bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Dinosaurs victims of cyanide poisoning?
Authors: Chubb Talbot A. 
Published: October 2006

The Eos article, Comets and Life (March 28, 1989), reports on the work of Paul Thomas, Christophere Chyba, Carl Sagan and Leigh Brookshaw on cometary impact production of cyanides and other organics that may have been precursors of life. The article was based on material presented at the 20th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference [Thomas et al, 1989].As pointed out in the article, comets may contain 20% organic matter in the form of a complex interbonded mass. This kerogen‐like material contains CN bonds as well as CC and CO bonds. Evidence for cyanide protection from light‐element “CHON” solids was observed in the recent Halley's comet encounter in the form of CN plumes [Eberhardt et al., 1986; Schlosser et al., 1986]. An additional, and possibly more important source of cyanide, is HCN, which was observed [Schloerb et al., 1986] to be emitted from Halley's comet as part of the normal neutral gas emission with an abundance equal to 10−3 that of H2O. H2O is the dominant volatile species in comets and appears to constitute 80% or more of the total molecular release [Mendis, 1986].
U.S. WOCE program ready to begin
Authors: Mayes Dave 
Published: October 2006

After six years of planning and preparation, U.S. ocean scientists are poised to begin putting instruments into the water for the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), the 40‐nation study of the global ocean that gets underway in 1990.The world ocean has a profound influence on long‐term climate changes, but relatively little is known about the general circulation of the ocean, how it varies, and why. The goal of WOCE is to describe and understand the ocean circulation and its relationship to climate change over periods of decades and longer.
U.S. JGOFS research
Authors: Livingston Hugh D. 
Published: October 2006

The U.S. Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (U.S. JGOFS) is moving toward a fully operational phase in the early 1990s and has recommended 1990 research priorities. U.S. JGOFS is a program within the Global Geosciences Initiative of the National Science Foundation and is the U.S. component of the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS), a standing committee of the Scientific Committee for Ocean Research (SCOR), and a core project of the International Geosphere Biosphere Program.The broad objective of U.S. JGOFS, to improve our understanding of the processes controlling the cycling of carbon and related biogenic elements in the oceans, has been articulated in detail in a series of reports. These reports are the product of several years of intense planning and are available through the U.S. JGOFS Planning and Coordination Office, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543; tel. 508‐548‐1400, ext. 2834.
High‐risk science
Authors: Anonymous  
Published: October 2006

Proposals for low‐budget, urgent and exciting scientific research will receive special attention from the National Science Foundation in a program intended to provide quick money for small‐scale, groundbreaking projects.NSF is particularly interested in work on untested ideas or in emerging areas, new approaches to “old” topics, work that crosses NSF program boundaries or that is urgent or likely to catalyze rapid and innovative advances. Scientists who have not had previous support from NSF are encouraged to apply.
Submarine volcano
Authors: McCreery C. , Oliveria F. , Walker D. , Hamada N. 
Published: October 2006

An episode of submarine volcanic activity in the northern Mariana Islands, in the northwest Pacific Ocean, has been recorded by the Wake Island hydrophone array. F. Oliveira, C. McCreery and D. Walker of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics in Honolulu collected the data (see figure) while they were installing upgraded recording equipment for the array.Intense activity began about 02 hours on September 21 UT and ended abruptly about 23 hours that day. During that time several hundred distinct events were observed. Continuous noise levels in the SOFAR channel were at least 20 dB above normal ambient noise levels at frequencies from 5 to 30 Hz. The location of the activity was about 21.9°N, 145.9°E. N. Hamada reported that it was recorded by ocean bottom seismometers of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) sited off the east coast of Japan. The Polynesian Seismic Network also recorded the episode.
Igneous outbursts and mass extinctions
Authors: White Robert S. 
Published: October 2006

Were dinosaurs and their friends done in by external causes, such as cometary impacts or by internal causes, such as massive volcanism? The popular imagination has been caught by the cometary impact hypothesis, perhaps partly because of the vicarious sense of danger it provides for all of us on planet Earth.One of the major differences between impact and volcanism scenarios in their simplest forms is in the duration of the events. Impacts, by their very nature are instantaneous, even on everyday time scales. By contrast, the volcanism in large igneous provinces such as flood basalts has often been thought to last for tens of millions of years. Recent work using 40Ar‐39Ar dating and paleomagnetic reversals, most notably on the Deccan [Courtillot and Cisowski, 1987; Duncan and Pyle, 1988; Courtillot et al., 1988], indicates that the great majority of the flood basalts in any particular province may be extruded very rapidly, within as little as 0.5–2 m.y. (Table 1). Detailed paleontological studies suggest that a gradual or a step‐wise extinction model lasting of the order of tens of thousands to 1 m.y. or more may describe the disappearance of species better than a single extinction event [Perch‐ Nielsen et al., 1982; Alvarez, 1986; Hut et al., 1987; Hallam, 1987; Keller, 1988; Sepkoski, 1989], although it is worth cautioning that sampling problems may make an abrupt extinction appear like a step‐wise change. With modification of the impact hypothesis to allow for multiple impacts over a period of up to a few million years, both impacts and volcanism provide viable mechanisms for explaining extinctions from the point of view of duration. It is worth commenting, however, that although there were rapid changes in the rate of species turnover throughout geologic time, with particularly marked and widespread extinctions near the Cretaceous‐Tertiary boundary, the reality of periodically repeated mass extinctions is, to say the least, not yet established [Hoffman, 1989].
Budgets approved, but cuts loom
Authors: Maggs William Ward 
Published: October 2006

Conferees from the House and Senate have finished work on Fiscal Year (FY) 1990 appropriations for NSF and NASA by giving the agencies most of what they wanted, for now.The conference report on Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies, passed in late October by both bodies, calls for a 10% increase for NSF and a 7.5% rise in NASA's budget. However, unless the Bush administration and Congress reach agreement on a new deficit‐reduction plan, 5.3% mandatory cuts to each line item in all agency budgets will wipe out some of the gains.
Barbara: J. Frank: AGU Congressional Science Fellow
Authors: Anonymous  
Published: October 2006

Barbara J . Frank, AGU's 1989–1990 Congressional Science Fellow, has just begun her year's term on Capitol Hill. She recently completed the month‐long orientation period offered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which administers the Fellows program in which AGU participates.Frank has elected to work for the Subcommittee on International Scientific Cooperation of the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The subcommittee oversees international aspects of technology transfer, scientific and technological competitiveness, information and communication policy, agricultural research policy, and intellectual property rights, as well as resolutions of joint cooperation with other national parliamentary committees on science and technology, and international trade policy and its effects on science and technology and on research and development.
Soviet test yields
Authors: Vergino Eileen S. 
Published: October 2006

Soviet seismologists have published descriptions of 96 nuclear explosions conducted from 1961 through 1972 at the Semipalatinsk test site, in Kazakhstan, central Asia [Bocharov et al., 1989]. With the exception of releasing news about some of their peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) the Soviets have never before published such a body of information.To estimate the seismic yield of a nuclear explosion it is necessary to obtain a calibrated magnitude‐yield relationship based on events with known yields and with a consistent set of seismic magnitudes. U.S. estimation of Soviet test yields has been done through application of relationships to the Soviet sites based on the U.S. experience at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), making some correction for differences due to attenuation and near‐source coupling of seismic waves.
Quake hazard bill put off
Authors: Maggs William Ward 
Published: October 2006

The House version of an earthquake hazard reduction bill passed by the Senate in the aftermath of the October 17 northern California earthquake will not be voted on until after Congress reconvenes in January.The proposed legislation (H.R. 3533) would revamp the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program, a federally coordinated effort to learn more about earthquakes and how to prepare for them. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Geological Survey, National Science Foundation, and National Institute of Standards and Technology together spent $66 million in 1989 on NEHRP activities, which include modification of buildings and roads, monitoring seismic activity, and earthquake education.
River basin administration
Authors: Anonymous  
Published: October 2006

Management of international rivers and their basins is the focus of the Centre for Comparative Studies on (International) River Basin Administration, recently established at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Water pollution, sludge, and conflicting interests in the use of water in upstream and downstream parts of a river basin will be addressed by studying groundwater and consumption of water in the whole catchment area of a river.Important aspects of river management are administrative and policy aspects. The Centre will focus on policy, law, planning, and organization, including transboundary cooperation, posing standards, integrated environmental planning on regional scale and environmental impact assessments.
Change “SPR”?: Use “Space Physics”
Authors: Prölss Gerd 
Published: October 2006

In reply to your request for suggestions for a new name for the Solar‐Planetary Relations Section of AGU (“SPR: The Right Name?” Eos, August 1, p. 747) I strongly support changing the name to “Space Physics” without further elaboration. It is to be tacitly understood that the space whose physics we are studying specifically includes the regions occupied by the neutral and ionized upper atmospheres of all Solar System bodies (Sun, planets, moons, comets), their magnetospheres, interplanetary space (which may or may not be considered as part of the upper atmosphere and magnetosphere of the Sun) and the heliospheric boundary region (which, incidentally, is not covered by the name SPR).I also would like to suggest that Journal of Geophysical Research‐Atmospheres change its order of articles. Thus articles on the thermosphere of Venus, for example, should be published side by side with articles on Earth's thermosphere and not in a separate “planetary section.”
How acid rain can kill trees
Authors: Maggs William Ward 
Published: October 2006

For the first time, experiments have shown in detail how acid clouds can damage high‐elevation forests in eastern North America.The study focused on the way that acidic clouds affect red spruce, a dominant species in some eastern forests. Devastated stands of coniferous trees atop Whiteface Mtn,. N.Y., Mount Mitchell, N.C., and Camel's Hump, Vt., have become highly visible reminders of the damage that can be caused by acid deposition, which results primarily from fossil fuel combustion.
No fifth force?
Authors: Maggs William Ward 
Published: October 2006

Hopes that geophysicists might be able to document a fifth force of nature have diminished, as new measurements and analyses of earlier geodetic experiments have yielded no solid evidence of a non‐Newtonian component of gravity.Modern physics recognizes four fundamental forces with distinct spheres of influence: The strong and weak nuclear forces operate over the range of one atom, while gravity and electromagnetism have an infinite range. Gravity measurements over a few centimeters in laboratories and over millions of kilometers in space continue to buttress Issac Newton's conclusion that the gravitational force between two objects decreases as the square of the distance between them.
New fifth force experiments
Authors: Maggs William Ward 
Published: October 2006

While there now appears to be a consensus that no strong evidence for a fifth force has been found, no one has given up trying to find it. Geophysicists continue to come up with novel experiments to test whether a force operating over a range of meters to a few kilometers exists and can be detected by variations in gravity.Eckhardt and the AFGL scientists are looking for a tall tower in a flat area, possibly North Dakota, where surface gravity can be characterized without doubt. In November some of the scientists who worked on the Greenland experiment have finished a deep water gravity survey in the Pacific Ocean that Robert Parker of Scripps called the “most detailed study yet of gravity on the oceans.”
“Competition” in the 1991 budget process
Authors: Jones R. 
Published: October 2006

Although Congress has just completed action on spending bills for fiscal year 1990, which started two months ago, federal agencies are finishing the budget submission for FY 1991 that President Bush sends to Congress in January. Making this complicated process even more difficult is a new system devised by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that is apparently causing many federal agencies to rethink their budgeting strategy.About a year and a half before the start of a new fiscal year OMB and federal agencies start preparing the budget—a multivolume report setting the future course and identifying the priorities for the administration. OMB, a part of the Executive Office of the President, is crucial in determining spending priorities. It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of OMB, yet it is an agency which maintains a very low profile (often refusing to testify before congressional committees).
Committee views on NSF programs
Authors: Mulhall M. 
Published: October 2006

It is worth plowing, through House Report 101–309 for insight into the relationship between Congress and a federal agency. The report reveals that Congress was so annoyed by the budget request from the National Science Foundation that it ordered NSF to submit by the end of January 1990 a description of how it sets priorities.The House Subcommittee on Science, Research and Technology was asked by Robert Roe (D‐N.J.), chairman of the full Science, Space, and Technology committee, to review the fiscal year 1990 budget request and three‐year budget projection from NSF, now that the agency has multiyear authorization.
Stommel receives Medal of Science
Authors: Anonymous  
Published: October 2006

Henry M. Stommell, 1982 AGU Bowie Medalist, is a recipient of the 1989 National Medal of Science. One of 19 recipients of the award, Stommell was cited for “original and penetrating observations of the circulation of the oceans,” and President Bush recently presented the award at White House Ceremonies.A graduate of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., with a degree in physics, Stommel currently is a senior scientist in the Physical Oceanography Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Mass. The general circulation of the oceans, the Gulf Stream, the Kuroshio current off Japan, eddy dynamics, equatorial currents, deep water convection, planetary flow patterns, historical data, climate, the Indian Ocean and the monsoons are his research interests.
IGBP: Crown jewel or prodigal son?
Authors: Roederer Juan G. 
Published: October 2006

At its 1986 General Assembly in Bern, Switzerland, the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) launched what promises to be the biggest and most ambitious enterprise of international scientific cooperation (see “ICSU Gives Green Light to IGBP,” Eos, 67, p. 777, 1986). The International Geosphere‐Biosphere Program (IGBP), known also as “Global Change,” has as its main objective to describe and understand the interactive physical, chemical and biological processes that regulate the total Earth system, the unique environment that it provides for life, the changes that are occurring in this system, and the manner in which they are influenced by human actions.It should be no wonder, then, that this year's ICSU General Committee Meeting at the Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal, October 11–14) was virtually dominated by IGBP matters, even during the discussion of agenda items that did not include this subject explicitly. It is fair to say that the Unions are just becoming fully aware of the real magnitude of the program they themselves helped launch in Bern in 1986—and of how little input and control they have had so far in its development. An indication of this “awakening” was already apparent during the ICSU General Assembly in Beijing in 1988, but the full realization of the enormous impact and ramifications of IGBP inside and outside ICSU is emerging only now.
Space science strategy
Authors: Fraser‐Smith A. C. 
Published: October 2006

The headline to a recent news article read “NASA Focuses on Station, Faces Growing Budget Crisis” [Covault, 1989], which I thought summarized NASA's present and probable future succinctly. The article was unusual: it not only discussed NASA's budget options through 2000, a long time by the normal standards of these discussions, but it also pointed out that “major design decisions over the next two years will be critical to constructing a [space] station that will endure 30 years.”Imagine trying to think 30–40 years ahead in the space program to a time in the middle 2020s when the station will presumably cease to endure! As I will try to show, however, it is crucial for those of us in the space program to think ahead for those 30–40 years if we are going to interpret correctly the events already beginning to shape the program for those years and which must soon begin to have a dramatic effect on its viability.
Programs at risk
Authors: Jones, R. 
Published: October 2006

Declaring that “these lists represent the smoke behind which a fire may be raging,” Senator John Glenn (D.‐Ohio), chairman of the Senate Government Affairs committee, has released a list prepared by the Office of Management and Budget of 73 government programs “in which hundreds of billions of federal dollars are at risk.”The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Department of Energy are among the 16 federal departments and agencies having programs that Glenn feels could be “our next HUDs.” The secret list is not of programs where losses have occurred, but only where safeguards are thought to be insufficient.
Herbicides in streams
Authors: Maggs William Ward 
Published: October 2006

Toxic herbicides exist at detectable levels in more than half of the streams in the midwestern United States, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study.The testing is the first extensive search of surface water in the region for the dangerous chemicals, called triazine herbicides, which are applied to corn, soybeans, and other crops to control weeds. Ingestion of the compounds in even trace amounts can cause organ damage and cancer.
Beach erosion rates and the National Flood Insurance Program
Authors: Leatherman Stephen P. , Dean Robert G. 
Published: October 2006

Thirty of the nation's 50 states have coastlines on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes. These 30 states contain approximately 85% of the nation's population, and about half of this population resides in the coastal zone. Continued population growth is projected in the future, with a greatly increasing demand for beachfront development. At present, there is considerable public concern over coastal erosion, erosion control measures, and land use regulations [National Research Council, 1990].Beach erosion is a significant and growing national problem. The National Shoreline Study, conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1971, was the first national appraisal of shore erosion problems. Significant erosion was found to occur along 43% of the U.S. shoreline if Alaska is excluded. Other large sections of sandy shoreline are also eroding, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers categorized it as noncritical erosion largely because of the lack of immediate threat to buildings and infrastructure at that time.
Ellen Druffel receives 1990 Macelwane Medal
Authors: Anonymous  
Published: October 2006

Ellen R. M. Druffel of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has received the 1990 James B. Macelwane Medal in recognition of significant contributions to the geophysical sciences by a young scientist of outstanding ability. The award was presented at the AGU Fall Meeting Honors Ceremony on December 5 in San Francisco. The citation, delivered by Peter M. Williams, and Druffel's response are presented below.“The use of natural and bomb‐produced radiocarbon to detect, explain, and predict oceanographic and climatic processes has been, by and large, underutilized in the past. Ellen Druffel has done, and is doing, a great deal to remedy this situation. Nine years ago, Ellen set up a high precision, world class radiocarbon‐counting laboratory at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that has enabled her to detect changes in the pre‐bomb and post‐bomb oceanic radiocarbon records. Using banded corals and sclerosponges to reconstruct definitive time histories of radiocarbon and 13C in the surface ocean, Ellen has been able, for example, to observe changes in ventilation rates and circulation patterns in the upper ocean, to reconstruct records of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, and to deconvolute the excess CO2 signal for the past 150 years into fossil fuel burning and deforestation/soil oxidation sources. These original studies have important implications for projections of future atmospheric CO2 increases and for delineating oceanic circulation patterns during the last glacial period.
FY1991 budget
Authors: Jones R. 
Published: October 2006

One of the most discussed topics in Washington this month is the Fiscal Year 1991 budget, which President Bush will send to Congress on January 29, a full week beyond its scheduled date. Making this subject even more of a mystery for the science community is the tight lid that the White House and its budget planning arm, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), have placed on advance information about this greatly anticipated document.Last year President Bush surprised many people by leaving his predecessor's budget largely intact and instead releasing a document entitled Major Policy Initiatives, Fiscal Year 1990.
EOS and jumpstart
Authors: Schmitt Harrison H. 
Published: October 2006

I am happy to see that an AGU panel wants views on the Earth Observing System (EOS) program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“EOS Panel,” Eos, October 3, 1989, p. 886).NASA's EOS program will provide data in the long term through flights of large polar‐ orbiting platforms, each with ten or more scientific instruments. EOS will require a large investment of research and development funds over 10 years or more. The first flight will occur in 1996 under current plans.