Welcome to the NAI Newsletter! The Newsletter is a compendium of announcements, events, updates, and news items related to the NAI and its research. If you have news items or suggestions you can send them to the editor, Marco Boldt at: Marco.Boldt@nasa.gov.
Newsletter for June 25, 2008
- 6/30 NAI Director's Seminar: "The CheMin mineralogical instrument on the MSL mission and the field-portable TERRA version available for NAI field campaigns"
- Australian Centre for Astrobiology
- NAI/APS Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research Recipients Announced
- NAI Minority Institution Research Support Program
- NAI Twitters and Tweets
- Novel Species of Bacteria Found Deep Within Greenland Glacier
- Erosion on Earth and Mars: Mere Seepage or Megaflood?
- Seafloor Microbes Abundant and Thriving....An Alternative Cradle for Life?
- Enzyme's Active Site Revealed
6/30 NAI Director's Seminar: "The CheMin mineralogical instrument on the MSL mission and the field-portable TERRA version available for NAI field campaigns"
Speaker: David Blake
Date/Time: Monday, June 30, 2008 11:00AM Pacific
Abstract:
Dr. Blake will describe the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) '09 mission and its CheMin XRD/XRF instrument. A terrestrial field-deployable version of CheMin (called "TERRA") will be available to perform in situ analyses during NAI field campaigns. The TERRA instrument has already been proven to be invaluable on field expeditions to Spitsbergen (Norway), the dry valleys of Antarctica, Canada (twice), and Rio Tinto (Spain).
TERRA instruments will be provided (for the cost of shipment and refurbishment) to any funded NAI field campaign. This "loaner XRD" program, which we call "Johnny Appleseed CheMin," will provide definitive mineralogical identifications for NAI field campaigns, as well as help to create a database of minerals in rocks and soils for use with MSL'09. A further benefit to the program is that a large number of Astrobiologists will become familiar with CheMin XRD data and will be able to contribute to the interpretations of rocks and soils analyzed by the CheMin flight instrument during MSL '09.
For more information and participation instructions: http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/seminars/detail/127
Australian Centre for Astrobiology
The Australian Centre for Astrobiology has, after a period of transition, moved its headquarters from Macquarie University to the University of New South Wales (UNSW), also in Sydney. Its new web address is http://aca.unsw.edu.au. Its Director remains Prof Prof. Malcolm Walter (malcolm.walter@unsw.edu.au). The new Deputy Director is Prof. Brett Neilan (b.neilan@unsw.edu.au) whose research interests include the molecular biology and functional microbiology of stromatolite systems, and the toxins of cyanobacteria.
Our research areas will continue to focus on microbiology, palaeobiology, organic geochemistry, planetary science, astronomy and science communication. As yet we are not running an undergraduate astrobiology course such as that we ran in the past, but expect to do so soon. We are actively seeking advanced students and post-doctoral researchers in the fields listed above and scholarship opportunities are available. In certain circumstances we can accept interns. Current active research includes the geological evidence for early life on Earth, the microbiology of analogous modern systems (particularly those including archaea and extremophiles), biomarker geochemistry of modern and ancient environments, infrared sensing of Venus and Mars using ground-based telescopes, the search for extrasolar planets, and science communication and education within the framework of astrobiology. Collaborative research opportunities are actively sought.
Our formal link to the NASA Astrobiology Institute offers students many opportunities to work in the US, and our links to the European Space Agency and other astrobiology groups, particularly that in Spain, are also strong and lead to stimulating opportunities.
Any astrobiologists in, near or passing through Sydney should contact us and offer a seminar, or just visit to discuss more of mutual interest. All will be welcome. Seminars and visitors will be advertised on our website.
For information please first consult our website and then the Director, Malcolm Walter.
Malcolm Walter
NAI/APS Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research Recipients Announced
The NAI is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2008 Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research in Astrobiology.
Benjamin Black
Stanford University
Examining the Evidence for Early Life and Environments in the Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa
Barbara Cavalazzi
Portland State University
3D Electron Tomography of Extreme Environments Fossil Microbes (Rio Salado, Chile): The Problem of Biogenicity and its Detection
Jackie Denson
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Lake Magadi, Kenya; A Survey of the Microbial Diversity and Microbial Biomarkers Associated with Growth of Microorganisms along Alkaline Gradients in a Saline Rift Valley System
Emiley Eloe
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Influence of High Hydrostatic Pressure on Microbial Communities from the Puerto Rico Trench
Ian Johnson
Pennsylvania State University
The Earth's Oldest (~3.4 Ga) Paleosol, North Polar Dome region of the Pilbara Craton, Australia
Michael Meyer
University of South Florida, Tampa
Morphological Change Through Time in the Ediacaran Fossil, Pteridinium
Kristen Myshrall
University of Connecticut
Evaluating the Microbial Constituents and their Metabolisms in Modern Thrombolites: A tool for Interpreting Life on the Ancient Earth and Searching for Life Beyond
Jorge Nunez
Arizona State University
Mineralogy. Microtexture and Microbial Biosignatures of Siliceous Hydrothermal Spring Deposits in New Zealand , with Applications to Mars Exploration
Noah Planavsky
University of California, Riverside
Sulfur Isotopes in Paleoproterozoic Carbonates: The Key to Understanding Post Oxygenation Chemical Oceanography
For more information: http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/funding/lewis-and-clark
NAI Minority Institution Research Support Program
The NAI congratulates the faculty sabbatical awardees for the NAI MIRS program for 2008. They are:
Dr. Prabhakar Misra, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Howard University, who will be working with Dr. Paul Mahafft at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, on a project entitled "Spectroscopy and Analytical Protocols for Organic Molecules of Relevance to the Origin of Life on Mars and Earth."
Dr. Erik Melchiorre, Associate Professor of Geology, California State University, San Bernardino, who will work with Drs. Karen Meech, Mike Mottl and Jim Cowen at the University of Hawaii, at Manoa. His study is entitled, "Planetary Habitability and the Origins of Life: Evaluation of Mineralogical Evidence for Extremophile Colonization within Terrestrial Subduction Zones. "
For more information about the NAI MIRS program see http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/funding/nai-minority-institution-research-support
NAI Twitters and Tweets
Do you Tweet? If so, then you'll be happy to know that you can now follow an @AstrobiologyNAI Twitter stream. If you don't have any idea what the first two sentences in this article are about, keep reading! They refer to a micro-blogging tool called "Twitter," an increasingly popular, instant-messaging service that is quickly becoming the place where news breaks first, outpacing mainstream media. Individual blog entries in Twitter are called "Tweets," and are limited to 140 characters, based on the premise that short messages will be to the point, and will be posted frequently. Twitter users post short messages and can choose to "follow" other users, and information can be sent and received on the web, by phone, or through instant messaging. Wondering how all this might be useful? Consider the fact that Mars Phoenix first announced the recent finding of water ice on Mars by a Tweet, and as of this writing has over 26,000 online followers, more than CNN Breaking News.
We'll be Tweeting the latest NAI and astrobiology news. Follow us at http://twitter.com/AstrobiologyNAI.
If you'd like to know more, check out the following articles about Twitter.
The New York Times: Phoenix to Earthlings: I've Landed! Awesome!
Wired: The Real Value of Twitter to NASA Space Missions
BBC News: How Twitter Makes it Real.
Recently Published Research from the NAI
Novel Species of Bacteria Found Deep Within Greenland Glacier
Researchers from NAI's Penn State Team announced at the American Society of Microbiology General Meeting in Boston their discovery of a novel species of ultra-small bacteria that has survived for more than 120,000 years within the ice of a Greenland glacier at a depth of nearly two miles. The species is related genetically to certain bacteria found in fish, marine mud, and the roots of some plants, yet it has persisted in a low-temperature, high-pressure, reduced-oxygen, and nutrient-poor habitat. The study's authors speculate that it's unusual size helped enable it's survival in the ice for so long.
Erosion on Earth and Mars: Mere Seepage or Megaflood?
Researchers from NAI's University of California, Berkeley Team have a new study in Science focused on Box Canyon in Idaho. Incised into a basaltic plain with no drainage network upstream, and approximately 10 cubic meters per second of seepage emanating from its vertical headwall, the canyon is a veritable poster child of groundwater seepage erosion. But this new study posits evidence that the canyon?s formation was caused rather by catastrophic megaflood 45,000 years ago. Their results imply that flooding of this kind may have caused similar features on Mars.
Seafloor Microbes Abundant and Thriving....An Alternative Cradle for Life?
Researchers from NAI's Marine Biological Laboratory Team continue their study of the deep biosphere, reporting the latest results in Nature. This new study reveals that bacterial communities dwelling on ocean-bottom rocks are more abundant and diverse than previously thought, especially relative to the overlying water column. The microbes appear to ?feed? on the oceanic crust through seawater-rock alteration reactions involving the oxidation and hydration of glassy basalt.
Astrobiologists hypothesize that shallow water, not deep water, may have cradled the planet's first life; that the dark, carbon-poor depths offered little energy to emerging life. But the newfound abundance of seafloor microbes makes it theoretically possible that early life thrived - and maybe even began - on the seafloor. "Some might even favor the deep ocean for the emergence of life since it was a bastion of stability compared with the surface, which was constantly being blasted by comets and other objects," suggests study author and NAI member Katrina Edwards in the University of Southern California press release. For images and resources, see NSF's press page.
Enzyme's Active Site Revealed
A new study from NAI's Montana State University Team appears in the current issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The study probes the hydrogenase enzyme, a large, complex enzyme which plays a major role in anaerobic metabolism by creating molecular hydrogen. The research team produced a crystal structure of the enzyme to unprecedented resolution, revealing a new level of detail in the enzyme's active site, and providing clues about it's evolution. These results further our understanding of the transition from the abiotic (non-living) world to the biological world which may have been an early event in the development of life on Earth, and possibly a common feature of life elsewhere in the universe.
Astrobiology EPO, Undergrads, Grads, Postdocs
NASA Posdoctoral Program
Applications are due on July 1, 2008 for the NASA Postdcoctoral Program. The NAI will also be participating in the next cycle of applications, due November 1. More information can be found at http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai/funding/nai-postdoctoral-fellowship-program/
