Word: scientists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...irony of 20th century scientists venturing out to explore waters that have been navigated for thousands of years is not lost on oceanographers. More than 100 expeditions have reached Everest, the 29,028-ft. pinnacle of the Himalayas; manned voyages to space have become commonplace; and robot probes have ventured to the outer reaches of the solar system. But only now are the deepest parts of the ocean coming within reach. "I think there's a perception that we have already explored the sea," says marine biologist Sylvia Earle, a former chief scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration...
Recalls biologist Holger Jannasch, at Woods Hole in Massachusetts: "I got a call through the radio operator at Woods Hole from the chief scientist . who said he had discovered big clams and tube worms, and I simply didn't believe it. He was a geologist, after all." Disbelief was quickly replaced by intense curiosity. What were these animals feeding on in the absence of any detectable food supply? How were they surviving without light? The answer, surprisingly, had been found by a Russian scientist more than 100 years earlier. He had shown that an underwater bacterium, Beggiatoa, lived on hydrogen...
Only the richest countries can afford to explore these questions, of course, and while most expeditions are made up of scientists from many lands, the world's deep-sea powers--the U.S., France, Japan and, until economic troubles all but ended its program, Russia--are always aware of who's ahead in the quest for the bottom. At the moment, it's probably Japan, not least because of the triumphant touchdown in the Challenge Deep last March of its 10.5-ton, $41.5 million ROV called Kaiko. The Japanese got into ocean research well after the French, Americans and Russians...
Kristopher J. Thiessen may be just 18 years old, but his career as a scientist is taking off. Literally...
...Late last year, an audience of UCLA specialists listened in shocked silence as Alan Fogelman, chairman of the School of Medicine, outlined a vision of the future: "A tertiary cardiology specialist will be waiting for the phone to ring, but it won't." While it still emphasizes training medical scientists and, in fact, has a new program to attract top-notch students who will commit themselves to research but not practice, UCLA will no longer train students to practice medical "subspecialties," such as cardiology and nephrology. Says Fogelman: "We have told internship applicants during the past two years that UCLA...