levels oflactate in individualcells in real time.Cancer cells, like thisbreast cancer cellshown here, producelactate at a muchhigher rate thannormal cells.

Image courtesy B

ruce Wetzel and H

arry Schaefer, National C

ancer Institute, NIH

Plant Biology directorWolf Frommer

An international team of astronomersincluding Carnegie’s Ian Thompson hasmanaged to improve the measurement ofthe distance to our nearest neighbor galaxyand, in the process, refine an astronomicalcalculation that helps measure the expan-sion of the universe.

The Hubble constant is a fundamentalquantity that measures the current rate atwhich our universe is expanding. Deter-mining the Hubble constant is critical forgauging the age and size of our universe.One of the largest uncertainties plaguingpast measurements has involved the dis-tance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC),our nearest neighboring galaxy.

The team refined the uncertainty in thedistance to the LMC down to 2.2 percent.This new measurement can be used to de-crease the uncertainty in calculations of theHubble constant to 3 percent, with prospectsof improving this to a 2 percent uncertaintyin a few years.

Astronomers survey the scale of the uni-verse by first measuring the distances to close-by objects and then using observations ofthese objects in more distant galaxies to pindown distances farther and farther out in theuniverse. But this chain is only as accurate asits weakest link. Up to now, finding a precisedistance to the LMC has proved elusive. Be-cause stars in this galaxy are used to fix the dis-tance scale for more remote galaxies, an ac-curate distance to it is crucially important.

Because the LMC is close and contains asignificant number of different stellar dis-tance indicators, hundreds of distance meas-urements using it have been recorded overthe years. Unfortunately nearly all the deter-minations have systemic errors, with eachmethod carrying uncertainties.

The international collaboration worked outthe distance to the LMC by observing rareclose pairs of stars, known as eclipsing bina-ries. These pairs are gravitationally bound toeach other, and once per orbit—as seen

from Earth—the totalbrightness from thesystem drops as eachcomponent eclipses itscompanion. By track-ing these changes very

carefully, it is pos-sible to work outhow big the starsare, how massivethey are, andother informa-tion about theirorbits. When thisis combined withcareful measure-ments of their ap-parent brightness,remarkably accu-

rate distances can be determined.This method has been used before in taking

measurements to the LMC, but with hot stars.As such, certain assumptions had to be madeand the distances were not as accurate as de-sired. The team’s new work used 16 years’worth of observations to identify a sample ofintermediate mass binary stars with extremelylong orbital periods, perfect for measuringprecise and accurate distances.

The team observed eight of these binarysystems over eight years. The LMC distancecalculated using these eight binaries is purelyempirical, without relying on modeling ortheoretical predictions. The research was pub-lished in Nature in March. �

BASAL-Centro de Astrofisica y Tecnologias Afines (CATA),the Polish Ministry of Science, the Foundation for PolishScience (FOCUS, TEAM), the Polish National ScienceCentre, and the GEMINI-CONICYT fund supported this work.The European Research Council Advanced Grant programgave funding to the OGLE project.

Refining Hubble’s Constant

Image courtesy ESA

/NA

SA/H

ubble

Our galactic neighbor,the Large MagellanicCloud, is about 200,000light-years from Earth.Gas clouds collapseover time to form newstars producingcelestial fireworks.

Ian Thompson

Carnegie Science | Summer 2013 9

Male Lions: Not Slackers After All

t has long been believed that male lions are de-pendent on females when it comes to hunting. Butnew evidence suggests that male lions are, in fact, verysuccessful hunters in their own right. A new reportfrom a team including Carnegie’s Scott Loarie andGreg Asner showed that male lions use dense savannavegetation for ambush-style hunting in Africa.

Female lions have long been observed to rely on co-operative strategies to hunt their prey. While somestudies demonstrated that male lions are as capable athunting as females, the males are less likely to coop-erate, so there were still questions as to how the malesmanage to hunt successfully. The possibility that malelions used vegetation for ambushing prey was con-sidered, but it was difficult to study given the logisticsand dangers of making observations of lions indensely vegetated portions of the African savanna.Loarie and Asner combined different types of tech-

nology to change the game. The team swept laserpulses across the African plains to create 3-D mapsof the savanna vegetation. They did this using aLight Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) scannermounted on the fixed-wing Carnegie Airborne Ob-servatory (CAO) aircraft. They combined these 3-D habitat maps with GPS data on predator-prey in-teractions from a pride of seven lions in SouthAfrica’s Kruger National Park to quantify the linesof sight, or “viewsheds,” where lions did their killingin comparison to where they rested.

The team found that a preference for shadecaused both male and female lions to rest in areaswith dense vegetation and similarly short view-sheds during the day; the real difference betweenmales and females emerged at night. Female lionsboth rested and hunted under the cover of darknessin areas with large viewsheds. But male lionshunted at night in the dense vegetation—areaswhere prey is highly vulnerable, but which re-searchers rarely explore. The scientific results showthat hunting success among male lions is linked toambushing prey from behind vegetation, unlikethe cooperative strategies employed by female lionsin open grassy savannas. By strongly linking malelion-hunting behavior to dense vegetation, thisstudy suggests that changes to vegetation struc-ture—such as through fire management—couldgreatly alter the balance between predator and prey.With large mammals increasingly confined to pro-tected areas, understanding how to maintain theirhabitat to best support their natural behavior is acritical conservation priority.

The authors emphasized that their findingsshould be confirmed in other studies throughoutAfrica’s savannas. Nevertheless, these results couldhave major implications for park management,which is often heavily involved with manipulatingvegetation. Animal Behavior published their workin March. �

A grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded this research.The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Grantham Foundation forthe Protection of the Environment, Avatar Alliance Foundation, W. M.Keck Foundation, the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, Mary Anne NyburgBaker and G. Leonard Baker, Jr., and William R. Hearst III make theCarnegie Airborne Observatory possible.

Image courtesy P

etr Kratochvil, publicdom

ainpictures.netIm

age below, courtesy C

arnegie Airborne O

bservatory

Male lions such asthis one take downprey using ambushstrategies, ratherthan the cooperativestrategies favored byfemale lions.

Instrumentation is mounted on the fixed-wingCarnegie Airborne Observatory plane.

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A research team led byCarnegie’s Anna Michalakdetermined that the 2011record-breaking algal bloom inLake Erie was triggered by long-term agricultural practices cou-pled with extreme precipitation,followed by weak lake circula-tion and warm temperatures.The team also predicted that,unless agricultural policieschange, the lake will continue toexperience extreme blooms. Theresearch, published in the Pro-ceedings of the National Academyof Sciences in April, was widelycovered by the media.

Freshwater algal blooms canresult when excessive amountsof phosphorus and nitrogen areadded to the water, typically asrunoff from agricultural fertil-izer. These excess nutrients en-courage unusual algae and

aquatic plant growth. When theplants and algae die, the decom-posers that feed on them use upoxygen, which can drop to levelstoo low for aquatic life to thrive.In the beginning, the Lake Eriealgae were almost entirely Mi-crocystis, an organism that pro-duces a liver toxin and can causeskin irritation.

The scientists combined sam-pling and satellite-based obser-vations of the lake with com-puter simulations. The algalbloom began in the western re-gion of the lake in mid-July andcovered an area of 230 squaremiles (600 km2). At its peak inOctober, the bloom had ex-panded to over 1,930 squaremiles (5,000 km2). Its peak in-tensity was over three timesgreater than any other algalbloom on record.

The researchers looked atnumerous factors that couldhave contributed to the bloom,including land use, agriculturalpractices, runoff, wind, tem-perature, precipitation, andcirculation. The use of threeagricultural nutrient manage-ment practices in the areacould lead to increased nutri-ent runoff: autumn fertiliza-tion, broadcast fertilization,and reduced tillage. Thesepractices have increased in theregion over the last decade.

Conditions in the fall of 2010were ideal for harvesting andpreparing the fields, including

increasing fertilizer applicationfor the following spring’s plant-ing. A series of strong storms inthe spring of 2011 caused largeamounts of phosphorus to runoff into the lake. This onslaughtresulted in among the largestobserved spring phosphorusloads since 1975, when intensivemonitoring began. Lake Eriewas not unusually calm andwarm before the bloom. But after the bloom began, warmerwater and weaker currents en-couraged a more productivebloom than in prior years. Thelonger period of weak circula-tion and warmer temperatureshelped incubate the bloom andallowed the Microcystis to re-

main near the topof the water col-umn, which had the added effect ofpreventing the nu-trients from beingflushed out of thesystem.

To determine thelikelihood of futuremegablooms, thescientists analyzed

climate simulations under bothpast and future climate condi-tions. They found that severestorms become more likely inthe future; stronger storms,with greater than 1.2 inches (30 mm) of rain, could betwice as frequent. The authorsalso said that future calm con-ditions in between storms, withweak lake circulation afterbloom onset is also likely tocontinue since current trendsshow decreasing wind speedsacross the U.S. This would re-sult in longer-lasting bloomsand decreased mixing in thewater column. �

Carnegie Science | Summer 2013 11

This research is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF)Water Sustainability and Climate program under grant no. 1039043, Extreme eventsimpacts on water quality in the Great Lakes: Prediction and management of nutrientloading in a changing climate (see www.miseagrant.umich.edu/nsfclimate). Additionalsupport for some of the co-authors was provided by NSF grant no. 0927643, the NOAACenter for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research grant NA07OAR432000, and Lake ErieProtection Fund #SG 406-2011.

Image courtesy N

ASA

This NASA Landsat 5 imageshows the record-breaking algalbloom in Lake Erie in October2011. The green scum is mostlyMicrocystis, a toxin to mammals.

Anna Michalak

algalBlooms GoViral

Researchers still have much to learnabout the volcanism that shaped our planet’searly history. New evidence from a team led byCarnegie’s Frances Jenner demonstrates thatsome of the tectonic processes driving vol-canic activity, such as those taking place today,were occurring as early as 3.8 billion years ago.

Upwelling and melting of the Earth’s man-tle at mid-ocean ridges, as well as the eruptionof new magmas on the seafloor, drive thecontinual production of the oceanic crust.

As the oceanic crust moves away from themid-ocean ridges and cools, it becomesdenser than the underlying mantle. Overtime the majority of this oceanic crust sinksback into the mantle, which can trigger fur-ther volcanic eruptions. This process isknown as subduction, and it takes place atplate boundaries.

Volcanic eruptions that are triggered bysubduction of oceanic crust are chemicallydistinct from those erupting at mid-ocean

ridges and oceanic island chains, such asHawaii. The differences between the chem-istry of magmas produced at each of thesetectonic settings provide geochemical fin-gerprints that can be used to try to identifythe types of tectonic activity taking placeearly in the Earth’s history.

Previous geochemical studies have usedsimilarities between modern subduction zonemagmas and magmas that erupted about 3.8billion years ago, during the Eoarchean era, to

argue that subduction-style tectonic activitywas taking place early in the Earth’s history.But no one has been able to locate volcanicrock with compositions comparable to mod-ern mid-ocean ridge or oceanic island magmasthat were older than 3 billion years and werefree from contamination by continental crust.

Because of this missing piece of the puz-zle, it has been ambiguous whether thesubduction-like compositions of vol-canic rocks that erupted 3.8 billion

Sleuthing Early Tectonics

Jenner and her teamcollected 3.8-billion-year-old volcanic rocksfrom Innersuartuut, anisland in southwestGreenland. This NASAimage shows theGreenland region.

The Earth’s plates move and can slideunder each other in a process called

subduction, which can cause volcanic eruptions.

Image courtesy USGS

Image courtesy N

ASA

Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio

years ago were really generated at subductionzones, or whether this magmatism should beattributed to other processes taking placeearly in the Earth’s history. Consequently,evidence for subduction-related tectonics ear-lier than 3 billion years ago has been highlydebated in the scientific literature.

Jenner and her team collected 3.8-billion-year-old volcanic rocks from Innersuartuut,an island in southwest Greenland, and foundthat the samples have compositions compa-rable to modern oceanic islands, such asHawaii. The Innersuartuut samples may rep-resent the world’s oldest recognized collec-tion of oceanic island basalts, free from con-tamination by continental crust. As such, thisevidence strengthens previous arguments thatsubduction of oceanic crust into the mantlehas been taking place since at least 3.8 billionyears ago. Geology published their work inJanuary. �

An Australian International Postgraduate Research Scholarship, a Ringwood Scholarship,an ARC Discovery grant, and an NERC grant gave support to the authors of this study.

12

LithosphereLithosphere

Asthenosphere

Oceanic crust

Oceanic-oceanic convergence

Trench

Island arc

Continentalcrust

A team of researchers including Carnegie’s Wenge Yang madea major breakthrough in measuring the structure of nanomateri-als under extremely high pressures. The team developed a way to getaround the severe distortions of high-energy X-ray beams that areused to image the structure of gold nanocrystals. This techniquecould lead not only to advancements of new nanomaterials createdunder high pressures, but also a greater understanding of what ishappening in planetary interiors. Nature Communications pub-lished this work in April.

High pressures fundamentally change many properties of goldnanocrystals. The only way for researchers to see what happens tosuch samples when under pressure is to use high-energy X-rays pro-duced by synchrotron sources. Synchrotrons can provide highly co-herent X-rays for advanced 3-D imaging with resolution of tens ofnanometers. This is different from the incoherent X-ray imagingwith micron spatial resolution used for medical examinations.

The team found that by averaging the patterns of the bentwaves—diffraction patterns—of the same crystal using differentsample alignments of the instrumentation and by using a speciallydeveloped algorithm, they could compensate for the distortionand improve spatial resolution by two orders of magnitude. This isanalogous to prescribing eyeglasses for the diamond anvil cell to cor-rect the vision of the coherent X-ray imaging system.

The researchers subjected a 400-nanometer (.000015 inch) singlecrystal of gold to pressures from about 8,000 times the pressure at sea

13

EFree, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by DOE-BES, supported thiswork. DOE-BES supports the Advanced Photon Source.

Image courtesy W

enge Yang

Highly coherent X-rays from synchrotron sources can be used for imaging nanomaterials in 3-D at tens ofnanometers of spatial resolution. This image shows amonochromatic hard X-ray pattern from a single crystalgold particle, which produces a speckle-like fringe image.

Synchrotron

CXDI

High-energy X-rays are producedin vast facilities like the AdvancedPhoton Source shown here.

level to 64,000 times that pressure. This latter is about the pressure inEarth’s upper mantle, the layer between the outer core and the crust.They compressed the gold nanocrystal and found, as expected, thatthe edges of the crystal became sharp and strained. But to their com-plete surprise, the strains disappeared upon further compression. Thecrystal developed a more rounded shape at the highest pressure, im-plying an unusual plastic-like flow.

Gold nanocrystals are very useful materials. They are about 60%stiffer compared with other micron–sized particles, and they couldprove pivotal for constructing improved molecular electrodes,nanoscale coatings, and other advancedengineering materials. This new struc-ture measurement technique will be crit-ical for advances in these areas.

Now that the distortion problem hasbeen solved, the whole field of nanocrys-tal structures under pressure can be ac-cessed. The scientific mystery of whynanocrystals under pressure are some-how stronger than bulk material maysoon be unraveled. �

NANOT CHNOLOGY

BREAKTHROUGH

Image courtesy A

rgonne National Laboratory

Wenge Yang

Eggs take a long time to pro-duce in the ovary. Researchersthink that the body has mecha-nisms to help an ovary ensure thatovulated eggs enter the reproduc-tive tract at a time that maximizesthe chance of fertilization.

Studying successful ovulationand fertilization in fruit flies hasshed light on these processes. Re-search from Carnegie’s AllanSpradling and Jianjun Sun foundthat secretions from special glandswithin the fruit fly’s reproductivetract contribute to both ovulationand sperm function and that thehormone receptor gene Hr39controls this secretion. Their re-sults also suggest that Lrh-1, amammalian receptor gene closelyrelated to Hr39, regulates ovulation by con-trolling reproductive tract secretions in mam-mals.

The biological processes underlying spe-cific human tissues are often fundamentallysimilar to analogous tissues in seemingly verydifferent species, even insects. These com-mon processes are a consequence of the com-mon evolutionary history of virtually all mul-ticellular organisms. As a result of thesesimilarities, researchers can genetically ma-nipulate fruit flies to identify the genes andpathways controlling a biological process—inthis case ovulation—and then use genome se-

quencing to identify the corresponding genesin other species, including humans.

Spradling and Sun began such a strategya few years ago by characterizing how the se-cretory glands within the ovary develop. Us-ing advanced tools, they confirmed that oneimportant role of reproductive tract secre-tions is to protect and store sperm; in hu-mans, sperm is stored in the isthmus regionof the fallopian tube. Sperm are thought topersist in the isthmus for only a few days, butthey can last for a week or more in fruitflies. When reproductive tract secretion pro-duction is compromised, sperm have diffi-

culty getting to the gland and those that canget there undergo abnormal changes.

The secretory “machinery” studied inthese experiments may also allow the re-productive tract to signal the ovary when itis ready to receive an egg. Waiting for such asignal before releasing an egg could reducethe chance that an egg would fail to enter thereproductive tract or arrive before activesperm were available.

Spradling and Sun’s work shows that dif-ferent secretions are responsible for ovula-tion and for attracting and storing sperm.Identifying the specific secretory cell prod-ucts (and the corresponding genes) requiredfor successful ovulation is an important stepin understanding the mechanisms of thisstill-mysterious process.

Their research also has a pos-sible connection to one of themost common forms of ovariancancer, one that derives from ab-normalities in reproductive tractsecretory cells. The genes andpathways that cells use in carry-ing out their normal functionsare often the targets of the alter-ations that drive cancer cellgrowth. Spradling and Sun’swork could stimulate an investi-gation of the role that genes suchas Lrh1 play in this devastatingdisease. eLife published the find-ings in April. �

Can Sex ShedLight onCancer?

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute provided funding for this research.

“Studying successful ovulation and fertilization in fruit flies has shed lighton these processes.”

This watercolorillustration shows thefruit fly, Drosophilamelanogaster, byEdith M. Wallace.

Above center: This microscopic image shows the formation of a fruit fly egg cell.

Above: Allan Spradling and Jianjun Sun

Carnegie Science | Summer 201314

TRUSTEES AND ADMINISTRATION

�� Carnegie president Richard A.Meserve testified before the HouseCommittee on Energy and CommerceSubcommittee on Oversight andInvestigations on Mar. 13 in Washington,DC, on an investigation on security atDOE weapon facilities he undertook atthe request of the Department ofEnergy’s (DOE’s) then-Secretary StevenChu. He chaired a meeting of the DOE’sNuclear Energy Advisory Committee onMar. 14 and June 13 in Washington, DC.He chaired a meeting of the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s)international technical advisory group onMar. 21-22 and June 10-11 and chairedthe meeting of the IAEA’s InternationalNuclear Safety Group on Apr. 23-24, allin Vienna, Austria. He visited the LasCampanas Observatory in Chile on Mar.26-29 with a group of guests, includingboard member Michael Long. Meserveparticipated in a meeting of the VisitingCommittee to the Harvard Kennedy

School of Government on Mar. 3-5 andpresided at meetings of the HarvardBoard of Overseers on Mar. 6-7 and May 28-29, all in Cambridge, MA. Hewas a speaker on the lessons of theFukushima accident at an eventsponsored by the IAEA and the CanadianNuclear Safety Commission on Mar. 9 inOttawa, Canada. He attended meetingsof the Council and Trust of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences inCambridge, MA, on Apr. 18-19. Hechaired a panel on advanced nucleartechnologies at the National Academy of Sciences’ annual meeting on Apr. 28in Washington, DC. He introducedformer Secretary of Energy Steven Chuat a stated meeting of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences on May 8 in Cambridge, MA. He attendedmeetings of the Council of the National

Academy of Engineering on May 9-10 inWashington, DC. Meserve cochaired ameeting of the National Academies’Committee on Science, Technology, andLaw on May 13-14, also in Washington,DC. He joined the celebration of thedesignation of the Department ofTerrestrial Magnetism as an AmericanPhysical Society historical site, thanksto the work of Vera Rubin and Kent Fordconfirming the existence of dark matter,on May 17. Meserve gave the keynoteaddress at the World Association ofNuclear Operators Biennial GeneralMeeting on May 20 in Moscow.

EMBRYOLOGY

Director Allan Spradling was an invitedspeaker at the Keystone Symposia“Stem Cell Regulation in Homeostasisand Disease.” He also presentedseminars at UCLA, The Johns Hopkinsmedical institutes, and BiogenIDEC.Spradling attended the AnnualDrosophila Research Conference inWashington, DC. Also attending theconference and presenting posters weregraduate student Alexis Marianes andpostdocs Steven DeLuca, MeghaGhildiyal, Ethan Greenblatt, Ming-ChiaLee, Robert Levis, and Vicki Losick.—� A two-day symposium in honor ofJoe Gall’s 85th birthday was held at thedepartment Apr. 12-14. There were over130 attendees including family, localand long-distance colleagues, currentlab members, and Gall lab alumni fromaround the globe. —Yixian Zheng presented a seminar inShanghai and met with collaborators.—Marnie Halpern presented her work atGeorgetown U. and was the keynotespeaker at the Regional Mid-AtlanticSociety for Developmental Biologymeeting at the College of William andMary in Williamsburg, VA.—Alex Bortvin was an invited speaker atthe Keystone Symposia “RNA Silencing.”—Steve Farber presented his work andchaired a session in a workshop onusing zebrafish in K-12 education at theStrategic Conference of Zebrafish Inves-tigators in Asilomar, CA. He also at-tended the DEUEL Conference on Lipidsin Napa Valley, CA. Postdoc Jessica Otisalso attended the conference and pre-sented a poster.—Nick Ingolia was an invited speaker atColumbia U.—Christoph Lepper was an invitedspeaker at U. Kentucky.—Spradling postdoc Ethan Greenblatt re-ceived a three-year postdoctoral fellow-ship award from the Jane Coffin ChildsFund to support his project “Under-

standing Nuclear Aging in theDrosophila Follicle Stem Cell Lineage.”—Gall lab’s postdoc Jun-Wei Pek receiveda three-year postdoctoral fellowshipfrom the Life Sciences Research Foun-dation to support his project “Stable In-tronic Sequences (sis) RNA: NovelFunctions and Biogenesis Pathways.”—Halpern lab undergraduate researcherAlice Hung received a Johns HopkinsUniversity (JHU) Provost’s Undergradu-ate Research Award for her work in theHalpern lab. Alice presented a poster“Tissue Specific Activation of EstrogenSignaling in Development” at the awardceremony. —� Farber lab’s Juliana Cartensuccessfully defended her Ph.D. thesis“Lipids and Microbes and Sugars, OhMy! Investigating Microbial and DietaryInfluences on Fatty Acid Metabolism.”—The Fan lab’s Micah Webster received athree-year postdoctoral fellowship awardfrom the American Cancer Society to sup-port his project “c-Met’s Role in SatelliteCells During Muscle Regeneration.”—� Arrivals: Steven DeLuca joined theSpradling lab as a postdoc from UC-SanFrancisco. Student volunteer MaddieGoodman also joined the Spradling lab.Shintaro Iwasaki joined the Ingolia labas a postdoc from U. Tokyo. Iwasaki isthe recipient of both a Japan Society forthe Promotion of Science award and aHuman Frontier Science Programfellowship for his proposal on miRNAmediated translational activation byribosome profiling. Lab technicianStephanie Kuo joined the Lepper lab,and animal technician Andrew Rockjoined the fish facility.—Departures: Former graduate studentKatie McDole left the Zheng lab to beginpostdoctoral studies in Phillip Keller’slab at the Janelia Farm Research Cam-pus. Postdoc Helan Xiao also left the labafter completing her postdoctoral proj-ect. Julio Castañeda is leaving theBortvin lab for a postdoctoral positionwith Martin Matzuk at Baylor College ofMedicine. Lab technician Reid Woodsleft the Lepper lab to pursue a medicaldegree. Business manager DavidLawrence and animal technician Brittany Hay left the department.

GEOPHYSICAL LABORATORY

Robert Hazen delivered a Linus PaulingMemorial Lecture in Portland, OR; an“Evolution Matters” lecture at Harvard;and a Naff Lecture at U. Kentucky-Lex-ington. He was a keynote speaker at theGordon Research Conference in Ventura,CA; at the Deep Carbon Science meetingin Washington, DC; at the EarthCubeStakeholders Workshop in Washington,DC; and at the Earth-Life Science Insti-

Carnegie Science | Summer 2013 15

� Trustee Michael Long, third fromleft, and Carnegie president RichardMeserve, fifth from left, were among the group of visitors to Carnegie’s LasCampanas Observatory in Mar. Imagecourtesy Miguel Roth

� Juliana Carten � Shintaro Iwasaki

Image courtesy C

hristine Pratt

InBrief

� Participants gathered for a symposiumin honor of Joe Gall’s 85th birthday.

� Above right: Carnegie presidentMeserve was the keynote speaker at theBiennial General Meeting of the WorldAssociation of Nuclear Operators inMoscow in May.

tute International Science Conference inTokyo, Japan, to which he was alsonamed to the advisory board. He also lec-tured on the coevolution of the geosphereand biosphere at Harvard U.; ArizonaState U.; Rockefeller U.; the Cliff Salon,Scientists Cliffs, MD; and the Alfred P.Sloan Foundation in New York City. —Director Emeritus Wesley Huntress re-tired from service after completing hissecond term on NASA’s Advisory Council(NAC) and as chair of the NAC ScienceCommittee in Apr. —Ho-kwang (Dave) Mao presented theplenary speech “Breakthroughs in HighPressure Science and Technology” at theStudy of Matter at Extreme Conditions(SMEC) 2013 cruise meeting on Mar. 23.He also delivered a plenary talk “EnergyFrontier Research in Extreme Environ-ments” at the GCOE-TANDEM Interna-tional Symposium 2013 on Mar. 6 inMatsuyama, Japan.—� Postdoctoral fellow Caitlin Murphypresented an invited talk at the 7thNorth American Mössbauer Symposiumon Jan. 10-12 at U. Texas-Austin. It wasorganized by Geophysical Lab alumJung-Fu (Afu) Lin. Caitlin alsopresented a geochemistry seminar at U.Maryland-College Park on Jan. 30.—Microbeam specialist Katherine Crispingave an invited talk “Diffusion in Oxides

and Implications for Mantle Mineralogy”and a diffusion seminar at the Lamont-Doherty Observatory, Columbia U., onApr. 17. —HPSYNC/HPCATYuming Xiao attended the 7th NorthAmerican Mössbauer Symposium inAustin, TX, on Jan. 11-12 and gave an invited talk on nuclear resonant scatter-ing under high pressure at HPCAT.

GLOBAL ECOLOGY

Director Chris Field was the keynotespeaker at a convention of broadcastmeteorologists at Lake Tahoe in Jan. Hepresented a keynote address at the Eu-ropean Climate Change Adaptation Con-ference in Hamburg, Germany, in Mar.and the “Earth Matters DistinguishedLecture” at the Stanford School of EarthSciences that month.—� Greg Asner and the CAOspectranomics team made a collectingtrip to Panama’s Barro Colorado Islandin Jan. The team included Robin Martin,Byron Tsang, Katie Kryston, KellyMcManus, and three Peruvian climbers. —� Ken Caldeira, Jana Maclaren, andLilian Calderia spent five weeks inFeb./Mar. on One Tree Island on Australia’sGreat Barrier Reef. They were involved infield studies, testing the consequences of

antacid in the ocean water for the growthof coral. NPR’s Richard Harris joined thefield expedition and featured it in twostories, one on All Things Considered andone on Morning Edition.— Anna Michalak was appointed editorof the journal Water ResourcesResearch, a premier journal forhydrology and water resourcespublished by the American GeophysicalUnion (AGU). She is the first womaneditor of the journal in its 50-yearhistory. Michalak was invited to becomea member of the Science Advisory Boardof the Climate Change Science Instituteat Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Shegave a keynote address at the NorthAmerican Carbon Program All-Investigators Meeting in Albuquerque,NM, and was an invited panelist at theSociety for Industrial and AppliedMathematics (SIAM) Conference onComputational Science and Engineering.— Yuntao Zhou defended herdissertation “Improved Estimates of theSpatial Distribution and TemporalTrends of Water Quality ParametersUsing Geostatistical Data FusionMethods” on Jan. 15th.—

16

Anna Michalak

Yunatao Zhou

� Ken Caldeira

� A number of GL/CDAC affiliated staffattended the Mössbauer symposium,including Viktor Struzhkin, Jung-Fu Lin,Brent Fultz, and graduate students.

� Greg Asner (left) attended the St.James Palace meeting on tropical forest science in London May 8, where he met Prince Charles. Image courtesy © Paul Burns

Deep Carbon ObservatoryCarbon in Earth is the first major collectivepublication of the Deep Carbon Observatory(DCO). This special open-access volumeprovides an astonishing look at the newfield of deep carbon science. The 700-pagebook contains 20 chapters by more than 50researchers from nine countries, includingRobert Hazen, Russell Hemley, CraigSchiffries, and Anat Shahar from the Geo-physical Laboratory and Conel Alexanderand Steven Shirey from DTM. Carbon inEarth was launched at the DCO Interna-tional Science Meeting, which was held atthe US National Academy of Sciences onMar. 3-5. The meeting engaged more than160 researchers from around the world, in-cluding many current and former Carnegieresearchers. Richard Meserve providedopening remarks. Russell Hemley moder-ated a panel discussion with Wendy Harri-son (NSF Earth Sciences Division Director;former Geophysical Lab predoctoral fellow),P. Patrick Leahy (AGI Executive Director),Marcia McNutt (USGS Director, 2009-2013),and Frank Press (National Academy of Sci-ences President, 1982-1993; Cecil and IdaGreen Senior Fellow at Carnegie, 1993-1997). Perhaps nobody had a greater indi-rect impact than Douglas Rumble, who’shad three former postdoctoral fellows—Shuhei Ono, Craig Schiffries, and EdwardYoung—on the plenary program. DCO held aDeep Energy Workshop in Manchester, Eng-land, Jan. 30-Feb. 1; an executive commit-tee meeting in Washington, DC, on Mar. 5;and a workshop on abiotic hydrocarbons inKazan, Russia, Apr. 13-17. �

Top: The Deep Carbon Observatory executive committee metin the boardroom of the National Academy of Sciences onMar. 5. Front row (from left): Jesse Ausubel (US), IsabelleDaniel (France), Adrian Jones (UK), John Baross (US).Middle row (from left): Sara Hickox (US), Craig Manning (US),Nickolay Sobolev (Russia), Russell Hemley (US), BarbaraSherwood Lollar (Canada), Eiji Ohtani (Japan), TarasBryndzia. Back row (from left): Craig Schiffries (US), Kai-Uwe Hinrichs (Germany), David Cole (US), Robert Hazen(US), Erik Hauri (US), Claude Jaupart (France).

Members of the InternationalScience Meeting of the DCOpresented recent findings in Mar.From left to right: Frank Press, P.Patrick Leahy, Marcia McNutt,Wendy Harrison, Russell Hemley.

Images courtesy C

raig Schiffries

Yoichi Shiga won an Outstanding Stu-dent Paper Award from the AGU for hispresentation “Exploring the Ability of In-verse Methods to Isolate the Fossil FuelEmission Signal from Atmospheric CO2Measurements” at the AGU fall meetingin San Francisco.—Shouren Zhang, from the Chinese Insti-tute of Botany in Beijing, is visiting theBerry Lab through the end of Aug. Hehas worked mostly on the ecophysiologyof trees.—Arrivals: Xuemei (Mei) Qiu joined theMichalak lab as a scientific programmerin Feb. Jovan Tadic became postdoctoralresearcher in that lab in Mar. BrandoPaolo began a postdoc position in theAsner lab, while Byron Tsang joined as a lab manager and Katherine Krystonas a lab technician, all in Jan. MorvaridTavassoli began working as a lab technician for the Field Lab in Jan.—Departures: Predoctorial visitor DarioCaro, in the Caldeira lab, returned to his home in Italy in Apr.

OBSERVATORIES

Director Wendy Freedman attended aPhysics of the Universe Summit, in WestHollywood, CA, Jan. 11-13. On Jan. 23she gave a colloquium on the cosmicdistance scale at U. Chile. She and LasCampanas director Miguel Roth visitedthe Fundación Chile to introduce astron-omy into the K-12 curriculum. She pre-sented a talk on recent results on theHubble constant at the Canadian Insti-tute for Advanced Research Feb. 15-17.Apr. 1-5 she attended an internationalmeeting in the Netherlands, discussingthe implications of the Planck results forcosmology. On Apr. 22 Freedman gave acolloquium on recent measurements ofthe Hubble constant at U. Pennsylvania.She also gave the Elon Musk Public Lec-

ture “A Journey of Discovery: Our Ex-panding Universe.” During Mar. and Apr.she gave four talks to groups in the LosAngeles area on the Giant Magellan Tel-escope (GMT).—� Staff astronomer Andrew McWilliamgave an astronomy colloquium at TexasA&M U. titled “Chemical Evolution,Nucleosynthesis and the ChemicalComposition of Stars in Dwarf Galaxies”on Apr. 1.—Staff members Luis Ho and Barry Madoreand Carnegie fellow Guillermo Blanc at-tended a meeting Mar. 24-29 in Lijiang,China, titled “Dissecting Galaxies with 2DWide-Field Spectroscopy.” Ho chaired theScientific Organizing Committee for the in-ternational meeting and hosted a work-shop on black holes at the Key Laboratoryfor Particle Astrophysics (CAS). Madoregave the first public talk on TYPHOON, anew application of the wide-field CCD onthe Iréné du Pont 2.5-meter telescope atLas Campanas to produce data cubes forgalaxies of extremely large angular size.Guillermo talked about VENGA, the instru-ment he used for his U. Texas thesis.—Luis Ho also gave colloquia at the Na-tional Astronomical Observatories, Chi-nese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) andHong Kong U.—Staff astronomer Josh Simon gave thecolloquium at UC-Santa Cruz on Jan. 30.—On Mar. 12, staff associate Andrew Ben-son gave a talk “What Can TheoreticalModels Predict for GMTIFS Observa-tions?” at the GMT Integral-Field Spec-trograph (GMTIFS) workshop held at theObservatories. He presented the open-ing talk “Galaxy Formation Models:Past, Present & Future” on Mar. 21 atthe Stimulating Universes for FutureSurveys meeting at the InternationalCenter for Radio Astronomy Research at U. Western Australia, Perth.—

In Jan. postdoctoral research associateNimish Hathi attended the American As-tronomical Society meeting in LongBeach, CA, and gave the talk “Investigat-ing HST/WFC3 Selected Lyman BreakGalaxies at z=1-3” in an HST UV specialsession. He was also a judge for theChambliss Poster Award at this meeting.—Postdoctoral research associate RikWilliams gave an invited talk at the Insti-tute for the Physics and Mathematics ofthe Universe, Tokyo, Japan, titled “GalaxyEvolution in the Thermal Era” on Jan. 23.

PLANT BIOLOGY

� On Feb. 1 director Wolf Frommerpresented the Nathan Edward TolbertLectureship in Plant Biochemistryseminar at Michigan State U., EastLansing, titled “In vivo Biochemistry withthe Help of Genetically EncodedSensors.” He gave a Pioneers inGenomics Lecture titled “A Multi-Pronged Approach to Plant Nutrition:Pico-Sensors for Transport GeneDiscovery and Regulation” at U. Illinois-Urbana on Feb. 26, and he presented thesame talk for the Distinguished Lecturesin Life Science at Pennsylvania State U.,University Park, on Feb. 27. On Mar. 13-15 he attended the Grand ChallengesExplorations (GCE) Agriculture &Nutrition Awardee Convening in Seattle,WA, and presented a poster aboutsecuring the global food supply by cropimmunization. On Mar. 24 he attendedthe International Workshop on PlantMembrane Biology held in Kurashiki,Japan, and gave a seminar on nutrientuptake and translocation.— On Feb. 3 Winslow Briggs gave aseminar at Global Ecology on plant firesurvival. On Apr. 13 Briggs gave asimilar lecture and then led a four-hourfield trip for the docents of the StanfordU. Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve on

Carnegie Science | Summer 2013 17

� Andrew McWilliam � Plant Biologydirector WolfFrommer

Winslow Briggs � Sue Rhee

� Jóse Dinneny � Devaki Bhaya

Greg Asner Elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Greg Asner (right) is one of 84 new NAS members and 21 foreign associatesfrom 14 countries elected this April “in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” The total number of active members now stands at 2,179.

Asner was hired in 2001 as the Department of Global Ecology’s firststaff scientist. Since coming to Carnegie, he has pioneered new methods for investigating tropical deforestation, degradation, ecosystem diversity, invasive species, carbon emissions, climate change, and much more usingsatellite and airborne instrumentation. His innovations measure the chem-istry, structure, biomass, and biodiversity of the Earth in unprecedented detail over massive areas not thought possible before. He has developednew technologies for conservation assessments, including tropical forestcarbon emissions and stocks, hydrologic function, and biodiversity. He leadsthe CLASLite forest change mapping project, spectranomics biodiversityproject, and the one of a kind Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO). �

the recovery of vegetation in Henry W.Coe State Park, which he has beenstudying since a 2007 wildfire. —Zhiyong Wang gave a seminar at U.Texas-Austin on Mar. 19 about hormonaland environmental signaling crosstalk inArabidopsis. On Apr. 9 he gave a talk onplant signal integration in developmentat the Howard Hughes Medical Institute(HHMI) as a semifinalist of the HHMI In-vestigator Competition. He gave twotalks on brassinosteroids signaling net-works at the IV Brazilian Symposium onPlant Molecular Genetics in BentoGonçalves, Brazil, on Apr. 11.—� On Mar. 4-6 Sue Rhee talked aboutgenomic signatures of plant-specializedmetabolism at the Evolution ofMetabolic Diversity held at the BanburyCenter, Cold Spring Harbor Labs, NY.—� Jóse Dinneny spoke about how localenvironmental cues control branching inroots at the American Society of PlantBiologists (ASPB) Western Section Meeting2013, held in Davis, CA, on Apr. 12-13.—� On May 1 Devaki Bhaya presented aninvited talk on the context and conflict inmicrobial communities at the Frontiersin Biology conference at Stanford U. —Matt Evans and postdoctoral re-searchers Antony Chettoor and Yongx-ian Lu attended the 55th Annual MaizeGenetics Conference Mar. 14-17 in St.Charles, IL. Lu presented posters at theSustainable Plant Yield in a ChangingClimate, ASPB meeting in Davis, CA, onApr. 12-13.—Eva Huala gave two talks, “ArabidopsisPhenotype Representation Using Ontolo-gies” and “Application of Ontologies toPlant Gene Function and PhenotypeData,” at the Plant and Animal Genome(PAG) XXI, International Arabidopsis In-formatics Consortium Workshop heldJan. 12-16 in San Diego, CA. She pre-sented a seminar at the Third PhenotypeRCN Summit held Feb. 25-27 at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center,Durham, NC.—

Donghui Li, a curator in the TAIR group,gave the talk “Gene Ontology Task atBioCreative IV” at the Sixth InternationalBiocuration Conference Apr. 7-10 inCambridge, UK. —On Apr. 5-6 Bob Muller, lead curator inTAIR, talked about the PLAIN project atthe GMOD/Biocuration 2013 meeting inCambridge, UK.—Bhaya Lab postdoctoral associate Anchal Chandra attended a workshopheld Mar. 24-30 at the QB3 facility atMission Bay Campus, UC-San Fran-cisco. The workshop focused on inten-sive microscope-based instruction. —Dinneny lab graduate students NeilRobbins II, Yu Geng, and Rui Wu andpostdoctoral researchers Lina Duan,Jóse Sebastian, and Ruben Rellan-Alvarez attended the ASPB WesternSection meeting on Apr. 12-13. Robbinsand Dinneny also attended the MaizeGenetics Conference, Mar. 14-17, in St.Charles, IL.—Arrivals: Garret Huntress joined the De-partments of Plant Biology and GlobalEcology on Jan. 15 as the IT Manager. Hewas formerly at the Geophysical Labora-tory. Visiting student Alejandra Londonofrom ICESI U. Colombia joined the From-mer lab on Feb. 12. Visiting graduate stu-dent Lauro Bucker joined the Wang lab onFeb.16 from Federal U. of Rio Grande doSul, Brazil. Samuel Hokin, a senior com-putational scientist from U. Wisconsin,started work in the Barton lab on Jan. 15.—Departures: Postdoctoral researcherGuido Grossmann left the Frommer labon Dec. 31 to become a group leader atU. Heidelberg, Germany. Visiting re-searcher Yang Bai departed from theWang lab on Jan. 18 to return to theHarbin Institute of Technology, China.On Feb. 8 Shanker Singh, a databaseadministrator in the TAIR group, left fora position in industry. Lab technicianErika Valle-Smith left the Frommer labon Mar. 28 for a biotech company.

TERRESTRIAL MAGNETISM

� In Feb. director Lindy Elkins-Tantonpresented a talk at the Institute forAdvanced Study, Princeton. She alsopresented a talk at U. Colorado-Boulder.In Feb. she was appointed to the NASAMars 2020 Rover Science Definitionteam. In Mar. Elkins-Tanton attended a“Committee on Astrobiology andPlanetary Science (CAPS)” meeting atthe NAS, an AGU Council Meeting, andthe 44th Lunar and Planetary ScienceConference (LPSC) in TX where shepresented the plenary MasurskyLecture, cochaired the “PlanetaryDifferentiation Across the Solar System”session, and presented a poster. Shealso gave an invited talk at the“Volcanism, Impacts and MassExtinctions: Causes and Effects”conference at the Natural HistoryMuseum in London in Mar. In Apr.Elkins-Tanton led a mission-planningmeeting at JPL in Pasadena, CA. On Apr.15-16 she hosted a workshop on theSiberian flood basalts and the end-Permian extinction at DTM. On Apr. 23she cohosted a joint Carnegie/NASApublic lecture at Carnegie’s mainadministrative office in Washington, DC.On Apr. 29 a camera crew from HHMI,NOVA/PBS, and Holt Productions cameto interview her and visit the nanoSIMSlab where she, staff scientist Erik Hauri,and MIT researcher Ben Black isolatedand measured melt inclusions as part oftheir Siberia research. In May Elkins-Tanton attended the Kongsberg seminarat the Center for Earth Evolution andDynamics in Norway, where shedelivered the keynote lecture “MagmaOcean and Planetary Evolution.”—In Mar. Conel Alexander presented atthe 44th LPSC in Houston, TX.—In Jan. Alan Boss chaired NASA’s CarlSagan Fellowship review in Long Beach,CA. In Mar. Boss spoke about isotopichomogeneity and heterogeneity in thesolar nebula at the 44th LPSC in Hous-ton, TX. In Apr. he gave a talk about theorbital evolution of dust grains duringFU Orionis outbursts at the meeting on

18

� DTM director Lindy Elkins-Tantonwith Brent Sherwood (JPL) attended theposter session during the 44th LPSC inHouston, TX.

� Staff scientist Alycia Weinbergerparticipated in commissioning theMagellan Adaptive Optics system at Las Campanas Observatory in Apr.

Carnegie Astronomy Lecture SpeakersThe Carnegie Astronomy Lecture Series eleventh season was at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena this year. Carnegie-Princeton/Hubble Fellow Mansi Kasliwal gave the first lecture, “Fireworks Lighting Our Universe,” on Apr. 8.Other presenters were Scott Sheppard, staff scientist at Terrestrial Magnetism,postdoctoral associate Jeff Rich, and Carnegie fellow Ian Roederer. �

Mansi Kasliwal Scott Sheppard Jeff Rich Ian Roederer

“Transformational Science with ALMA:From Dust to Rocks to Planets” inWaikoloa, HI.—In Jan. Rick Carlson presented the “11thAnnual Baldwin Frontiers in Geology Lec-ture” at Miami U., OH, on the “History ofEarth Formation.” Carlson also presenteda seminar at U. Chicago in Feb. and apaper at the 44th LPSC in Houston in Mar.

—Matt Fouch presented invited talks at U. Illinois-Chicago in Mar. and PrincetonU. in Apr.—Larry Nittler attended a MESSENGERScience Team Meeting in Columbia, MD,in Feb. and the 44th LPSC in Mar. Hegave a seminar at U. Maryland in Apr.and attended a workshop on the compo-sition and structure of Mercury’s interiorin Chicago. He also gave a talk in May onMESSENGER for the Royal Astronomy ofCanada in Calgary and at a neighbor-hood lecture at Carnegie’s Broad BranchRoad campus.—In Feb. Diana Roman gave an IRIS webi-nar called “The Secret Life of ‘Quiescent’Volcanoes” and did fieldwork in Nicaraguain Mar. In early May she was a lecturerat the NSF 2013 Pan American AdvancedStudies Institute (PASI) workshop on“Magma-Tectonic Interactions in theAmericas” in León, Nicaragua.—Scott Sheppard gave a public talk onApr. 22 at the Pasadena Convention Center as part of the 11th season lec-ture series hosted by the Observatories.He also presented a more in-depth re-search talk there on Apr. 23. In late Apr.Scott presented at UCLA during theirweekly lunch talk and also at the UCLAInstitute for Planets and Exoplanetsweekly seminar.—Steve Shirey gave invited talks at Michi-gan State U., U. Rochester, U. Wyoming,Princeton U., and the Gemological Insti-tute of America.—� In Feb. Alycia Weinberger participatedin the AAS “Communicating withCongress” program and visitedCongressional offices on Capitol Hill to

advocate for science funding. In Mar. shegave an invited talk at the “Science withthe Giant Magellan Telescope Integral-Field Spectrograph” meeting held at theObservatories. In Apr. she participated incommissioning the Magellan AdaptiveOptics system at Las CampanasObservatory. In May Weinberger attendeda panel review meeting for the US-IsraelBinational Science Foundation inJerusalem, Israel. In June she was aninvited panelist at the IAU Symposium“Exploring the Formation and Evolution ofPlanetary Systems” in Victoria, Canada.—Postdoctoral fellow Hanika Rizo won the second prize of “le Prix JeuneChercheur,” or Outstanding Young Sci-entist Award, by a panel in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Contestants werejudged on both the content of their thesis and their ability to explain theirresearch to a public audience. —� On Feb. 13 MESSENGER postdoctoralassociate Paul Byrne gave an invited talkas part of the “Solar System ExplorationSeminar” series at NASA Goddard SpaceFlight Center. On Feb. 18 he gave aninvited talk at the Southwest ResearchInstitute (SwRI). Between Feb. 18 and 22he visited SwRI to conduct analog modellaboratory experiments of crustaldeformation on Mercury. On Feb. 27 he presented two talks at the 29thMESSENGER Science Team Meeting atthe JHU Applied Physics Laboratory. On Mar. 20 Byrne gave a talk in theMESSENGER session at the 44th LPSCand then visited Virginia Tech to discussmantle dynamics on Mercury. On Apr. 8 he gave two talks and chaired a session at the 2013 European Geosciences UnionGeneral Assembly, Vienna, Austria. On Apr. 22-24 he attended the 4thMESSENGER-BepiColombo Joint ScienceMeeting. Byrne also gave an invited talk ata volcanology workshop at NASA GoddardSpace Flight Center on Apr. 30.—Vera C. Rubin Fellow Joleen Carlberhad an observing run at Las CampanasObservatory at the end of Jan. and at theend of Apr. Carlberg gave two seminartalks in Mar.—one at U. Delaware andthe other at the Space Telescope Sci-ence Institute. She also virtually partici-pated in the Stellar StoichiometryWorkshop in Apr.—Postdoctoral fellow Frances Jennerpresented a seminar at the SmithsonianInstitution on Mar. 27 and another at theLamont Doherty Earth Observatory onApr. 3.—� MESSENGER postdoctoral associateChristian Klimczak accompanied PaulByrne in Feb. to San Antonio, TX, forexperiments in the state-of-the-artanalog modeling laboratory at the SwRI.Also in Feb. Klimczak attended andpresented a talk at the MESSENGERScience Team Meeting in Laurel, MD. InMar. he attended the 44th LPSC where

he made two presentations. On Mar. 28he gave an invited talk aboutMESSENGER results at Virginia Tech.Klimczak also attended the 4thMESSENGER-BepiColombo JointScience Meeting in Chicago.—Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) post-doctoral associate Marion Le Voyer vis-ited the CRPG in Nancy, France, for oneweek in Oct. to work with DCO collabo-rators there. Utilizing their ion probe1280-HR, the research goal was to test a new technique to analyze carbon iso-topes in mid-oceanic ridge basalts—achallenge because these lavas have verylow carbon contents. In Mar. Le Voyerand DCO postdoctoral associate JaredMarske presented posters at the DCOmeeting at the NAS in Washington, DC.—MESSENGER postdoctoral associateShoshana Weider gave a talk at theMESSENGER session at the 44th LPSCin Mar., and she discussed MESSENGER,Mercury, and meteorites on NPR’s Apr.11 All Things Considered.—Arrivals: Katherine Bermingham visitedthe geochemistry laboratory from U.Maryland to work with Rick Carlsonmeasuring nucleosynthetic isotopeanomalies in barium in primitive mete-orites. In Feb. Merle A. Tuve Senior Fel-low David Bercovici returned for a weekfor research with host Lindy Elkins-Tan-ton. Paul Butler and postdoctoral fellowPamela Arriagada hosted the weeklongvisit of UC-Santa Cruz Ph.D. studentJennifer Burt. Former DTM postdocJonathan O’Neil, now an assistant pro-fessor at U. Ottawa, visited to measurethe hafnium isotope composition in zir-cons from the 3.8-billion-year-old grani-toid rocks from the Nuvvuagittuqprovince in northern Quebec. In Jan.Judge David Tatel and his wife Edithpresented the staff with a photograph ofhis father’s telescope. Tatel’s father isformer DTM physicist Howard Tatel who,with Merle Tuve, built an explosion seis-mology program and was responsiblefor the first radio telescope. In Mar.Roman and Fouch hosted AmandaClarke and Alberto Behar, professorsfrom Arizona State U. Also in Mar. Tomo-hiro Usui (Tokyo Institute of Technology)visited to work on hydrogen isotopes inMartian meteorites with Conel Alexan-der and Jianhua Wang. A film crew fromthe Japanese NHK network accompa-nied Usui, for a documentary for theCosmic Front series.—Departures: Senior visiting investigatorPaul Rydelek returned to Memphis, TN,following his three-month visit to workwith Selwyn Sacks and Deborah Smith.�

Carnegie Science | Summer 2013 19

� MESSENGER postdoctoralassociates Paul Byrne (pictured)and Christian Klimczak conductedanalog experiments exploring thecontrols of the surface morphologyof faulting in a contractional tectonicsetting. They hope to relate thestructures from their experimentsto data from Mercury obtained byMESSENGER to learn more aboutthe nature of the tectonics there.The innermost planet experiencedsignificant contraction throughoutits geologic history. Image courtesySouthwest Research Institute, SanAntonio, TX.

� MESSENGER postdoctoralassociate Christian Klimczakdiscusses his poster at the 2013LPSC Meeting in Houston, TX.

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yman Thomas Aldrich, 95, a geophysicist and geochemist at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) for 34 years—including a term as DTM’s acting director,died May 1.

Aldrich was part of a research team that pioneered the development of methods andinstruments to determine the ages of rocks. The team used high-accuracy measurements of theisotope ratios of naturally occurring, long-lived radioactive decays—such as potassium decay-ing to argon, rubidium decaying to strontium, and uranium decaying to lead—to date a rock’sconstituent minerals. Aldrich’s efforts were seminal to the group’s work, which created many fun-damental techniques used by geochemists around the world for the next 50 years or more. Theaccomplishments of this group and its postdoctoral fellows are legendary among geologists andgeochemists.

Considering himself more a geophysicist than a geochemist, Aldrich became involved with seis-mic studies of the Earth’s crust as a participant in the Carnegie expedition to study the crust ofthe central Andes in 1957.

Afterward, Aldrich took a more active role as a team leader for DTM’s explosion-seismic exper-iments. He participated in several large-scale seismic experiments in the U.S. in the 1960s. He alsoserved as the “shooter” for several international projects in the Andes in the early to mid-1970s, as-

sembling and detonating charges of one to five tons in Andean lakes to generate seismic sig-nals used to study crustal and upper mantle structure across the high Andes. In 1967 Aldrich

joined in studies to determine electrical conductivity as a function of depth in the crustand upper mantle beneath the Altiplano of southern Peru, and he continued that researcheven into retirement.

Aldrich served as DTM’s assistant director from 1965-1966, associate director from1966-1974 (with Ellis Bolton as director), and acting director from September1974-March 1975. He retired as a member of the scientific staff in 1984. �

CARNEGIE’S LYMAN THOMAS ALDRICH DIES

L. Thomas Aldrich

L