Tags: Earth


CO2 levels hit new peak

The big news starting on Saturday grew out of reports that scientists measured an average concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide of 400 parts per million for the first time, which equals one very busy UGA geography professor: "Most experts that really study CO2 amounts estimate that we haven't seen that amount of CO2 in our atmosphere in about 3 million years," said J. Marshall Shepherd, climate change expert and professor at the University…

researcher with glider
UGA to launch robotic submersible, 'Salty Dawg'

Great news from the department of marine sciences: UGA physical oceanographer Renato Castelao and colleague Ruoying He of North Carolina State University will launch two autonomous underwater vehicles called gliders in fall 2013. UGA's Salty Dawg and NCSU's Salacia, named for the Roman goddess of salt water, will remotely collect data on the exchange of water between the coastal ocean off Georgia and the Gulf Stream. "The oceans are chronically…

star, sun illustration with telescope
'UGA-1785'

NASA and a Franklin alumnus have made a very magnanimous gesture toward the College and UGA: The University of Georgia and its Franklin College of Arts and Sciences received the honor after the Kepler mission, NASA's first mission capable of finding earth-size planets, confirmed in 2012 the existence of three new planets in the system known as Kepler-37. This year, NASA authorized the nickname designation of this planetary system as UGA-1785.…


Every week is Earth Week

But in April we schedule events designed to highlight the importance of sustainable living: From April 22-27, the UGA Office of Sustainability, Students for Environmental Action and other campus and community organizations will host events highlighting opportunities ranging from alternative transportation and local food to water resource preservation and career insights from industry leaders. UGA Earth Week is held in conjunction with Athens-…


Public archeology dig

On Saturday March 16, Jennifer Birch, assistant professor in the department of anthropology, and students from the Student Association for Archaeological Sciences hosted a public archaeology day for the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society. The dig took place at the Raccoon Ridge site, north of Madison, GA. This location was the site of two prehistoric village occupations, one dating to the Late Woodland period ca. AD 900-1150 AD and the other…


Discovery may create path to fuel from CO2


Origin of Life

The Origins Lecture Series continues next week with the Origin of Life by series founder and chair of the division of biological sciences, Mark Farmer: The origin of life remains one of the great unsolved mysteries in all of science.  Late in life Charles Darwin speculated that life may have begun in “a warm little pond” but today we think it more likely that the earliest life forms emerged in the dark depths of the early Earth’s oceans.…


Shepherd on the future of weather satellites

Easy access to precise weather information, the beauty and accuracy of real-time satellite imagery in particular, almost seems commonplace at this point. But that doesn't mean the system providing that data is secure in today's world of tight budgets. In National Georgraphic news, professor J. Marshall Shepherd speaks to the strains on an aging system and explains the problems with replacing it: a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (…


Schaefer receives Chemical Pioneer Award

An outstanding honor will be presented to Henry "Fritz" Schaefer from the American Institute of Chemists: Schaefer, Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, will receive the Chemical Pioneer Award at the AIC's annual meeting in April. The award recognizes researchers whose work has had a major influence on advances in chemistry. Past recipients include Nobel laureates Linus Pauling and Glenn T. Seaborg,…


Shepherd at Senate Climate Hearing today

Professor and director of the UGA Atmospheric Sciences Program in the department of geography Marshall Shepherd will testify before a U.S. Senate Committee this morning. Per the AMS blog: The Senate Committee on Environment and Infrastructure, chaired by Senator Barbara Boxer, has already lined up a session on the “Latest Climate Science” for this morning, at 10 a.m. EST. The blue-ribbon panel of invited experts providing testimony includes AMS…

yager, with ocean background.
Focus on the Faculty: Patricia Yager


Refining your research

Along with a couple of dozen colleagues from campus, I was involved in a day-long workshop back in the fall on the subject of communicating research: how to accurately condense descriptions of research for public consumption. It's not inevitable that we always can, but we do try. And now, Columns reports that workshops to assist faculty on this subject will soon be repeated:  A team of UGA faculty and staff is beginning a new program to…

priomordial soup
Public discussions on science

If anyone was wondering whether there would be any interest in public lectures on big scientific questions, and relatedly, what a packed Chapel for such a discussion would look like, here you are: The Origins Lecture Series continues on Wednesday Feb. 27,  when Claiborne Glover will discuss the origins of biomolecules. Again, arriving early is a good idea. Image: Clumsy author photo and Photoshop job, but you get the idea.

earth origins
Origin of the Earth

The Origins Lecture Series continues on Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. in the Chapel with Ray Freeman-Lynde from the department of geography: In the early 19th Century, geologists, using simple principles to determine the relative ages of rocks, came to understand the great age of the earth and to establish a relative geologic time scale. Following the discovery of radioactivity at the end of the 19th Century, geochronologists developed techniques…

Tan and Mohnen in the lab
New Plant structure may improve biofuel processing

Great new work from Debra Mohnen and Li Tan in the BioEnergy Science Center: When Li Tan approached his colleagues at the University of Georgia with some unusual data he had collected, they initially seemed convinced that his experiment had become contaminated; what he was seeing simply didn’t make any sense. Tan was examining some of the sugars, proteins and polymers that make up plant cell walls, which provide the structural support and…


Shepherd and Yager challenge 'Zombie theories' on climate change

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides public-access data confirming “average temperature in the United States for 2012 was ... 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average, and 1.0 degree above 1998, the previous warmest year” in the United States. It is also well-documented that over the last several decades, we have experienced far more record-high temperatures than record-low temperatures. Up to the early…


NASA DEVELOP at UGA

Students and faculty in the department of geography have pioneered a terrific new collaboration with NASA set to begin this summer: University of Georgia's department of geography will partner with NASA through DEVELOP, a national student internship program created to enhance training and development in Earth science. The UGA collaboration is only the second housed strictly at a university in the U.S. Initial UGA projects include analyzing the…

Pan with colleagues and LED
Scientists unveil new LED material

It often seems as though major developments in energy efficiency or conservation are so elusive that the entire pursuit may appear to be futile. But we are surrounded by smaller steps forward, almost on a daily basis. UGA researchers report today on one small step with major implications: University of Georgia scientists have fabricated what is thought to be the world's first LED that emits warm white light using a single light emitting material…


Students help in the shift toward sustainability on campus

According to its own waste characterization study in 2006, the state of Georgia estimates that each year it spends $100 million to throw away $300 million worth of recyclables. Now the UGA Office of Sustainability is enlisting, and rewarding, students across campus in the effort to cut down on the waste: The University of Georgia Office of Sustainability has awarded $26,000 to seven student projects as part of its annual Campus Sustainability…


Origins Lecture Series

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the the division of biological sciences will host a new lecture series on the UGA campus this spring: The Origins Lecture Series Since mankind’s earliest days the story of our origins has been one of fascination and inspiration.  In an effort to share that story six of UGA’s leading scientists have come together to present the latest scientific findings on everything from our humble beginnings…


3000 years of human occupation

The department of anthropology will host a very interesting public lecture on January 18, one that brings guest lecturer Scott Fitzpatrick from the University of Oregon to campus to discuss human activity and biological diversity on the Western Caroline Islands of Micronesia: The Palauan archipelago--considered to be on of the most ecologically diverse regions of the world-- is located in the northwest tropical Pacific and consists of hundreds…


The biofuels equation: public opinion

From time to time we've mentioned the long-term investments at UGA in people and research on the issue of developing renewable energy sources. The university has cultivated a wide range of expertise on the subject that goes back decades. And all of that research on everything from fermentation of sugars in plant lignin to biodiesel and drought resistant strains of switchgrass would not be complete without also looking at public support for…


UGA scientific divers discover 36,000-year-old gray whale fossil

This story has been cropping up several places, even before we could get the press release out. But it is, ahem, a whale of a story: While the Atlantic gray whale was hunted to extinction by the 1700’s, the Pacific or California gray swims today with a population near its pre-whaling levels. University of Georgia scientists have published their discovery of an Atlantic gray whale fossil off the Georgia coast that has re-enlivened…


Scientists to speak at SEC renewable energy symposium

A three-day SEC-sponsored event in February to discuss the future of renewable energy will feature two Franklin researchers with wide experience in our region's quest for renewable fuels: The SEC Symposium theme, “Impact of the Southeast in the World’s Renewable Energy Future,” will explore the spectrum of renewable energy technologies, including bioenergy, solar, wind, wave/flow and nuclear.  ... Researchers from all 14 member schools will…


NSF renews coastal research grant

The UGA Marine Institute on Sapelo Island was founded in 1953 and has been at the center of ecological research on salt-marsh coastal ecoystems ever since. That work, lead by our department of marine sciences, continues apace with the renewal of an important NSF grant: A consortium of universities headed by the University of Georgia will continue ecological field research on the marshes and estuaries of the Georgia coast following the renewal of…
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