Press Releases

Like most sciences, biology is inundated with data. However, researchers, including Sue Rhee at Plant Biology, warn in a Nature feature that the avalanche of biological information is at the point where the discipline may be unable to reach its full potential without improvements for curating data into on-line databases. The piece outlines specific remedies to harness the information overload. more »

Former Plant Biology director, Chris Somerville, delivers keynote lecture on Developing Cellulosic Biofuels at the 19th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research. For podcast click more

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Scientists have known for decades that genes called transposons can jump around the genome, but it can be dangerous, especially in cells that produce eggs and sperm. To ensure the integrity of these cells, nature developed a mechanism to quash this genetic scrambling, but how it works has remained a mystery. Now a team of scientists, including researchers at the Department of Embryology, has identified a key protein that suppresses jumping genes in mice and found that the protein is vital to sperm formation.

Podcast at http://videos.ciw.edu/achilles_movies_download/bortvin_video_podcast.mov

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Steroids bulk up plants just as they do human athletes, but the playbook of molecular signals that tell the genes to boost growth and development in plant cells is far more complicated than in human and animal cells. A new study by plant biologists at the Carnegie Institution used an emerging molecular approach called proteomics to identify key links in the steroid signaling chain.

Carnegie geochemist Richard Carlson will receive the 2008 Norman L. Bowen Award from the American Geophysical Union. Named in honor of pioneering experimental petrologist and long-time Geophysical Laboratory staff member Norman Bowen, the award is given annually for outstanding contributions to volcanology, geochemistry or petrology.

The National Association of Geoscience Teachers has awarded the 2008 James H. Shea Award to science writer Alan Cutler at the Carnegie Institution. The Shea Award is given annually. Other winners of the Shea Award include Science magazine writer Richard Kerr, Pulitzer Prize winner John McPhee, and Stephen Jay Gould.

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Using new techniques developed by Carnegie’s Erik Hauri, scientists have discovered that tiny beads of volcanic glasses collected from two Apollo missions to the Moon contain water. Contrary to previous thought, water was not entirely vaporized in the violent events that formed the Moon. The results call into question some critical aspects of the “giant impact” theory of the Moon’s formation and may have implications for the origin of possible water reservoirs at the Moon’s poles.

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