The Physiologist
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The A Publication of The American Physiological Society Physiologist Volume 40 Number 6 December 1997 Experimental Biology and NASA in the Twenty-First Century Inside Daniel S. Goldin, NASA Administrator XXXIII IUPS As I talk about experimental biology, I would like Congress to tell a story. Out of the dark nothingness, the uni- verse exploded. There was force and fury, and in p. 282 minutes the first nuclei formed out of the plasma. It took about 200,000 years of expansion and con- tinual cooling until the temperature dropped to 1998 Officers 4,000ºK and hydrogen and helium atoms began to and Committees form. All of a sudden, once they formed, the uni- verse became transparent. It had been opaque; it p. 287 was literally optically opaque. The cooling contin- ued. There were some slight perturbations we have picked up with the Cosmic Background Explorer Experimental spacecraft, but we cannot correlate the level of Biology Preview fluctuations we have seen with the fact that con- p. 294 densation started and galaxies and stars formed. That is to be left to further exercises. We have a lot of work to do on that. At this point, stars ignited and began to form Daniel S. Goldin Call for fusion factories. They aged, and the more they Nominations: aged, the higher the temperatures got. We began to giant stars blew up, and the interstellar medium Editorship get heavier elements. We had massive explosions, became richer and richer. With our advanced tele- of AJP: Heart with these aging stars exploding on themselves, scopes over the last decade, we have picked up and it threw this material out. They condensed more than a hundred different chemical com- p. 299 again in a new gravity well, and this was a cyclical pounds. We have hydrogen cyanide, methane, process, almost like a yo-yo. Finally, in these ammonia, and even a combination of little dust fusion factories we started building the elements particles. Now, the temperature is even lower, and Explorations in of life — carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, with ultraviolet radiation one could begin to ion- Biomedicine and sulfur — but we still had not made complex ize and have catalytic combinations. Our knowl- molecules. edge is growing by leaps and bounds as we con- p. 306 Then, red giant stars began to form, and in the tinue to operate the Hubble and develop new tele- cooler outer atmosphere of these stars we got our scopes. first simple molecules: carbon and hydrogen, car- However, somewhere around 4.6 billion bon and oxygen, and carbon and sulfur. These red years ago, a protoplanetary disk formed around a newly ignited star, our own star, and a whole con- densation process on a lower level began, as This article is based on remarks made at a special ses- sion of EB ‘97 in New Orleans, LA, April 7, 1997. (continued on page 277) Vol. 40, No. 6, 1997 Visit Our Web Site at http://www.faseb.org/aps 275 Published bimonthly and distributed by The The American Physiological Society 9650 Rockville Pike Physiologist Bethesda, Maryland 20814-3991 ISSN 0031-9376 Volume 40 Number 6 December 1997 Allen W. Cowley, Jr. President James A. Schafer Past President L. Gabriel Navar Contents President-Elect Martin Frank Editor and Executive Director Experimental Biology and APS, ARENA Present Science Councillors NASA in the 21st Century 275 Teachers Symposium 302 Dale J. Benos, Walter F. Boron, Ger- Daniel S. Goldin Congress Approves ald F. DiBona, Celia D. Sladek, FY 1998 Funding 304 Richard J. Traystman, XXXIII IUPS Congress John A. Williams IUPS Congress Wrap Up 282 Education Ex Officio The Milk Lady Monument 284 Explorations in Biomedicine Francis L. Belloni, Edward H. Blaine, Retreat 306 John E. Hall, Leonard R. Johnson, IUPS 2005: Washington, DC 284 Ethan R. Nadel IUPS Travel Award Program 285 APS Participates in NABT Annual Convention 307 Publications Committee: Chairman: Leonard R. Johnson; Members: Jerome APS News Web News 308 A. Dempsey, Donald S. Faber, Virginia XIX ALACF Congress 286 M. Miller, Stephen H. Wright. Publi- 1998 Officers and Standing Career Corner cations Manager: Brenda B. Rauner. Committees 287 Design and Copy Editor: Keith Career Opportunities Walsh. Applications Invited for AAAS in the Military 309 Mass Media Fellow 307 Thomas C. Herzig Subscriptions: Distributed to members as part of their membership. Nonmem- Membership Positions Available 312 bers in the USA: individuals $36.50; Election of New Members 291 institutions $53.00. 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Conferences Traystman Receives Award The American Physiological Society for Excellence in Research 316 assumes no responsibility for the state- 1998 APS Conference: Kandel Wins Award ments and opinions advanced by con- Endothelial Regulation tributors to The Physiologist. of Vascular Tone 298 for Pioneering Achievement 316 Deadline for submission of material for 1998 APS Conference: News From Senior publication: Jan. 1, February issue; Paraventricular Nucleus March 1, April issue; May 1, June issue; of the Hypothalamus 299 Physiologists 318 July 1, August issue; Sept. 1, October issue; Nov. 1, December issue. Book Reviews 321 Public Affairs Please notify the central office as NAS Seeks Congressional soon as possible if you change your Exemption From Open Books Received 323 address or telephone number. Meeting Rules 300 Headquarters phone: 301-530-7118. Announcements 324 Do Not Charge Animal Costs Fax: 301-571-8305. Directly, APS Tells OMB 301 http://www.faseb.org/aps/ APS-ASPET Public Affairs Scientific Meetings Symposium at EB ‘98 301 and Congresses 325 Printed in the USA 276 The Physiologist Experimental Biology and NASA comets and asteroids bombarded the have the energy to support this tectonic very, very similar, probably for a half bil- protoplanetary masses of Venus, Earth, activity. There was not this replenish- lion years. If we found life that formed on and Mars. What we had was an enor- ment, so carbon dioxide would go into Earth 3.85 billion years ago, we may find mous input of material and energy. We solution. Atmospheres just got sucked a fossil from Mars that is three-and-a-half know some of these comets have water up, at least on Mars. The other problem billion years old. There are some real and some very complex organic materi- with Earth is we were very lucky to find fruitful possibilities. This is one of the rea- als. So they are banging into the Earth, this preserved carbon indicating life, 3.85 sons we want to go to Mars now, coupled and this energy caused the Earth to glow billion years old, because most of the his- with another finding we made. Less than a with a boiling lava surface. It went on for tory of Earth has been recycled. You have year ago, we think we may have found about a half billion years, as all the mate- to go to some very special places to find frozen comet water in a huge crater on the rial started getting used up. it. South Pole of the Moon. There is no atmo- Somewhere about 3.9 billion years So if we want to understand the for- sphere, but as comets come whacking into ago, the impacts faded, and there was an mation of life — which is crucial for a this huge crater — or if they made the occasional splashdown of an asteroid, comet, or planetesimal. However, some- where in that time frame, rain started the space program, if it is to achieve its vision of explain- because we cooled below the boiling ing all these forces taking place around us, must recon- point of water. So it was raining on Earth struct itself. like crazy. The water came out, so it left us with a very rich atmosphere in carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Oxygen had not total understanding of biology — we crater in the first place — this crater is appeared yet. must look elsewhere. We are looking out completely shadowed. So any water that at Pluto and the comets. Beyond the orbit comes in there from comets gets trapped, From the Prebiotic Soup of Pluto is something called the Kuiper and inside those comets might be the rem- At this point in time, Venus, Mars, and belt, and beyond that is the Ort cloud, nants of some prebiotic process. Earth were almost exactly alike: warm, going out a distance of thousands of wet, and with rich atmospheres in carbon astronomical units, an astronomical unit Amazing Things dioxide and nitrogen and oceans that being the distance from the sun to the Are Happening began to sustain an increasingly complex Earth. Out there are materials that have chemistry. We were on the cusp, about the secrets that have been locked up for Within the last six months, we have seen 3.9 billion years ago, of prebiotic to biot- four billion years. This is why we want to pictures of Europa, one of Jupiter’s ic transition. There was a recycling in go out there. As we examine comets, we moons, with a resolution of 30 feet out at this chemical process that was ongoing. get some hints of organic material. We a half billion miles. It appears that We have found evidence of early life on have seen some material from microme- Europa might have a liquid water ocean.