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July 17, 2000

Highlights

  • Bonnie McCay currently serves on the science advisory boards for the California Sea Grant College Program and Aquanet, an inter-institutional effort to develop research in Canadian aquaculture. In addition, in June 2000 she was named Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor at Rutgers University.
  • Jennifer Francis received a grant from the NASA/Langley Research Center to develop algorithms to retrieve cloud properties during the polar night from new satellite sensors (CERES and MODIS on the Terra platform).
  • Zbigniew Kolber, Paul Falkowski, Cindy van Dover and Bob Niederman have a paper accepted in Nature on bacterial photosynthesis in surface waters of the open ocean. The paper will be published within the next 3 weeks.
  • Paul Falkowski received an ONR grant to study green fluorescent proteins from corals.
  • Fred Grassle received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for activities associated with the Census of Marine Life and its component program the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (see Science magazine 2 June 2000, pp. 175-6). The Steering Committee for this program is Fred Grassle, Chair (Rutgers), Vera Alexander (Alaska), Patricio Bernal (IOC, Paris), Don Boesch (Maryland), David Farmer (IOS, Canada), Olav Godoe (Bergen), Poul Holm (Univ. Southern Denmark), Yoshihisa Shirayama (Kyoto), Andrew Solow (WHOI).
  • Peter Rona was quoted in the article "Tidal Waves Called Threat to East Coast, " by Andrew C. Revkin. The article appeared in the July 14, 2000 issue of THE NEW YORK TIMES.
  • "Whether it generates a tsunami or tidal wave, we're not able to say," said Dr. Peter Rona, a Rutgers University geologist who first reported this condition when he explored the depths off the East Coast in a research submarine 30 years ago. He said the new analysis of fluid-filled rock layers off New Jersey provides a possible explanation, but more work needs to be done to determine the level of risk.
    "All I can say is there is evidence that this has happened in the past," Dr. Rona said, "and some of these scars look fresh."
  • Sybil Seitzinger presented a seminar to the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program in Annapolis, MD on July 11 entitled: Biological Availability of Dissolved Organic Nitrogen from Point and Non-point to Coastal Ecosystems. The Chesapeake Bay Program is exploring approaches to incorporate the results of Seitzinger's research into their modeling efforts.
  • There will be a "social" (i.e. party) on the back porch of RUMFS welcoming all the visiting scientists to Tuckerton on Tuesday July 18 starting "after work" (whenever that may be). All are welcome, bring beverage of your choice and something for the pot-luck!

Meetings Attended

  • Peter Rona chaired and presented the keynote paper at the United Nations International Seabed Authority Workshop on Mineral Resources of the International Seabed Area 26-31 June in Kingston, Jamaica. The workshop brought together over 60 leading scientists, engineers and legal experts from 34 countries.
  • Bonnie McCay gave the presidential address and two workshop talks at the meetings of the International Association for the Study of Common Property at Indiana University in early June, 2000; she just finished 2 years as president of this multidisciplinary group, which focuses on the challenges of managing marine, forest, and other resources that are typically held in common. Earlier in 2000, she was appointed to the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences and gave presentations at its July 17-19 meeting at Woods Hole, MA.
  • Jennifer Francis attended a Gordon Conference on Solar Radiation and Climate June 24-29 at Connecticut College, New London, CT. She presented a poster on Changes in Atmospheric Heat Transport in the Arctic Observed from 20 Years of Satellite Data and led a discussion on Cloud Properties Retrieved from Satellites.
  • Steve Ertman presented a talk, co-authored by Gary Taghon, at the Fourth International Larval Biology Meeting in Santa Cruz, CA. The talk was titled, "Particle-Image Velocimetry (PIV): A new way to study larval settlement in turbulent flows."