Press Releases

A newly discovered star outside the Milky Way has yielded important clues about the evolution of our galaxy. Located in the dwarf galaxy Sculptor some 280,000 light-years away, the star has a chemical make-up similar to the Milky Way’s oldest stars, supporting theories that our galaxy grew by absorbing dwarf galaxies and other galactic building blocks.   

Astronomers have found the first clear evidence of a binary quasar within a pair of actively merging galaxies. Binary quasars, like other quasars, are thought to be the product of galaxy mergers. Until now, however, binary quasars have not been seen in galaxies that are unambiguously in the act of merging.  But images of a new binary quasar from the Carnegie Institution’s Magellan telescope in Chile show two distinct galaxies with “tails” produced by tidal forces from their mutual gravitational attraction.  Watch movie

Carnegie scientists Kenneth Caldeira of the Department of Global Ecology, Yingwei Fei of the Geophysical Laboratory, and Steven Shirey of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism have been elected 2010 Fellows of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Election to Fellowship each year honors scientists who “have attained acknowledged eminence in the Earth and space sciences.”

The Department of Energy announced Friday that Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has formed a Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future as part of President Obama’s efforts to restart America’s nuclear industry. The 15 member commission includes Carnegie president Richard A. Meserve. The body is chartered to review policies to manage nuclear waste in light of the administration’s decision not to proceed with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository program.

Scientists, including Plant Biology's Sue Rhee, have created a new computational model that can be used to predict gene function of uncharacterized plant genes with unprecedented speed and accuracy. The network, dubbed AraNet, has over 19,600 genes associated to each other by over 1 million links and can increase the discovery rate of new genes affiliated with a given trait tenfold. It is a huge boost to fundamental plant biology and agricultural research.

 Physicists have long wondered whether hydrogen could be transformed into a metal or a superconductor and they have speculated that certain pressure and temperature conditions could  achieve these goals. Now high-pressure researchers, including Carnegie’s Ho-kwang (Dave) Mao, have modeled three hydrogen-dense metal alloys and found pressure and temperature trends associated with the superconducting state—a huge boost in understanding how this abundant material could be harnessed. more »

Richard Heckert, former chairman of the Carnegie board of trustees and former chairman of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company died after a long illness on Sunday, January 3, at his home in Pennsylvania.

Global warming is causing climate belts to shift toward the poles and to higher elevations. To keep pace with these changes, the average ecosystem will need to shift about a quarter mile each year, says a new study led by scientists at the Carnegie Institution. For some habitats, such as low-lying areas, climate belts are moving even faster, putting many species in jeopardy, especially where human development has blocked migration paths.

Video Press Release
 Scientists at Plant Biology, with colleagues,* have found that a plant steroid prompts two genes to battle each other—one suppresses the other to ensure that leaves grow normally in rice and the experimental plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a relative of mustard. The results, published in the December 15, 2009, issue of The Plant Cell, have important implications for understanding how to manipulate crop growth and yield.   more »

Video Press Release
Two nearby stars have been found to harbor “super-Earths”― rocky planets larger than the Earth but smaller than ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune. Unlike previously discovered stars with super-Earths, both of the stars are similar to the Sun, suggesting to scientists that low-mass planets may be common around nearby stars.