The Book Of THoTH

Daniel Glavin, winner of the 2010 Nier Prize. Photo Credit: Chris Gunn
Daniel Glavin has been selected by the international Meteoritical Society as the recipient of the 2010 Nier Prize. The prestigious Nier Prize is awarded to young scientists performing valuable research in fields related to meteoritics and planetary science.

Dr. Glavin was presented with the prize for his work on extraterrestrial organic chemistry. By examining carbonaceous meteorites, Glavin and his team have made important contributions toward understanding why life uses only left-handed versions of amino acids. It turns out that molecules delivered to Earth in meteorites may have played a role in life’s eventual bias toward molecules of a specific orientation. The work was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This past week in Rome as part of the International Year of Astronomy, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences hosted a Study Week on Astrobiology, an interdisciplinary event during which “cloistered astrobiologists confronted each other’s fields of research” and dialogued about the connections. The participants included many from the extended astrobiology community, including John Baross, David Charbonneau, Roger Summons, Andy Knoll, Chris Impey, Jonathan Lunine, Jill Tarter, Sara Seager, and Giovanna Tinetti.

“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory, in an Associated Press Interview. Funes, a Jesuit priest, also said that the possibility of alien life raises “many philosophical and theological implications” but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue. RadioVaticana reports.

Today, NAI Director Carl Pilcher and Vatican Observatory astronomer and Jesuit brother Guy Consolmagno continue the conversation with Anna Maria Tremonti, host of the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s radio program The Current. Their discussion ranges from what it would mean to the Church if alien life were found, to whether or not science needs religion.

University Valley, Antarctica.
Members of NASA’s IceBite team will spend the next six weeks studying the only place on Earth where the terrain resembles that of the Phoenix landing site on Mars. The place: a mile above sea level in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys. The ultimate goal: to test ice-penetrating drills for a future mission to the martian polar north. Astrobio.net will be providing a direct link to scientists involved in the expedition, so now you can ask the scientists questions while they’re in the field.

Women in Aerospace recently awarded Dr. Linda Billings the Lifetime Achievement Award for more than 25 years of excellence in communicating with the public about the nation’s space program. As a journalist, she has covered energy, environment, and labor relations as well as aerospace. As a researcher, she has worked on communication strategy, media analysis, and audience research for NASA’s astrobiology, Mars exploration, and planetary protection programs. Her research has focused on the role that journalists play in constructing the cultural authority of scientists, the rhetorical strategies that scientists and journalists employ in communicating about science, and the rhetoric of space exploration.

Currently a research professor at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., she also does communication research for NASA’s astrobiology program in the Science Mission Directorate. In addition, she advises NASA’s Senior Scientist for Mars Exploration and Planetary Protection Officer on communications.


Photographs from the WIA Awards ceremony can be viewed at: http://www.reflectionsorders.com

NASA astronaut Michael Gernhardt at Pavilion Lake. Credit: Darlene Lim
Scientists from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency have been using Pavilion Lake as a testing ground for the future human exploration of other worlds. Pavilion Lake, in British Columbia, Canada, is home to a biological mystery. Microbialites, coral-like structures built by bacteria, in a variety of sizes and shapes, carpet the lakebed. That’s unusual for a freshwater lake like Pavilion. Exploration of Pavilion Lake is helping biologists understand this unique environment – and it’s also helping astronauts prepare for future human exploration of other worlds.

Last week, the Santa Clara University Markkula Center for Applied Ethics hosted a panel to discuss Challenges Raised by Life in Space. Today on KQED’s radio show The Forum, host Michael Krasney interviews some of those panelists for a national audience. They discuss a range of topics from the value and moral standing of the diversity of potential life elsewhere in the universe, to the modification of extraterrestrial ecosystems to suit human needs, to possible forward contamination of other planets through exploration.

The Office of the Chief Technologist selected scientist Jennifer Eigenbrode as its 2009 “IRAD Innovator of the Year� for her work verifying that a new sample-preparation method would benefit the SAM instrument on MSL. Image Credit: Chris Gunn
NASA Goddard scientist Jennifer Eigenbrode has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 IRAD Innovator of the Year award. Her work has added important capabilities to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, which will be included on the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). Dr. Eigenbrode’s work will allow MSL to analyze large carbon molecules if they are discovered on Mars, and could play an important role in determining the potential for past or present life on the Red Planet.

When MSL reaches Mars in 2012, the rover will analyze samples of martian soil and rock drillings to search for signs of life. If MSL discovers large organic molecules in any of its samples, Eigenbrode’s experiment will help determine how the molecules evolved.

“Our experiment preserves information on how these molecules formed,” said Eigenbrode. “What we’ll get are key observations that tell us about organic carbon sources and processing on Mars – shedding light on the planet’s carbon cycle. Even if we don’t detect signs of life, we might learn why not.”

According to SAM Principal Investigator, Paul Mahaffy, “With the addition of Jennifer’s chemical toolkit, the range of organic molecules that SAM can detect has been expanded with no hardware modifications. It provides a promising path to contribute to our understanding of the biological potential on Mars.”

Dr. Eigenbrode demonstrated that thermochemolysis— the combination of heat and a specific chemical — would significantly enhance SAM’s ability to analyze large carbon molecules. Image Credit: Chris Gunn

For more details on the SAM instrument, visit: http://ael.gsfc.nasa.gov/marsSAM.shtml

For more information on Dr. Jennifer Eigenbrode, visit:
http://ael.gsfc.nasa.gov/ael_bio_eigenbrode.html, http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/articles/astrobiologist-eigenbrode-profiled-in-goddard-tech-trends/,
http://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov/2009InnOfYear.htm

Image Credit: Alberto Behar
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists in the Planetary Protection group, led by Dr. Kasthuri Venkateswaran, teamed up with microbiologists and geochemists from Harvard University in the laboratories of Dr. Colleen Cavanaugh and Dr. Peter Girguis to deploy the NASA Hydrothermal Vent Biosampler (HVB) on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Vessel Pt. Lobos using the remotely operated vehicle Ventana.

The NASA HVB is able to collect large-volume samples of hydrothermal vent fluid. It can operate in extreme temperatures reaching 400°C and at depths of up to 6,500 meters. The HVB allows astrobiologists to collect ‘pristine’ samples of vent fluids, and could aid in the discovery of unique, thermo-tolerant organisms.

Image Credit: Alberto BeharThe NASA HVB was operated by engineers Alberto Behar and Jaret Matthews to collect samples of microbial life from a cold seep at a depth of 960 meters in the Monterey Bay canyon. Cold seeps are areas on the ocean floor characterized by cold temperature (4C) and the seepage of energy-rich dissolved gases such as methane and carbon dioxide from buried sediments into the bottom water. These unique ecosystems are like oases on the deserted ocean floor where microbial and animal communities thrive, independent of energy from the sun, by utilizing the energy in the seeping dissolved gases for growth.

Image Credit: Alberto BeharMicrobial samples, analyzed by microbiologists Kristina Fontanez (Harvard University) and Christina Stam (NASA JPL), will be combined with geochemical data, collected by geochemist Scott Wankel (Harvard University), to characterize the composition and function of the microbial community at cold seeps.
Image Credit: Alberto Behar
For more information on the HVB, visit http://eis.jpl.nasa.gov/~behar/HydroVentSampler/HydroVentSampler.html

UK’s The Register covered an NAI-sponsored event last week in Mountain View, CA near NASA Ames Research Center. The last in a year-long, evolution-themed series of public lectures helping celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s On The Origin of Species, this lecture was entitled The Evolution of Astrobiology, and was given by John Baross from the University of Washington.

NASA astrobiologists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of RNA, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidines exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life. The study appears in the September issue of Astrobiology.

“We have demonstrated for the first time that we can make uracil, a component of RNA, non-biologically in a laboratory under conditions found in space,” said Michel Nuevo, research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “We are showing that these laboratory processes, which simulate occurrences in outer space, can make a fundamental building block used by living organisms on Earth.”