A new and improved tool to monitor deforestation and degradation in tropical forests has just gotten a huge boost. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology with a $1.6-million grant to expand and improve the Carnegie Landsat Analysis System Lite. The technology will rapidly advance deforestation and degradation mapping in Latin America and will help even the smallest governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) better monitor carbon budgets. more »

Evolution isn’t just for living organisms. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found that the mineral kingdom co-evolved with life, and that up to two thirds of the more than 4,000 known types of minerals on Earth can be directly or indirectly linked to biological activity. The finding, published in American Mineralogist*, could aid scientists in the search for life on other planets.

Video Interview with Robert Hazen
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Scientists, including Global Ecology’s Joe Berry, may have overcome a major hurdle to calculating how much carbon dioxide is absorbed and released by plants, vital information for determining the amount of carbon that can be safely emitted by human activities. The problem is that ecosystems simultaneously take up and release CO₂. The key finding is that the compound carbonyl sulfide, which plants consume in tandem with CO₂, can be used to quantify gas flow into the plants during photosynthesis.

Audio Press Release
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