Posts
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Past Lecturer Now Director of NIH
Last February Francis Collins enchanted the CSSR with his lecture, “The Language of God: A Believer Looks at the Human Genome”. Collins was the leader of the Human Genome Project, the revolutionary program which undertook the task of reading out all of the letters of the human DNA instruction book, and has recently become the director…
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Shipboard Researchers Image Haiti Earthquake Fault
Scientists are sailing off the coast of Haiti to assess the recent earthquake there, and the potential for more. This is the latest update, emailed by chief scientist Cecilia McHugh from the research vessel Endeavor. (Read the full story of the project, involving the Earth Institute and other major institutions.) Today we surveyed the Baie de Grand Goave, west of…
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Urban Design Lab: Plastic TrashPatch
How much is your trash worth? Using various visualization instruments, design ideas, engineering, and environmental science research, a team of designers, engineers, and scientists at the Urban Design Lab (UDL) are trying to find out. A new initiative for 2010, Plastic TrashPatch, seeks to raise awareness of ”trashpatches,” thick areas of concentrated marine debris that…
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The Oden and the Polarstern Cross Paths
We successfully finished our scientific work in the Amundsen Sea and are now heading back to Punta Arenas, at the tip of South America. It will take eight to nine days to get there depending on the weather and winds. Just before we left the Amundsen Sea we passed the German ice-breaker ship, the Polarstern.…
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Scientists Locate Apparent Hydrothermal Vents off Antarctica
Discovery, a First, Could Spur Exploration of Distant Mid-Ocean Ridge
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Agriculture: Big Water Use, Big Water Savings
As in much of the world, farmers in Punjab, an agricultural state known as the “breadbasket of India,” grow rice via flood irrigation. In this method, fields are flooded with several centimeters of water in order to kill weeds. When the water dries, the field is flooded again – up to 40 times per season. Clearly this uses a…
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Some Thoughts about Glaciers Before Heading Home
Mike and I head out today for Cerro Gorra, leaving Jay and Barbara at Lago Cardiel to finish the stratigraphy. What wonderful people; I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to do field work with them. We drive to Lago Argentino, where Mike is meeting a new research team for a separate project.…
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Why Haiti Suffered More Than Chile
By Colin Stark About six weeks ago, a large earthquake devastated Haiti and killed over 200,000 people. Saturday, a huge earthquake releasing 500 times more energy, devastated Chile and killed hundreds. So why did the smaller earthquake kill so many more people?
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Researchers Probe Bottom Off Port-au-Prince
Scientists are now sailing off the coast of Haiti to assess the recent earthquake there, and the potential for more. This is the latest update, emailed by chief scientist Cecilia McHugh from the research vessel Endeavor. (Read the full story of the project, involving the Earth Institute and other major institutions.) The first part of the science program focused…