On the 1st of September, Jesse Ausubel and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation changed their relationship. Jesse is now a Science Advisor to Sloan, responsible for the Deep Carbon Observatory as well as some follow through on projects for which Sloan grant-making has been completed (Barcode of Life initiative, Encyclopedia of Life, Census of Marine Life). Jesse served successively as a program officer, program director, and vice president for programs of Sloan from 1994-2012 and is enormously graceful for the opportunities Sloan has afforded.
News
Barcode – Frequency Matrix
PHE researcher Mark Stoeckle teamed up with Royal Ontario Museum ornithologist Kevin Kerr on a just published PLoS ONE paper “Frequency matrix approach demonstrates high sequence quality in avian BARCODEs and highlights cryptic pseudogenes.” Beginning with the Banbury conferences in 2003, a lot of effort has gone into ensuring the accuracy of DNA barcode databases, both in terms of minimizing sequencing error and having accurate taxonomic labels. How good are the resulting databases? Our paper confirms the high sequence accuracy of the avian BARCODE database (11,000 records), demonstrates significant quality improvement over the past decade, and flags 0.1% of records that are overlooked pseudogenes (which can be viewed as a kind of taxonomic error).
Bird Barcodes
We are delighted to learn that our 2004 PLoS Biology article, “Identification of birds through DNA barcodes,” is in the top 1% of Article-Level Metrics (ALMs) for all PLoS articles. ALMs are a “comprehensive set of metrics that track the reach and impact of published research” and are readily available for all PLoS articles. The ALMs for 2004 Birds show continuing interest over the past 8 years, with 38,141 article views, 8,516 downloads, and 630 citations in Web of Science.
Whole Wheat Woman
Considered the world’s first certified organic love song, Whole Wheat Woman is now available for your listening pleasure. In the spring of 1972 Jesse Ausubel had the fun of assisting fellow Harvard student Joseph Timko in writing the song, which they expected to be a short-cut to fame and fortune. After 40 years underground, the song has emerged in a fine version by the St. Louis-based country & western duo of Rick Brasington and Jerry Goldberg, who practice medicine by day. Joe went on to a career teaching and directing theatre, while Jesse continues to study wheat.
For some other rarely performed works by Timko and Ausubel, visit An Evening of Rational Entertainment.
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Living Lab radio
WGBH’s Living Lab radio program hosted by Heather Goldstone interviewed Jesse Ausubel for 30 minutes about his views on the global environment. The radio interview was stimulated by Jesse’s lecture on 13 July 2012 on “Earth at Seven Billion” at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. Click here for a video of the hour-long lecture.
Jesse on the Indian Blackout
The Indian electricity blackouts of 30-31 July 2012 affected more than 600 million people. A National Public Radio story by correspondent Richard Harris quotes Jesse Ausubel on the increasing need for perfect power in the Internet era.
Barcoding Birds
A new paper on DNA barcoding of birds has been published as part of a landmark collection about DNA barcoding edited by W. John Kress and David L. Erickson, DNA Barcodes: Methods and Protocols. The volume includes DNA Barcoding Birds: From Field Collection to Data Analysis by DarÃo A. Lijtmaer, Kevin C. R. Kerr, Mark Y. Stoeckle, and Pablo L. Tubaro as well as a foreword by Jesse Ausubel (see 27 June 2011 What’s New entry).
Decarbonization
Car & Driver magazine’s July 2012 issue features our work about decarbonization on pp. 32-33 in a column touting the potential of natural gas to fuel vehicles.
St. Andrews
Jesse Ausubel was awarded an honorary degree from the University of St. Andrews in recognition of his major contribution to the science and diplomacy of sustainable development. The degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, was conferred to Ausubel on 21 June 2012 during the universitys 600th Anniversary celebration. St. Andrews is Scotlands first university and the third oldest in the English-speaking world. As part of the ceremonies, Ausubel delivered a 600th Anniversary Lecture, Every Fish in the Sea: Findings of the First Census of Marine Life.
For over three decades Mr. Ausubel has pursued the vision of a large, prosperous society that emits little or nothing harmful and spares large amounts of land and sea for nature. His work has spanned energy and materials, forests and farms, marine life, human population, and climate as well as engineering, earth, life, and social sciences, says the Laureation Address.
Dematerialization
Marian Tupy makes ingenious use of our work on Dematerialization:
Among our numerous papers on this theme are:
JH Ausubel, PE Waggoner. Dematerialization: variety, caution, and persistence [external link]. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 105(35): 12774-12779, 2008 10.1073/pnas.0806099105 D
IK Wernick, R Herman, S Govind, JH Ausubel. Materialization and dematerialization: Measures and trends. Pp 135-156 in Technological Trajectories and the Human Environment, JH Ausubel and HD Langford (eds) 1997