Well, the International Geobiology Course has wrapped up another successful year. This year we went to Yellowstone N.P. (and saw a really BIG grizzly bear), saw the Green River Formation in southern Wyoming, extracted DNA at the Colorado School of Mines, extracted lipids and other things at Caltech, and spent 10 days on Catalina at the Wrigley Marine Labs. All things considered, it was a huge success and everyone (at least the instructors) had a blast. Nobody got eaten by a bear. This year we "did lipids" again, but with a twist: we looked for hopanoids in the lipid extracts from mats, and for the biosynthetic genes in the DNA. While it was not quite an overwhelming success, we did find some of both -- look for an update from the course students at AGU. We're already looking forward to next year, so if you are interested in participating send me an email. Even better, send one to the course directors: Frank Corsetti at USC, and John Spear at Colorado School of Mines. And while you're at it, thank them for running such a spectacular summer course!
Copyright 2011 by Alex Sessions. All rights reserved.