We post Leonardo DNA Project: Strategy, goals and aspirations. A bridge across science and art. This is the chapter from Leonardo da Vinci, The Faces of Genius, the superb 2019 book edited by Christian Galvez.
News
1986 paper on limits of prediction
We scanned and now post Jesse Ausubel’s pre-Internet paper
Some Thoughts on Geophysical Prediction
In Policy Aspects of Climate Forecasting, R Krasnow (ed), pp. 97-109, Resources for the Future, Washington, DC, 1986
We also post the 2-page memo that Jesse wrote in 2016 about Limits to Knowledge for the Deep Carbon Observatory.
Popular versions of our work
During the past couple of years several authors have made good use of our work in their books. These include:
The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It – December 31, 2019 – by John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister
Fewer, Richer, Greener: Prospects for Humanity in an Age of Abundance
by Laurence B. Siegel | Dec 5, 2019
More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources?and What Happens Next – October 8, 2019
by Andrew McAfee
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress – January 15, 2019 by Steven Pinker
It’s Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear – March 5, 2019 by Gregg Easterbrook
4th Quiet Oceans newsletter
the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research has just issued the 4th newsletter of the International Quiet Oceans Experiment.
Passing of Arthur Singer
Our great friend of many years, Arthur L. Singer, passed away 25 December 2019. The New York Times published an accurate, informative obituary. Art’s own memoir is posted here.
We post Jesse’s Remembrance of Arthur Singer, Old Friend, penned on 7 January 2020.
David Thaler joins us more officially
For decades we have enjoyed stimulating conversations, co-authorship, and the deep reading of David S. Thaler. A protege of Joshua Lederberg, David spent many years at The Rockefeller University and is now based at the Biozentrum – Center for Molecular Life Sciences in Basel, Switzerland. David now rejoins RU as a guest investigator with PHE, and mutual interests spanning evolution, barcodes, Leonardo, and more. Welcome, David.
Mike Joyner’s comic novel
We laughed from beginning to end reading the novel of our Mayo Clinic colleague Michael Joyner MD, Michelle the Archangel, a story of the 2020, 2024, and 2028 US presidential elections with a strong dose of performance enhancement.
Animation of deep sea including our lobster
Neil Agarwal has created an informative and enjoyable dive into the deep sea where one passes species at their characteristic depths down to the deepest sea floor. At 250 meters below the surface, one passes the Terrible Claw lobster, also known as Dinochelus ausubeli.
Andrew W. Marshall Foundation begins work
The foundation promoting the strategic thinking of the late Andrew W. Marshall has begun its work to foster innovative thinking about national security. Cesare Marchetti and Jesse Ausubel prepared their study on the quantitative dynamics of human empires as the request of Mr. Marshall.
We also post Jesse’s remembrance of Andy, “Andrew Marshall and Classics,” which will appear in the forthcoming volume about Andy edited by Andrew May.
Deep Carbon Observatory Decade celebrated
The Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), which Jesse co-founded in 2009, is completing its initial decade. Jesse wrote a brief history of the program, including its origin in the work of the late Tommy Gold.
A press release summarizes some of the decadal achievements, celebrated at a large conference in Washington DC 24-26 October 2019, as does the Deep Carbon Observatory’s decadal report, a 50-page document released in October 2019.
Several books summarize the work of the DCO. Published by Cambridge University Press in October 2019, Deep Carbon: Past to Present, is a 684-page collection of 20 chapters by many authors edited by Beth N. Orcutt (Bigelow Lab, Maine, USA), Isabelle Daniel (University of Lyon, France), and Rajdeep Dasgupta (Rice University, Texas, USA). Aimed at sharing recent progress with the peer scientific community, the book is also available open access. The volume pairs with the 2013 volume Carbon in Earth, which aimed to provide the baseline of knowledge at the outset of the Deep Carbon Observatory program.
Published by W. W. Norton & Company in June 2019, Robert Hazen’s 288-page Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything offers a popular tour of the work of the Deep Carbon Observatory including cameo portraits of many researchers involved in the program.
Finally, English historian of science Simon Mitton, has completed the first history of deep carbon science, Carbon from Crust to Core: A Chronicle of Deep Carbon Science. Mitton’s 400-page book, to be published by Cambridge University Press in early 2020, identifies key discoveries, impacts of new knowledge, and roles of deep carbon scientists and their institutions from the 1400s to the present.