Media Relations
Tuesday,
September 9,
2003
Geological Sciences
The Indiana Geological Survey, a research institute of Indiana University, is a member of a large, new U.S. Department of Energy project to assess the geothermal potential of most American states. The IGS, along with 40 other state geological surveys, have formed a coalition to populate a new National Geothermal Data System with relevant, state-specific geothermal data. Over the three-year life of the project, the Geothermal Data Consortium will receive $17.79 million from the DOE with the IGS receiving $300,000.
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Indiana University dignitaries dedicated Multidisciplinary Science Building Phase II, the Bloomington campus's newest science building, in a special ceremony on Thursday. The dedication was part of October's month-long Celebrate IU initiative. IU President Michael A. McRobbie led a platform party that included members of the IU Board of Trustees, Provost Karen Hanson, College of Arts and Sciences Dean Bennett Bertenthal, School of Public and Environmental Affairs Dean John Graham, and Provost's Professor of Geological Sciences Lisa Pratt, who has also been chair of the MSB II Design and Oversight Committees. David Johnson, president and CEO of BioCrossroads, was the event's keynote speaker.
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Indiana University Bloomington will join seven partners in Britain and the Netherlands to investigate early human settlements in Europe. The $1.81 million (1.1 million pound) Leverhulme Trust grant, spearheaded by the Natural History Museum in London, will be distributed to collaborators over four years. Paleontologist David Polly oversees IU Bloomington's participation in the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project.
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More than 75 scientists, students and university administrators celebrated the opening of the Indiana University Research and Teaching Preserve's new Field Laboratory, an ecology and environmental sciences research station and classroom facility on the Bloomington campus. The field lab dedication was timed to coincide with Earth Day, April 22.
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Scientists have recovered fossils from a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas and reticulated pythons seem a bit cuter and more cuddly. Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip -- and that's a conservative estimate. A report describing the find appears in this week's Nature.
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A classic experiment proving amino acids are created when inorganic molecules are exposed to electricity isn't the whole story, it turns out. The 1953 Miller-Urey Synthesis had two sibling studies, neither of which was published. Vials containing the products from those experiments were recently recovered and reanalyzed using modern technology. The results are reported in this week's Science.
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