"Why are the planets placed at the particular distances from the sun that they are at? "
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Astrobiology Curriculum Pilot Kicks-Off Maine STEM Initiative
The pilot-test of a NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)-supported curriculum entitled Astrobiology: An Integrated Science Approach helped kick-off the State of Maine’s new Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Initiative. This initiative was the subject of a press conference given this week by Maine’s Governor, The Honorable John E. Baldacci.
The curriculum was developed with significant input from the NAI Team at NASA Ames Research Center led by Dave Des Marais, who spoke at the press conference. Much of the team’s research in astrobiology is captured in the curriculum.
Providing ninth grade students an...
November 19, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Comet Dust Reveals Unexpected Mixing of Solar System Material
Researchers from NAI’s University of Wisconsin, Madison Team are also involved the analysis of comet samples returned from NASA’s Stardust mission.
A new analysis of dust from the comet Wild 2, collected in 2004 by Stardust, has revealed an oxygen isotope signature that suggests an unexpected mingling of rocky material between the center and edges of the solar system. Wisconsin Astrobiololgy Research Consortium (WARC) researchers and their collaborators analyzed oxygen isotopes in crystals of olivine and pyroxene from the comet’s halo. These samples, which reached Earth in early...
Source: [Link]
October 24, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Miller-Urey Revisited
Members of NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington, Indiana University, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Teams and their colleagues have revisited the Miller-Urey experiments, and found some surprising results.
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.
One of the unpublished experiments by...
Source: [Indiana University Press Release]
October 16, 2008 / Written by: David Bricker
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2008 High Lakes Project: From Early Mars to Today’s Earth
The highest volcanic lakes in the world are located in the Andes. Their elevation and isolation make them some of the least understood lakes on Earth and excellent analogs for martian lakes that existed 3.5 billion years ago. The NAI-funded High Lakes Project (HLP), led by PI Nathalie Cabrol, has been investigating the geophysical environment of high altitude lakes in the Central Andes of Bolivia and Chile since 2002 and they are gearing up to return this October.
On this trip, which begins on October 29th, Nathalie and her team will be...
October 15, 2008 / Written by: Lyn Bartlett
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Life Without the Sun
An ecosystem discovered 2.8 kilometers underground in the Mponeng Gold Mine near Johannesburg, South Africa two years ago has now been shown to comprise only a single species of microbe, existing on energy from radioactivity, completely independently of the Sun. The community of rod-shaped bacteria of the species Desulforudis audaxviator was discovered in 2005-06 by members of the NAI’s Indiana-Princeton-Tennessee Astrobiology Initiative (IPTAI) Team. Their current results are presented in the October 10th issue of Science.
Confirming earlier inferences, the new work shows that D. audaxviator’s metabolic processes are decoupled...
October 10, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
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Mirror-Image Clues to Life's Origins
According to an article published in the Washington Post, scientists studying the Murchison meteorite have found that it contains clues to the origin of chirality. Amino acids in nature have two forms, referred to as right- and left-handed, that are mirror images of each other. The proteins in living organisms, however, are only made from left-handed amino acids. The reason for this chirality is not understood, but this new research suggests it may stem from meteorites that rained down on the young Earth.
Source: [Washington Post]
October 8, 2008 / Written by: Leslie Mullen
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NASA Selects New Science Teams for Astrobiology Institute
NASA has awarded five-year grants, averaging $7 million each, to 10 research teams from across the country to study the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe.
The interdisciplinary teams will become new members of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, located at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Teams from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu; Arizona State University in Tempe; the Carnegie Institution of Washington; Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pa.; the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta; and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., have been selected as members.
Teams from Ames,...
October 2, 2008 / Posted by: Marco Boldt
- NASA Selects New Science Teams for Astrobiology Institute
- 11/24 Director’s Seminar: Roger Summons, “The Great Mass Extinction – a Sudden Event or a Slow Moving Train-Wreck?”
- 2008 Astrobiology Roadmap
- NRC Assessment of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, 2008
- 2007 Annual Report
- Astrobiology Small Payloads Workshop Report
- Seminar Series Podcasts
- Astrobiology Primer
- 11/24 NAI Director's Seminar: Roger Summons, "The Great Mass Extinction - a Sudden Event or a Slow Moving Train-Wreck?"
- 11/17 FAR Seminar: "Extreme Life"
- The NAI Welcomes Two New Fellows to the NAI NASA Postdoctoral Program
- Recently Published Research from the NAI
- ABGradCon 2009
- NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) Program
- 2 PhD Student and 2 Postdoctoral Researcher Positions- Hydrothermal Activity on the Mid-Cayman Spreading Center
- NAI Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research in Astrobiology Application Deadline – February 1, 2009
- Applications Being Accepted for NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program (GSRP)
- NAI ARC Team Initiates New Education Project with Lassen
- NAI Teams with ASM to Share Astrobiology at National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) Conference
- Astrobiology Curriculum Pilot To Kick-Off Maine STEM Initiative
- NAI Planetary System Formation Focus Group Meeting
- Solar-Extrasolar Planet Formation Meeting to be held at NASA Ames
- NAI Minority Institution Research Sabbatical (MIRS) Program Deadline March 16, 2009
November 13, 2008 
