• A Leap for All Life: World's Leading Scientists Announce Creation of "Encyclopedia of Life"
  The MBL is among the world's leading scientific institutions that launched the Encyclopedia of Life, an unprecedented global effort to document all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth. For the first time in the history of the planet, scientists, students, and citizens will have multi-media access to all known living species, even those that have just been discovered.
  
  
• Study Finds High Levels of Fecal Microbes in New Orleans Sediments Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
  In a new study documenting the microbial landscape of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, MBL scientist Linda Amaral Zettler reports that sediments in interior portions of the city appear to be contaminated with fecal microbes, a chronic condition they say persisted in the area before the hurricanes, and that the resulting water quality in the city and in nearshore waters of the lake continues to be impacted by discharges from this contamination.
  
  
• Chromosome Ends: The Beginning
  MBL Scientist Irina Arkipova and a colleague at Harvard University present a clue to the evolutionary ancestry of telomerase, which has been nicknamed "the fountain of youth" due to its ability to extend the lifespan of human cells in culture, in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

• Encyclopedia of Life (Talk of the Nation "Science Friday")
  MBL Director and CEO Gary Borisy discussed the Encyclopedia of Life project with "Science Friday's" host Ira Flatow and took questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program. "Science Friday" is a weekly science talk show broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide as part of NPR's “Talk of the Nation.”
  
  
• Report: Pennsylvania's climate could be like Alabama's (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
  Jerry Melillo of the MBL's Ecosystems Center was among the scientists who contributed to a new Union of Concerned Scientists report titled “Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast—Science, Impacts, and Solutions," which explores the local aspects of the predicted consequences of global climate change.
  
  
• MBL scientist warns of species dying off (Cape Cod Times)
  The Antarctic research of newly appointed MBL Ecosystems Center co-director, Hugh Ducklow, is featured in this front-page story in the Cape Cod Times.

• Summer’s Dream: The Marine Biological Laboratory has been called a scientists’ playground; for young neuroscientists the world over, its mystique is undeniably alluring. Two students in the 2006 Neurobiology course write about their experience… More>>>
  
  
• HHMI Awards Grant to MBL Scientist Seth Bordenstein for Discovering the Microbial World Within! Teacher Training Program. More>>>
  
  
• Frontiers in Reproduction course sponsored symposium "Our Chemically Modified Environment: What is Happening to Reproductive Homeostasis?" brought together scientists and journalists to discuss the mounting evidence that Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring presciently foreshadowed: Commonplace industrial chemicals, used in products from baby toys to dental sealants, can profoundly affect reproduction and early development in several species. More>>>
  
  
• The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) Minorities Affairs Committee (MAC) held its 22nd Anniversary luncheon and networking session on June 22 in the Meigs Room. The luncheon honored 15 underrepresented scientists who have received funding from the ASCB for MBL summer courses. More>>>

• The June 2007 issue of the Bulletin is now available. The Bulletin is pleased to announce that the journal’s content - going all the way back to 1902 - is freely available after one year. Members of the MBL Corporation are eligible to receive a complimentary subscription to the journal as part of their membership. Visit the Bulletin’s web site.
  
  
• We are grateful to Sutter Instrument (MPC-200 Multi-manipulator system) and Zeiss (Axio Observer LSM 5 DUO PALM MicroBeam) for advertising with us in June.

Distinguished Alumni Friday Evening Lecturer Joseph Gall (Embryology ’51) spoke about 400 years of cells and microscopes on July 27th. More >>>

• Distinguished Scientist John Hobbie Chairs NRC Committee on Principles of Environmental Stewardship for the Exploration and Study of Subglacial Environments, Issues Report Titled “Exploration of Antarctic Subglacial Aquatic Environments: Environmental and Scientific Stewardship.”
  
  
• MBL Corporation Member Robert Palazzo Appointed Provost at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  
  
• MBL Trustee Doug Melton Featured as One of Time Magazine’s 100 people “who shape our world.”
  
  
• First Student in Brown-MBL Joint Program in Biological and Environmental Sciences, April Shiflett, Receives Ph.D. More>>>
  
  
• Climate Change Expert Hugh Ducklow Named Director of Ecosystems Center. More>>>
  
  
• MBL Scientist Julie Huber Honored with 2007 L’Oréal USA Fellowship for Women in Science. More>>>
  
  
• MBL Corporation member John G. Hildebrand, University of Arizona, was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences

Please share your news and awards with us. E-mail them to pclapp@mbl.edu.

The MBL has received a number of new gifts and peer-reviewed federal grants since LabNotes was last published... More >>>

MBL researchers have published many papers on a wide variety of topics since LabNotes was last published... More >>>

• 8/2: Director's Seminar - "Counting all the fish in the sea: The progress of the Census of Marine Life Research Program" - Jesse Ausubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University, and Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation - 4:00 PM, Lillie Auditorium
  
  
• 8/3 - 8/17 MBL Friday Evening Lecture Series - Remaining lectures include presentations from Claire Fraser-Liggett, Robert Langer, and 2006 Nobel Prize Winner Craig Mello.
  
  
• 8/3: MBL Corporation Meeting (9:30 AM, Lillie Auditorium) and Dedication of the Rowe Laboratory (formerly Whitman, 5:00 PM, corner of MBL and Water Streets)
  
  
• 8/7: Director's Seminar - "Origin of the Mitotic Nucleus: Symbiogenesis in the Sulfurous Proterozoic Eon" - Lynn Margulis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst - 4:00 PM, Lillie Auditorium
  
  
• 8/15: Book signing: The MBLWHOI Library welcomes Dr. Gerald Weissmann, who will be signing his new book, Galileo's Gout: Science in the Age of Endarkenment, 4:00 PM, Grass Reference Room.
  
  
• 8/16 to 8/18: Colloquium on the Biology of Aging, sponsored by the Ellison Medical Foundation and MBL (Lillie Auditorium)