Blog

Exciting preliminary results from our NYC/NJ Aquatic Environmental DNA (eDNA) project are posted on our updated webpage https://phe.rockefeller.edu/barcode/blog/nycnj-aquatic-vertebrate-edna-project/ The project aims to detect fish and other aquatic vertebrates by analyzing the traces of DNA they leave behind in the water. So far we have analyzed about a dozen water samples and successfully detected eDNA of 8 freshwater and 10 marine fish species, as well as a variety of birds and mammals. This project is part of a joint initiative in oceans research with Monmouth University.

A 2-minute trailer for the new Jacques Perrin/Galatee film, The Seasons, shares great footage from the film, which opens 27 January in France, and soon after elsewhere.  Jesse has served as an advisor to Galatee.  The French narration explains that the film spans the end of the Ice Age to the present day, showing how the birth of the seasons, and then the emergence of humans, led to the natural world as we know it.  Filmed over a four-year period in the national parks and animal reserves of Poland, Romania, Norway, Holland, Scotland, and France at a budget approaching $40 million, the film makes use of cutting-edge technology like flying drones and high-speed scooters to allow viewers to share the experience of bison, reindeer, wolves, bison, owls, and other animals.

 

During the 1992 election, Josh Lederberg and Jesse Ausubel authored an editorial for The Scientist magazine about

Science And The Presidency: 1993

“Each four-year presidential election cycle frames an era of United States politics, including science in high politics. The greenhouse effect, the Valdez oil spill, and biodiversity; AIDS, tuberculosis, and other emerging diseases; fetal tissue research, genome mapping, DNA patents, and DNA fingerprinting; chemical weapons and unemployed Soviet bomb scientists; the space station and the supercollider: The past term has been a busy one for science in the White House. The next term will be …”

The article lists Josh as the only author at the top but the credits at the bottom correctly show the co-authorship. It is fun to reflect on the changes in the list of issues above, and how high policy did or did not affect them.

Honorary Fellowship, awarded by the American Geographical Society (AGS), will be bestowed on Jesse Ausubel on the 20^thof November during the AGS Fall Symposium, Geography 2050: Exploring our Future in an Urbanized World, to be held at Columbia University.  Here is the press release.

Jesse offered the closing remarks in Italian at the 9 October symposium of the Deep Carbon Observatory at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.  An English translation is also included at the link.

An interview with Jesse Ausubel appears in the 9th newsletter of the alumni network for the oceans of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans, pp. 15-16.  Jesse teamed with Charles Kennel (then director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and Robert Gagosian (then director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) to found POGO in 1999.

Dr. Robert M. White, for whom Jesse Ausubel worked at the National Academy  of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering during 1977-1979 and 1983-1988 passed away at age 92.  To quote our mutual friend John S. Perry,  “Bob leaves a host of monuments behind – in science, in government, in the family of nations, and above all in the hearts of all who knew him. He remains in my mind as a model of wisdom, dedication, consummate skills, and adamant integrity. He built in life an ever-expanding tribe of all who had the privilege of working with him.”  The Washington Post ran a good remembrance.

The New York Times also runs an obituary: Robert M. White, Meteorologist Who Revolutionized Weather Forecasts, Dies at 92

And we note a good piece on Bob on the website of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, near Vienna, which he helped several times: Robert M. White 1923-2015

For Bob’s own recollections of his career, enjoy this wonderful interview.

Enjoy also this video about NOAA’s founding: https://youtu.be/xw_pBJwn7c4

PHE’s acoustic wizard, Perrin Meyer, and Meyer Sound created a scientific experience at ?#?BurningMan2015?.   Bay Area artist Jon Sarriugarte and sound designer Kyrsten Mate created a rocket launch experience “Project Empire” using a Meyer Sound system with SB-2 sound beam, 1100-LFC, MICA, MINA and more. Watch YouTube video: https://youtu.be/knW4U1-kB0g

RealClearScience publishes Jesse Ausubel’s short essay “We must make nature worthless,” based on remarks he prepared for a 6 November 2014 seminar at Resources for the Future.