Experts in the News

If you’ve ever dreamed of skating on Saturn’s rings or making a pit-stop on Venus, maybe those fantasies are best kept to dreamland. In reality, each of the planets in our solar system besides Earth would immediately annihilate you — in pretty much the worst way possible. In short, not even a spacesuit would save you from Jupiter’s insane atmospheric pressure or Venus’s 900-degree temperatures. Unfortunately, you’d pretty much be gone in the blink of an eye — but it’s still fascinating to know exactly how that would happen. Jennifer Glass, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, details how you'd die on Mercury: "“If you died on the hot side, you would be burned to death in seconds, while asphyxiating and having all the water vaporize from your body.” (This story includes other information from an October 2022 Newsweek story, which has more quotes from Glass.) 

The final week of the Atlanta Science Festival (ASF) is underway (March 20-25), and there are still plenty of activities for families to enjoy around the city. Now in its 10th year, the festival explores the intersection of science, technology, engineering and math with food, nature and the arts. It’s an enlightening and entertaining way to learn about the many ways science is woven into our everyday lives. Several Georgia Tech College of Sciences faculty, staff, and students are taking part in the event. Check here for more ASF details. 

The final week of the Atlanta Science Festival (ASF) is underway (March 20-25), and there are still plenty of activities for families to enjoy around the city. Now in its 10th year, the festival explores the intersection of science, technology, engineering and math with food, nature and the arts. It’s an enlightening and entertaining way to learn about the many ways science is woven into our everyday lives. Several Georgia Tech College of Sciences faculty, staff, and students are taking part in the event. Check here for more ASF details. 

Fish that tend patches of stringy algae seem to shield branching corals from the worst effects of marine heat waves and help them recover after bleaching. In 2019, the reefs near the French Polynesian island of Moorea in the South Pacific Ocean endured their worst heat stress event in 14 years. Branching corals there bleached en masse. Some of those colonies were in "gardens" defended by farmerfish, which cultivate their own algae for food and chase off fish that eat plants and corals. The researchers discovered that, after one year, just 44 per cent of colonies inside gardens died compared with 67 per cent of those outside gardens. What’s more, colonies on the turf of the territorial fish were twice as likely to recover living tissue to the levels they had been before bleaching. Mark Hay, Regents Professor and Teasley Chair in the School of Biological Sciences, didn't work on the research but said that tissue recovery was "a big deal" and that the farmerfish seem to be having a positive effect. (Subscription required)

Walking into a high school classroom full of young, eager minds would intimidate some, but for Erica Borgers Klonkowski, who received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, it’s an opportunity to dazzle and spark inspiration in students with scientific magic. How does she rise to the task? By devoting her time, energy, knowledge and resources to volunteer at local schools and in the community through Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division’s (NSWCDD) STEM educational programs and sponsored events.

Black holes remain one of the great mysteries of the universe. Another enigma? Dark energy. Little is known about this concept, aside from the belief that dark energy accelerates the expansion of the universe. There’s a new theory that brings together black holes and dark energy into one mind-bending solution: research led by the University of Hawai’i at Manoa posits that dark energy could actually come from supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies. Feryal Özel, professor and chair of the School of Physics, and a founding member of the Event Horizon Telescope project that has captured images of black holes, joined host Ira Flatow to talk about the new development.

Walking into a high school classroom full of young, eager minds would intimidate some, but for Erica Borgers Klonkowski, who received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, it’s an opportunity to dazzle and spark inspiration in students with scientific magic. How does she rise to the task? By devoting her time, energy, knowledge and resources to volunteer at local schools and in the community through Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division’s (NSWCDD) STEM educational programs and sponsored events.

Țară Stoinski, president/CEO and chief scientific officer for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, doesn't just have to worry about increasing the numbers of the various species of gorillas under her group's conservation care. Stoinski, who received her Ph.D. from the School of Psychology in 2000 and joined the Fossey Fund while working at Zoo Atlanta, also has to try to find more land for the animals, protect them from poachers, and deal with the challenges that arise from civil unrest in countries where the gorillas have their habitats. 

Țară Stoinski, president/CEO and chief scientific officer for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, doesn't just have to worry about increasing the numbers of the various species of gorillas under her group's conservation care. Stoinski, who received her Ph.D. from the School of Psychology in 2000 and joined the Fossey Fund while working at Zoo Atlanta, also has to try to find more land for the animals, protect them from poachers, and deal with the challenges that arise from civil unrest in countries where the gorillas have their habitats. 

For Homo sapiens, a dry-land species, discussions of the climate and how it is changing tend to revolve around what is going on in the atmosphere. This is a dangerously parochial attitude, for the atmosphere is but one of two fluid systems circulating above Earth’s solid surface. The other, the ocean, is in many ways the more important of the pair. Ocean circulation redistributes heat and swallows carbon dioxide. Susan Lozier, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair of the College of Sciences, spoke about the assumptions many people have about oceans and ocean circulation during the recent American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) annual meeting. (This story was also covered in Yahoo!Finance and Science.)

For Homo sapiens, a dry-land species, discussions of the climate and how it is changing tend to revolve around what is going on in the atmosphere. This is a dangerously parochial attitude, for the atmosphere is but one of two fluid systems circulating above Earth’s solid surface. The other, the ocean, is in many ways the more important of the pair. Ocean circulation redistributes heat and swallows carbon dioxide. Susan Lozier, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair of the College of Sciences, spoke about the assumptions many people have about oceans and ocean circulation during the recent American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) annual meeting. (This story was also covered in Yahoo!Finance and Science.)

Plants, like animals and people, seek refuge from climate change. And when they move, they take ecosystems with them. To understand why and how plants have trekked across landscapes throughout time, researchers are calling for a new framework. The key to protecting biodiversity in the future may be understanding the past. Jenny McGuire, assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the School of Biological Sciences, spearheaded a U.S. National Science Foundation-supported paper on the topic in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. McGuire and her collaborators highlight the outstanding needs for successful future conservation efforts. The paper brings together conservation research that illuminates the complex and constantly evolving dynamics brought on by climate change and the ever-shifting ways humans use land. These factors, McGuire said, interact over time to create dynamic changes and illustrate the need to incorporate time perspectives into conservation strategies by looking deep into the past. (This research was also covered in Time Magazine.)