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   <title>Science Friday</title>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Video:Creating Earth </title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10425</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ There's artistry to creating the world, according to Rob Simmon, art director of NASA Earth Observatory. NASA's collection of Earth-from-space imagery dates back to the Apollo 8 mission, when astronauts snapped a picture of Earth rising over the moon. Simmon and NASA scientist Gene Feldman explain how the modern "Blue Marble" images are made and how they relate to scientific study of the Earth.  ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:11:34 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10425</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:Study Tracks Alzheimer's Progression In Mice</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202033</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ A new study looks at the role a corrupted protein plays in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.  ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202033</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:Listening In On The Brain To Decode Speech</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202036</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ A study in <em>PLoS Biology</em> details how researchers decoded the brain’s electrical activity to reconstruct speech. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202036</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:Drone Technology Reaches New Heights</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202035</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Experts discuss the military and commercial applications of increasingly sophisticated drones. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202035</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:IBEX Spacecraft Intercepts ‘Alien’ Particles</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202031</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ IBEX studies the composition of the Milky Way by measuring the abundance of interstellar particles. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202031</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:What Grosses You Out?</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202032</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Rachel Herz discusses her book <em>That’s Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion</em>. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202032</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:Blue Marble: The Making Of </title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202034</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ There’s artistry in creating the world.  ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202034</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Video:What's So Cool About Frozen Water?</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10424</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Ice can be hard to get a handle on, literally and figuratively. It can be cloudy or clear, as hard as concrete or as soft as a snowflake. Ice experts Erland Schulson, head of the <a href="http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/icelab/">Ice Research Lab</a> at Dartmouth College, and Shintaro Okamoto, founder of <a href="http://www.okamotostudionyc.com/">Okamoto Studio</a> in Queens, New York, have staked their livelihoods on the slippery material. We asked them what fascinates them about frozen water.  ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:54:15 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10424</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:Can Science Be Done Without Secrecy? </title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201276</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Physicist Michael Nielsen discusses his book <em>Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science.</em> ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201276</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:Stem Cell Eye Therapy Shows Promise</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201275</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ A study in <em>The Lancet</em> is the first published report on embryonic stem cell use in humans.  ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201275</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:Ode To Ice</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201274</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Two experts--an ice sculptor and an ice researcher--explain why ice is cool. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201274</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:How ‘Space Weather’ Affects Planes And Power Grids</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201272</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Solar explosions earlier this week sent X-rays and charged particles screaming towards the Earth. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201272</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:A Mobile Wallet: Cash, Credit, Or... Cell Phone?</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201273</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Google already offers a way to buy lunch with a phone; cell providers and banks aren’t far behind. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201273</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:Ancient Skull Holds Clues to Dog Domestication</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201277</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Discovery of an ancient skull sheds light on the domestication of dogs. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201277</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Radio:Magnetic Soap May Help Clean Up Spilled Oil </title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201271</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Scientists have created an iron-containing soap that can be removed from solution with a magnet. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201201271</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Blog:Candlemas, All Over Again</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3649</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ I have always enjoyed Stephen Colbert, and last week I learned something useful. I did not know, until he told me, that Groundhog Day was a derivative of a holiday called Candlemas. He really got me into research mode when he explained that Candlemas tradition included the harvest of beeswax from the family hive for making candles that would be blessed by the priests.

This sacred event was set to take place forty days after Christmas, based on Jewish tradition as described in the Gospel of Luke. But February 2 also happens to be significant as the midpoint between the winter solstice and the March equinox, and as such, it is considered in some traditions to be the beginning of spring (perhaps depending on whether the groundhog saw his shadow or not?)

But I'll tell you what was evident to me. The observation hive in which I installed the colony of bees I saved from destruction by Hurricane Irene have started raising brood. To me, that's a sign of spring. By Groundhog day the queen had been laying  and there were tiny larvae visible deep in some of the comb.

Should I keep my fingers crossed? One thing is for sure. Groundhog Day should be a day of celebration for beekeepers. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>2012-02-06 18:33:39</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3649</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Blog:Cool Medicine</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3645</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ As a fan of exotic medical treatments, I thought it might be a good idea to cover something a little more tasteful than maggots this time. Instead, I present the underutilized field of therapeutic hypothermia.

As the name suggests, therapeutic hypothermia is the act of cooling the body down, most commonly to aid in the treatment of cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest causes 300,000 hearts to stop in America every year. Less than 10% of the owners of those hearts will survive long enough to leave the hospital. Even if you are lucky enough stay alive without a heartbeat for a significant period of time, the lack of circulation may mean that some of your brain cells have suffocated.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine way back in 2002 found some good outcomes for therapeutic hypothermia. Keep in mind that the survival rate of this study is much better than the 10% mentioned earlier because resuscitation was attempted on everyone between 5-15 minutes after the heart attack, so it doesn’t take into account those who were alone or unable to get help in time. Of the people put on ice, 55% survived and suffered little or no brain damage after 6 months, compared to 39% of the control group.

You’d think that getting dumped in a freezer would lower your chances of a good recovery. Well, Anna Bågenholm is glad that a little cold is a good thing. For her, a LOT of cold was a good thing. Anna had the privilege of accidentally becoming a case study for therapeutic hypothermia when she fell face-first through a frozen stream in a skiing mishap . Trapped under the ice, she found an air bubble, which sustained her for 40 minutes before her heart gave out. Rescuers couldn’t get her out for another 40 minutes.

Anna reached the hospital an hour after being dragged from beneath the ice, Once there, doctors found her body temperature to be a crisp 56.7 degrees, the lowest recorded temperature at which anyone has survived. Nine hours and a rotating staff of 100 doctors and nurses later, she was alive. It turns out that the 40 minutes she spent breathing out of that air bubble gave her body time to cool, which slowed her metabolism to a fraction of its normal speed. By the time her heart had stopped working, her brain didn’t need much of the oxygen that her blood couldn’t deliver. As a result, she didn’t have any brain damage. After 2 months, she left the hospital with only minor nerve damage in her hands.

Despite the miraculous recovery of Anna Bågenholm and several papers highlighting the merits of therapeutic hypothermia, a recent study published in Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management found that few doctors use this technique. Of the 26,519 patients of cardiac arrest studied in the paper, only 92 patients were treated with hypothermia. That’s 0.35%. Why aren’t we using such a useful tool to fight against such a common and deadly disease? Well, the treatment isn’t widely available partially because doctors don’t have the knowledge or equipment to use it. Hopefully, the future will be a little colder for medicine. ]]></description>
      <pubDate>2012-02-01 14:58:51</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3645</guid>
    </item>
   
    <item>
      <title>SciFri Blog:That Other electric vehicle  </title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3631</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ There's plenty of concern expressed in the media, right now, about weak consumer demand in electric cars. Bad press about the Chevy Volt's battery fires (long after a crash, for goodness sake) and continued range anxiety about pure electric cars like the Nissan Leaf have consumers skittish about spending a significant premium that they won't recoup for years. So where is the compelling business case for all-electric propulsion?

When I first looked into the Ford Transit Connect Electric, although I couldn't justify the high cost with my annual mileage needs, I realized that for a business that sends out vehicles on local runs every business day, the payback equation is quite different. 

This week I started seeing these cutesy ads on TV from FedEx. They are painting themselves as a Green company as they grow their all-electric fleet - that's the ticket. It seems to me that UPS has even more all-electric vehicles on the roads.

So while we wait for the first real consumer oriented all-electric car that doesn't push your range-anxiety button, to come out later this year, let's keep our eyes out for those all-electric delivery vehicles. Is that one over there? (Psst...Wanna watch the ad? I'm a sucker for fun animation, and these ads could do a whole lot to bring the public around.) ]]></description>
      <pubDate>2012-01-12 20:36:27</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3631</guid>
    </item>
   
    <item>
      <title>SciFri Blog:Grazing Towards a Cooler Climate</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3622</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ X

Which of the following statements is accurate, and which is outlandish?

	Letting animals graze in an arctic region as they did in the last ice age will keep permafrost frozen and lower the area's temperature.
	Letting trees grow naturally in drought-riddled regions leads to more fertile soil.
	Plowing a field causes rain.

ANSWER: All three answers sound outlandish, but (1) and (2) are believed to be true.

(1)
Russian physicist Sergey Zimov is populating a portion of Siberia with moose, reindeer and other animals that used to graze in the region during the last ice age. He believes grazing herds will keep the grass healthy, encouraging better growth. And by trampling snow, the herds will eliminate the blanket of insulation that would prompt the permafrost to melt. Additionally, Zimov is clearing out trees as part of his "back to the ice age" experiment. This will also encourage the area to cool a bit, since grass reflects more sunlight than trees.

At this point, the project seems to be working — temps in the area have dropped and the permafrost has remained stabile. This scheme prompts not only short term temperature drop, but long term as well, since prevention of permafrost thaw means potent greenhouse gases will remain locked in the frozen ground, rather than released into the atmosphere.

(2)
From a paper by the Congressional Hunger Center:
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), a set of practices farmers use to foster the growth of indigenous trees on agricultural land, has drawn substantial attention as a contributing factor to a trend of increasing vegetation greenness in the Republic of Niger.... FMNR raises household income and increases crop diversity, household migration rates, and the density and diversity of trees on farmland. It is estimated that FMNR raises the annual gross income of the region by between 17 and 21 million USD and has contributed an additional 900,000 to 1,000,000 trees to the local environment. These findings support the value of continued promotion of FMNR as an inexpensive means of enhancing rural livelihoods and an attractive alternative to reforestation efforts relying on tree planting.
Learn more about FMNR in this excerpt from "Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth"

(3)
Unfortunately, "Rain follows the plow" was proven to be false, in part by a little thing called the Dust Bowl. When the great plains were being settled, it was believed that simply churning up the prarie to create farmland would lead to wetter conditions. In reality, removing the prarie's natural vegetation, which had held the soil together during dry and windy spells, allowed soil to simply blow away.

So allowing nature to take its course leads to good growing conditions, while plowing unsuitable land does not. Boy, if I didn't know better, I'd say nature knows what it's doing.

_______________________________________________________

CAN'T GET ENOUGH WHAT ON EARTH?

	See more WOE and become a FAN on Huffington Post
	LIKE WOE on Facebook — get updates, climate change fun facts, download WOE avatars &amp; desktop wallpapers and more!
	Interview: Katie Kline, Communications Officer at Ecological Society of America interviewed me via Skype for the ESA's Ecotone blog. Read and hear it here.
	Video: Bebbo and Kito were featured in one of Jim Parks' terrific Today's Green Minute episodes. See the video! Learn more about it.
 ]]></description>
      <pubDate>2012-01-11 03:00:28</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3622</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>SciFri Blog:Science and Art in Antarctica</title>
      <link>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3532</link>
      <description><![CDATA[ Laura Von Rosk, landscape artist turned Antarctic research and ice diving assistant, spent the last 3 months working in a remote field camp in Taylor Valley, Antarctica known as Explorers Cove with cell biologist Dr. Sam Bowser and his team studying and observing single-celled organisms known as Foraminifera. She was there to assist with the scientific research and dive teams and, in one way or another, to incorporate this experience into her own work as a visual artist from above and below the ice. Laura has given us a full report (plus photos and videos!) of her adventures in the Great White South.

[caption id="attachment_3586" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="New Harbor view from Camp"][/caption]



[caption id="attachment_3558" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Our Team on the roof of our home at New Harbor, Antarctica: Laura Von Rosk, Cecil Shin, Jan Pawlowski, Danielle Woodward, Hilary Hudson, Sam Bowser."][/caption]

Dr. Sam Bowser’s team includes two other scientists who study Foraminifera – Dr. Jan Pawlowski and Dr. Andy Gooday - as well as divers Cecil Shin, Danielle Woodward, and Hilary Hudson.

What are Foraminifera and why study them in the Antarctic?
There are two major types of foraminifera (known to their friends as ‘forams’), and both come in many shapes and sizes. The structure of the shell (also known as the “test”), as well as the materials used, help identify foram species. Agglutinated forams build their shells by gluing or cementing together grains of sand, shells, or other particles from the sea-floor sediment. Calcareous forams build their tests by secreting their own particles of calcium carbonate. The more “primitive” (i.e., early-evolving) single-chambered agglutinated forams living today in Explorers Cove hold clues to the biology of multi-chambered forams - how they adapted and eventually evolved into building more complex, multi-chambered shells.

[caption id="attachment_3560" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Species of foraminifera known as Astrammina rara, under the microscope"][/caption]

How do you fish for forams?

One traditional method of extracting forams from sediment samples is to dry the sediment, pass it through a sieve, and place the sieve residues in carbon tetrachloride (a dangerous solvent and suspected carcinogen). Because the foram’s cytoplasm shrinks as it dries out, tiny air bubbles are formed inside their shells, and consequently the shells float on the solvent. This method favors “airy” multi-chambered calcareous forams; heavier agglutinated forams frequently sink to the bottom and are discarded. This method has very little use in studying foram biology, which requires live specimens.

Although single-chambered agglutinated forams are abundant, they have not been given much attention. They are sometimes difficult to identify and, unfortunately, much of the scientific research on forams has been driven by economics. The petrochemical industry has been interested in calcareous forams because particular species are markers for a certain strata of rock and can be used to assign the strata to the geological period (e.g., the “Pennsylvanian” time period) when the rock was formed. Certain calcareous forams are present in rocks that contain vast deposits of oil.

[caption id="attachment_3565" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Sam Bowser processing samples."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3567" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Andy and Sam with samples and sieving equipment"][/caption]

Dr. Bowser’s main area of research is the agglutinated forams.  For over 25 years Sam and his colleagues have recorded and studied approximately 100 species found in Explorers Cove, 20 of which are new to science.  The species found in Antarctica can provide clues to the past by providing information on subtle changes in the environment, possibly suggesting what to expect in the future.  In addition to surveying the population at New Harbor, Dr. Bowser is studying their behavior as well as their biology: What they eat, how they eat, how they construct their shells, and the real purpose of their shells.

[caption id="attachment_3569" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Here I am at Cape Bernacchi, assisting our divers Dannie Woodward and Cecil Shin as they prepare to dive."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3570" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Seal comes up dive hole at Cape Bernacchi"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3571" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="A smiling seal pokes his head out of the ice."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3572" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Me with the big seal after he emerged from our dive hole."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3573" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Team Bravo-043 Divers"][/caption]

Our work collecting these live, agglutinated forams from the ocean floor comes in a series steps:  we first melt dive holes, and the divers then collect cores and scoops of sediment from the ocean floor. Then we sieve most of the mud and detritus from the samples collected. Finally, in the lab, using a dissecting microscope, we separate, or “pick” forams from a tangle of tiny worms, sand and other small creatures or particles that remain after sieving.  “Picking” for forams is like mining for gold!  I’ve learned to identify the key species, and am amazed at how each species has its own “architectural” style, but like us, each individual is unique.  

In my imagination the colorful and transparent sand grains that Astrammina triangularis collects remind me of stained glass windows; Astrammina rara has me thinking of stone masons; Notodendrodes hyalinosphaira (AKA “quartz balls”) build little glass houses.

[caption id="attachment_3578" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Different kinds of forams. From Left to Right: Stained glass (Astrammina triangularis); Stone masons (Astrammina rara); Little glass houses (Notodendrodes hyalinosphaira)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3580" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Astrammina triangularis in the picking tray"][/caption]

Notodendrodes antarctikos (also known as the “tree foram”) is one species of particular interest, and currently known to exist only in Explorers Cove.  The tree foram builds a stem from which protrudes a handful of “branches” that reach into the water column; it also extends “roots” down into the sediment.  Dr. Bowser suggests they are building their shell not simply for protection, but more importantly as a means to collect food. Their unique shape allows them to capture and ingest food items landing on their “branches,” as well as to absorb dissolved nutrients in the sediment through their “roots.”

[caption id="attachment_3581" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Notodendrodes antarctikos"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3582" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="A bit of a departure from my usual imagery – this iPad drawing of Notodendrodes antarctikos was inspired after a conversation with Sam."][/caption]


Large forams like Notodendrodes are top carnivores of their size class. Their pseudopods reach out through an aperture (opening in the shell) to form a web-like snare to grab prey like small crustaceans or worms. As such, they probably play a huge role in the ocean’s food web, but scientists are just now learning some of those details.

Foraminifera may tell us how other marine life has evolved. Bowser says that “tree forams could be a new species – just rubbing its eyes, awakening to the world - or it could be a species going extinct, now on its deathbed.” This is yet another aspect of the ongoing work on these fascinating organisms.

The micro world of foraminifera has me reflecting on the connections between all life on the planet, and the “invisible” cycles that ALL living beings participate in, known and unknown, knowingly or unknowingly. Scientists are only just beginning to understand the importance of the role of forams in the cycling of elements on earth (such as carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur). For example, some forams are planktonic, and float near the ocean surface. When they die their shells fall to the ocean floor, accumulate, and in some cases form thick (miles deep) deposits of calcium carbonate, which eventually turns into rock. Analysis of calcareous foram fossils reveal much about climate over the last 300 million years and are extremely important for ongoing climate change research.

[caption id="attachment_3589" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Me at Salmon Bay"][/caption]

Viewing life under the microscope is a new experience for me.  It’s a kind of dance in microspace that has expanded my awareness of what I see and feel when I look out at the ocean.  Just as forams recycle compounds and nutrients, I hope to bring this seemingly obscure work to light through my art, either through education projects or images, and cycle back to the public eye what I’ve learned from this research season. 

[caption id="attachment_3590" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Sam&#039;s foram sculpture garden"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3591" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="I found this worm when sieving the core samples - I was so excited to see a moving creature, other than a seal... or my fellow camp-mates.  There is an amazing and abundant variety of life under the sea ice!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3592" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Sea Star on sea floor (photo by Cecil Shin)"][/caption]

Antarctica's ever-changing landscape
Below are three different views of Mt Coleman from our camp. Most people think the “barren” landscape in Antarctica looks the same from day to day. I found the landscape changed every day. 

[caption id="attachment_3595" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="View from Jamesway window - Mount Coleman after a snow"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3596" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="View from Jamesway window - Mount Coleman on a clear day"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3597" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="View from Jamesway window - Mount Coleman with low clouds"][/caption]

The landscape also changes throughout the season. Below are two photos of another view from our camp: the Mountains in the Taylor Valley both at the beginning (above) and end (below) of our field season.

[caption id="attachment_3600" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="View of the mountains"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3601" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="View of the mountains in December"][/caption]

At its high elevation (12448 ft/ 3794 m), Erebus volcano is always snowy and white.

[caption id="attachment_3616" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="View of Mt. Erebus from camp"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3605" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Sundogs at camp"][/caption]

Special thanks to Dr. Sam Bowser, Dr. Jan Pawlowski and Dr. Andy Gooday for their knowledge, patience answering my questions, and wonderful sense of humor, making foram work fun!

[caption id="attachment_3603" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Team Bravo 043 at Commonwealth glacier"][/caption]

To learn more about Foraminifera and the study of forams in the Antarctic, check out Dr. Sam Bowser's blog: http://icelabyrinth.blogspot.com/

And, to see more of Laura Von Rosk's artwork and paintings, go to her website: http://www.lauravonrosk.com/


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      <pubDate>2012-01-04 19:59:35</pubDate>
      <guid>http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/?p=3532</guid>
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