"I understand that both Saturn and Jupiter have extreamly active atmospheres and give out lethal doses of radiation, so are they hot or cold?"
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A Slow Death in the P-T Extinction
Paleogeography in the northern hemisphere during the Permian-Triassic boundary extinction 252 million years ago. The West Blind Fiord (WBF) site on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic is shown in relation to the site of the Siberian Traps. Image Credit: Thomas Algeo
New research, supported in part by the NASA Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology (Exo/Evo) program, shows that mass extinctions need not be sudden events. In an extensive investigation of rock layers at West Blind Fiord on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, the team revealed that Earth’s deadliest-known mass extinction took place in stages over hundreds of thousands of years.The “Great Dying” occurred roughly 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian period, and resulted in the loss of 90 percent of Earth’s marine life. The evidence suggests that the event was linked to...
Source: [University of Cincinnati]
February 9, 2012 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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An Alternative Path for the Evolution of Nitrogen Fixation
Bayesian inferred phylogenetic reconstruction of Anf/Vnf/NifD, BchN, and NflD proteins. The putative substrates and cofactors for each protein lineage are indicated below each respective clade.
A team of researchers supported by the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) has proposed an new path in the evolution of biological nitrogen fixation on Earth. Nitrogen is one of the most important elements for life on Earth, and astrobiologists have long been interested in its role in the history and evolution of life.Nitrogen is abundant on our planet as an atmospheric gas. However, in order for Nitrogen to be accessible for life, it must be converted into other chemical forms. A key step in the global cycling of nitrogen is biological nitrogen fixation,...
February 8, 2012 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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A New Pathway to Life's Origin
Scientists have shown that sugars essential for life to begin can be produced by a previously unknown pathway. For decades, chemists thought that the formose reaction was the only route for sugar production, but the a study may push research in pre-life chemistry past this hurdle. The research was funded in part by the Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology program, an element of the NASA Astrobiology Program.
The team from the Scripps Research Institute reporting their research online ahead of print in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The research was funded by the Skaggs Research Foundation, NASA...
Source: [Scripps Research Institute]
February 6, 2012 / Posted by: Aaron Gronstal
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Ground Truth
Jeff Moersch squints at the heat maps of the Laguna Negra terrain produced by his thermal imager. Credit: Henry Bortman
In the sixth report from the 2011 Planetary Lake Lander Expedition to Chile’s Laguna Negra, scientists begin characterizing the geology of the Laguna Negra basin. Equipped with a portable infrared spectrometer, they record infrared spectra from various rocks throughout the region. The team is performing important ‘ground truth’ experiments to verify mineralogical data collected by orbiting satellites.Source: [astrobio.net]
February 3, 2012 / Written by: Henry Bortman
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2012 Astrobiology Graduate Student Conference
The 2012 Astrobiology Graduate Student Conference will be held on August 27–30, 2012, preceded by the Research Focus Group splinter, August 24-26. The conference will be held at the California Institute for Technology (Caltech), with an outreach event at the University of Southern California (USC), and a field-trip to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The conference will consist of three days of scientific sessions, two evenings of public outreach and education activities, and a one day field trip to JPL. The talks and poster sessions will draw on the success of past AbGradCons as a...
February 2, 2012 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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A New Postdoc at NAI Central
Please join in welcoming postdoctoral Fellow Arsev Aydinoglu to the NAI Central team! He is a social scientist studying NAI’s current collaborative practices. He will provide insight and recommendations for their evolution and improvement, particularly with respect to remote communication, data sharing and analysis across distance, collaborative problem solving, interdisciplinary science, and institutional identity.
Arsev received his Ph.D. in Information Science from the College of Communication and Information, at the University of Tennessee, where he investigated the emergence of DataONE, a multidisciplinary, multiinstitutional, and multinational distributed organization to develop a cyberinfrastructure to deposit, share, and preserve earth sciences...
February 1, 2012 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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O/OREOS Nanosatellite Success in Orbit
The O/OREOS payloads and bus undergo functional tests before integration with the satellite frame. Image credit: NASA/Dominic Hart
NASA’s Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses (O/OREOS) nanosatellite has successfully carried microorganisms to a high-inclination, low-Earth orbit and monitored the effects of the space environment on their growth and metabolism. The 12-pound O/OREOS nanosatellite, which was roughly the size of a loaf of bread, was launched in November 2011 and carried two populations of the microbe Bacillus subtilis into space. One set of microbes was a naturally occurring strain, and the second was a radiation-resistant mutant strain.The microorganisms were part of the Space Environment Survivability of Live Organisms (SESLO) project, which characterized the growth,...
Source: [Link]
January 30, 2012 / Written by: Aaron L. Gronstal
