Rockefeller University

Program for the Human Environment

News

Big Russian popular review of Deep Biosphere

We just came across this 9 Dec 2019 beautifully illustrated review of the work of the Deep Carbon Observatory, especially its work on the deep biosphere, a subject in which Russian and Ukrainian scientists have made important contributions since Mendeleev. Jesse Ausubel is quoted near the end of the article.

How they live where almost nobody lives: the dark side of the biosphere Life exists at a depth of several kilometers, in the hot and oxygen-deprived bowels of the Earth – and thrives there, completely uninterested in anything that happens here, above.

2020 declared Year of Quiet Ocean – News from International Quiet Ocean Experiment

The Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research has issued the 7th Newsletter chronicling the progress of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment, which helped spur this Press Release reporting on the progress, including the MANTA software and the data archive.

Some coverage:

The Guardian, United Kingdom, Pandemic made 2020 ‘the year of the quiet ocean’, say scientists especially good article!

Agence France Presse Lull in shipping activity gives scientists chance to listen to sounds of the ocean https://ca.news.yahoo.com/lull-shipping-activity-gives-scientists-042755282.html
German: Internationales Forscherteam untersucht Tierlaute im Ozean während Corona-Krise  https://de.nachrichten.yahoo.com/internationales-forscherteam-untersucht-tierlaute-ozean-214115152.html
French: Un réseau mondial d’écoute sur les océans apaisé par Covid https://yourtopia.fr/un-reseau-mondial-decoute-sur-les-oceans-apaise-par-covid-france-24/

BBC News Online, Ocean noise: Study to measure the oceans’ ‘year of quiet’ https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56676820
BBC World Service Radio, 1st story, with Ed Urban (here)

Agencia Efe,Científicos aprovechan la pandemia para hacer un mapa del sonido de los mares

Gizmodo, United States  International Project Will See How Quiet of Covid-19 Affected Oceans https://earther.gizmodo.com/international-project-will-see-how-the-quiet-of-covid-1-1846630821

IndoAsian News Service, India Amid slowdown, scientists assess changes in marine life behaviour  https://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a1148781.html

Down To Earth magazine, India What happened when the oceans went quiet during the pandemic? Scientists set to find out  https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/wildlife-biodiversity/what-happened-when-the-oceans-went-quiet-during-the-pandemic-scientists-set-to-find-out-76387

The National News, United Arab Emirates Oceans silenced by Covid to reveal impact of human activity on marine life https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/europe/oceans-silenced-by-covid-to-reveal-impact-of-human-activity-on-marine-life-1.1199684

COSMOS Magazine, Australia Year of the quiet ocean https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/oceans/year-of-the-quiet-ocean/

Courthouse News Service, United States Emerging Ocean Listening Network Will Study Seas Uniquely Quieted by Covid https://www.courthousenews.com/emerging-ocean-listening-network-will-study-seas-uniquely-quieted-by-covid/

Heidi News, La pandémie accélère la recherche sur le bruit dans les oceans par Florent Hiard, French Switzerland

Inter Press Service Opinion Studying Marine Life’s Brief Break from Human Noise by Jesse Ausubel and Ed Urban

1-hour video about Ocean Decade

24 March 2021 Jesse Ausubel formed part of a lively 70-minute panel discussion on Oceans with

Ms. Maya Gabeira, Big Wave Surfer, 2X World Record Holder, Oceana Ambassador

Mr. Romain Troublé, Director-General, Tara Foundation

Mr. David Eades, Chief Presenter, BBC TV News, Moderator 1

Ms. Taylor Goelz, Program Manager, Shipping Decarbonization Initiative, Aspen Institute | Member, Ocean Decade Early Career Ocean Professional Informal Working Group, Moderator 2

The full 4’42” video of the UNESCO Forum on Biodiversity: On the road to Kunming is here on YouTube.

The Ocean session starts at 1:57 and lasts to 3:09. Jesse’s opening remarks (about better measurement of abundance of ocean life) start at 2:07 (3 minutes) and his pitch for soundscapes is at 2:41:35 (1.5 minutes).  The entire session is good listening (and some video too).

Recognizing Terry Collins and Dale Langford

With maximum appreciation for their contributions, we have included Terry Collins and Dale Langford in our list of PHE alumni and external affiliates.

Dale Langford has edited almost every publication of Jesse’s since the 1985 National Academy of Engineering Program Report. Dale edited many reports and books of the National Academies, many papers and reports of the Program for the Human Environment, and many reports of the Census of Marine Life, Deep Carbon Observatory, and other programs in which Jesse has played a role.

As reported in our 2013 blog here, Jesse began working with environment and science communications specialist Terry Collins in 2003. Since then, their joint efforts have grown from 38 collaborations to more than 60, as chronicled in Terry’s Jesse Ausubel Archive. The archive is a wonderful scientific biography of our interests, spanning marine biodiversity, DNA barcoding and eDNA, the Encyclopedia of Life, deep carbon, and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Dale and Terry have improved and multiplied the value of our work.

Play about the murder of Moritz Schlick

A pair of excellent books about the Vienna Circle of philosophers have recently appeared: Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science by Karl Sigmund (2017) and The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle by David Edmonds (2020).

As an undergraduate, I took several philosophy courses and was especially taken with  Wittgenstein.  In the spring of 1972, a multi-talented astronomy graduate student, Joseph Timko, also keenly interested in philosophy, and I wrote and performed a short play about the murder of Moritz Schlick, The Best Picture.  Performing the role of Schlick, I was murdered each evening.  The play was performed again in 1975 in New York and on a few other occasions.

Working in Vienna during 1979-1982 at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, I was eager to learn more about the Vienna Circle.  Much curiosity then pertained to Vienna 1900 but little to Vienna between the wars. I attended the Kirchberg Wittgenstein symposium in 1981, where one felt stirrings of the revival now mature in the Sigmund and Edmonds books.  In honor of the Schlick revival, find posted a slightly revised 1980 version of The Best Picture, a melodrama in which Ludwig Wittgenstein, Private Investigator, made his stage debut in solving the Case of the Posthmous Positivist.

Jesse

Eos article on Measuring Ambient Ocean Sound During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Measuring Ambient Ocean Sound During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An expanded nonmilitary hydrophone network provides new opportunities to understand the variability and trends of ocean sound and the effects of sound on marine organisms by Peter L. Tyack, Jennifer Miksis-Olds, Jesse Ausubel, and Edward R. Urban Jr. appears in Eos magazine. Let’s learn from the COVID-19 pause to help achieve safer operations for shipping industries, offshore energy operators, navies, and other users of the ocean.

A slighly abbreviated version appeared in Maritime Executive as COVID-19 Downturn Creates an Opportunity to Study a Quieter Ocean.

Joshua Lederberg biography published

Genes, Germs and Medicine: The Life of Joshua Lederberg  by U. of Toronto historian of science Jan Sapp has just been published.  The book provides an engaging, balanced, and perceptive view of the multifaceted life and mind of Dr. Lederberg, who passed away in 2008.

For Jesse’s particular remembrances, see

Joshua Lederberg (In memoriam, 2008)
Joshua Lederberg (A Tribute to the Foresight of Joshua Lederberg, 2009)