NASA's apparent discovery of copious water on the moon is a revolutionary development that could help answer questions about the origin of water on earth and other mysteries of the solar system, says Indiana University geologist Abhijit Basu.

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.

The time has changed for an Indiana University Bloomington program recognizing the winner of the Tracy M. Sonneborn Award and the inaugural IU Provost's Professor. The program will start at 5:30 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 8) in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana Memorial Union. David E. Clemmer, the Robert and Marjorie Mann Chair of Chemistry, is 2009 recipient of the Sonneborn Award. Lisa Pratt, IU professor of geological sciences, is the first IU Provost's Professor.

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.

David E. Clemmer, the Robert and Marjorie Mann Chair of Chemistry at Indiana University Bloomington and the 2009 recipient of the prestigious Tracy M. Sonneborn Award at IU, and Lisa Pratt, IU professor of geological sciences and the inaugural IU Provost's Professor, will be recognized at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 8 (Thursday), in the Indiana Memorial Union's Frangipani Room. Clemmer will present the Sonneborn Lecture, "Measurements for the Masses," shortly after 5 p.m. The lecture and a reception afterward are free and open to the public.

Indiana University Bloomington Provost Karen Hansen and Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs Tom Gieryn have announced that two Indiana University Bloomington professors will receive prestigious university awards. David E. Clemmer, the Robert and Marjorie Mann Chair of Chemistry, will receive the 2009 Tracy M. Sonneborn Award, and Lisa Pratt, professor of geological sciences, will be named the inaugural Provost's Professor.

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.

Two new teaching awards related to sustainability and environmental literacy -- the Sustainability Course Development Fellowships and the Sustainability and Environmental Literacy Leadership Award -- have been awarded to IU Bloomington faculty by the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs.

Discovery of the most intact female pelvis of Homo erectus may cause scientists to reevaluate how early humans evolved to successfully birth larger-brained babies. The discovery will be published in Science this week (Nov. 14) by IU paleoanthropologist Sileshi Semaw, leader of the Gona Project in Ethiopia, where the fossil pelvis was discovered with a group of six other scientists, including IU Department of Geosciences graduate student Melanie Everett.

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.

The following news tips are based on presentations by Indiana University Bloomington geologists at the 2008 Joint Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America and four other professional societies in Houston, Texas, Oct. 5 - 9. The IU Bloomington scientists are presenting research that is still in progress.

The Geological Society of America has named Indiana University Bloomington geologist Maria Mastalerz the winner of the 2008 Gilbert H. Cady Award. Mastalerz, 51, is the youngest person ever to receive the award, and only the second woman to be so honored. Mastalerz is a senior scientist at the Indiana Geological Survey, a research institute of Indiana University, and is a graduate faculty member in IU's Department of Geological Sciences, where she advises graduate students.

Geologist Chen Zhu has received a Fulbright Scholarship to study underground carbon dioxide storage with Norwegian colleagues at the University of Oslo. Zhu's scholarship will last the duration of the 2008-2009 academic year. The Fulbright Scholar Program sends approximately 800 academic scholars and professionals abroad every year so that America's finest scholars may exchange knowledge with their counterparts in other countries. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The asteroid presumed to have wiped out the dinosaurs struck the Earth with such force that carbon deep in the Earth's crust liquefied, rocketed skyward, and formed tiny airborne beads that blanketed the planet, say scientists from the U.S., U.K., Italy, and New Zealand in this month's Geology. If confirmed, the discovery suggests environmental circumstances accompanying the 65-million-year-old extinction event were slightly less dramatic than previously thought.

The Indiana University Department of Geological Sciences has quickly mobilized, sending two field teams to deploy instruments in the region of Friday morning's earthquakes. The seismographs and Global Positioning System (GPS) units being deployed will record aftershocks, half a dozen of which have already occurred.

Geologists have long thought muds will only settle when waters are quiet, but new research by Indiana University Bloomington and Massachusetts Institute of Technology geologists shows muds will accumulate even when currents move swiftly. This may seem a trifling matter at first, but understanding the deposition of mud could significantly impact a number of public and private endeavors, from harbor and canal engineering to oil reservoir management and fossil fuel prospecting.

The Geological Society of America gave its highest service award to Indiana University Bloomington Geological Sciences Department Chair Abhijit Basu at the professional society's annual meeting last week. The award specifically acknowledges Basu's expansion of the society's publications program. The number of books published by the GSA has doubled during Basu's 10-year editorial term. Basu has also been on GSA's publications committee for 10 years.

Researchers from Indiana University Bloomington and eight collaborating institutions report in this week's Science a self-sustaining community of bacteria that live in rocks 2.8 kilometers below Earth's surface. Think that's weird? The bacteria rely on radioactive uranium to convert water molecules to useable energy.

Lake and watershed management professionals from around the world will meet in Union Station, in Indianapolis, on Nov. 8-10 for the 26th Annual International Symposium of the North American Lake Management Society (NALMS). Bill Jones, who is chairing this year's program, is a professor at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA). The theme of the conference is "Making Connections -- Land, Water, People." The Opening Plenary will feature talks by Todd Thompson of the Indiana Geological Survey, a research institute at Indiana University, who will discuss the geological history of the changing Great Lakes' shorelines.

A space on Indiana University Bloomington's campus once occupied by nothing but students rushing to class soon will be home to 750 scientists and support staff busily mixing reagents, inoculating cell cultures, and typing up replies to fly mutant requests.

Despite having once told Indiana University's Research & Creative Activity magazine, "I tend to be a little leery of technology," IU Bloomington structural geologist Jeremy Dunning makes liberal -- and effective -- use of technology in his classes. Now the professor of geological sciences has received two awards from the International Conference on College Teaching and Learning for bringing technology to traditional classroom activities.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has chosen Indiana University Bloomington biologists Jeffrey Palmer and Keith Clay and IUB geologist Erle Kauffman among its 2005 class of fellows. The scientists will be honored during the AAAS annual meeting in St. Louis, Mo., on Feb. 18, 2006.

The Indiana University Board of Trustees voted in favor of two new building projects today, including a life sciences research building in Bloomington.

To examine the devastating earthquake and tsunami that ravaged the coastlines of Indian Ocean, IU Bloomington will host an interdisciplinary academic forum on Thursday, Jan. 13. Special guest will be Peter Kovach, director of the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy from the State Department's Bureau of Southeast Asia and Pacific Affairs.

Two of the eight instruments selected to go on a Mars rover have Indiana University Bloomington geologists behind them, NASA announced yesterday. One of the devices will provide scientists with a closer look at Mars -- literally. The other will tell us, for the first time, what Mars is actually made of.