When I think about extraterrestrial life, I am so reminded of how our assumptions limit our thinking. Brilliant cartoon by Beatrice the Biologist . Gregory Benford taught me that we aren’t as smart as we think we are. @beatricebiologist
Photos of lecturers and dates for the UW Astrobiology 25th Anniversary Lecture series. Prof. Victoria Meadows (April 2nd), Dr. Giada Arney and Prof. Rika Anderson (together on April 9th), Dr. Ken Williford (April 16th), Prof. Aomawa Shields (April 23rd). All events are held in UW’s Kane Hall, Rm 120 at 7pm. Zoom attendance also available.
The UW Astrobiology Program is hosting a public lecture series in April 2025 to celebrate our 25th Anniversary! Registration is FREE but required for both in person and zoom attendance.
For more info on the talks, to register, and to learn more about our speakers:
www.eventbrite.com/e/uw-astrobi...
I’m so excited to announce that my paper on the structure of marine copper ligands is published in JASMS! Thanks to all of my awesome co-authors 🎉
pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....
🌊 🧪 Obviously, the fun-seeker is the limiting nutrient, and the monster is the plant. - Broecker and Peng (1982), Tracers in the Sea
A line graph showing atmospheric CO2 levels at Mauna Loa Observatory from 1955 to 2025. The y-axis represents CO2 mole fraction in parts per million (ppm), ranging from 320 to 420 ppm, while the x-axis is years.
The most iconic figure in the environmental sciences is the Keeling Curve, the CO₂ record from Mauna Loa, Hawaii.
@noaa.gov had a wonderful site where you could visualize and download these data, and now it's just gone. These data belong to us and we should not let this happen!
Some pictures so far from our cruise over the Australian-Antarctic Ridge
We’re looking for iron sources to a massive phytoplankton bloom that occurs here every year
🌊🐧
New GEOTRACES Science Highlight!
Biological production of ligands influences iron chemistry in hydrothermal systems
Paper first author: Colleen L. Hoffman, U. Washington
Read it here: www.geotraces.org/biological-l...
@rmbundy.bsky.social
#OceanScience
Thanks Randie!
It was fun to think about how whales (and their gut microbes) concentrate and transform iron + copper during feeding. We found high numbers, 40+ new copper compounds, and bioavailable iron.
Lots of questions, but I think gut bacteria are important to ecosystem metal cycling!
🐋💩
The journey has started! On our way to New Zealand and then the Southern Ocean to study the phytoplankton bloom above the Australian Antarctic ridge!
Microbial strong organic-ligand production is tightly coupled to iron in hydrothermal plumes bg.copernicus.org/articles/21/... #jcampubs 🌊
The lab’s going out to the Australian-Antarctic Ridge next month to investigate if and how hydrothermalism impacts the surface ocean there.
Hoping to get some more samples to continue digging into the organic iron pool in hydrothermal settings.
Excited to share a new paper led by Colleen Hoffman, me, @rmbundy.bsky.social, and other awesome co-authors is finally out.
We find strong ligands coupled to iron in hydrothermal plumes, detect putative siderophores, and identify some siderophore producers!
🌊🧪
bg.copernicus.org/articles/21/...
By now, I made three Earth ⚒️ and Marine 🌊 Sciences 🧪 Starter Packs:
Paleoenvironmental researchers:
bsky.app/starter-pack...
Scientific Drilling ( #IODP / #ICDP ) researchers:
bsky.app/starter-pack...
Marine biogeochemistry researchers:
bsky.app/starter-pack...
One of them may be interesting.
ironic to be fleeing to an app called bluesky during the time of the year when the sun sets at 4pm, but howdy everybody!
Would be great to be added!