Experts in the News

Gloeocapsopsis dulcis strain AAB1 is an extremely xerotolerant cyanobacterium isolated from the Atacama Desert (the driest and oldest desert on Earth) that holds astrobiological significance due to its ability to biosynthesize compatible solutes at ultra-low water activities. A team including Postdoctoral Scholar Rachel A. Moore (the study's lead author) and Assistant Professor Christopher Carr, both with the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, developed a genome-scale model to explore the metabolic capacity of G. dulcis undergoing desiccation. Understanding specific metabolic adaptations employed by extremely desiccation-tolerant cyanobacteria like G. dulcis could be critical in identifying strategies for the survival of life in arid planetary environments such as Mars, especially given that the Atacama Desert is an established Martian analog.

Nature Scientific Reports

At the apex of the Greenland ice sheet, a community of 41 scientists and support staff carry out cutting-edge research into everything from climate change to particle physics. This story details recent research underway at Summit Station, located close to the apex of the Greenland ice sheet and one of the most remote scientific stations on Earth. One of two ice-coring projects at Summit Station involved Rachel Moore, a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Moore will use the core samples to study bacteria and other latent biological entities once afloat in the atmosphere and now buried in the ice sheet. Her research will provide a window into the Earth’s environmental history and changing atmospheric patterns that goes back about six centuries.

Geographical

Up to twice the amount of subglacial water that was originally predicted might be draining into the ocean — potentially increasing glacial melt, sea level rise, and biological disturbances. Two School of Earth and Atmospheric Scientist researchers — Alex Robel, assistant professor, and Shi Joyce Sim, research scientist — have collaborated on a new model for how water moves under glaciers. The new theory shows that up to twice the amount of subglacial water that was originally predicted might be draining into the ocean. (The research is also covered at SciTechDaily and Earth.com.)

Phys.org

Fossils aren’t only useful for learning about the past. They can also suggest how plants and animals might respond to future events — most pressingly, climate change. For example, Jenny McGuire, assistant professor and conservation paleobiologist in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and her colleagues studied fossilized pollen grains to see how 16 important plant taxa from North America responded to climate change over the past 18,000 years. Did the plants shift their ranges to follow their preferred climate, the researchers wondered, or did they stay put and make the best of things as the climate changed around them? Twelve of the 16 taxa changed their geographic distribution to maintain similar climate niches, the researchers found — even in periods when the climate was changing rapidly. (This story was first published in Knowable Magazine.) 

The Atlantic