DRI Projects Capture Major News Media Attention

DRI scientists working at opposite ends of the Earth, in the Southwestern desert, and in their Nevada laboratories, have attracted the recent notice of major news media. The Associated Press ran a story in December, featured in national and international press, including the New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Sun Times and Boston Globe, about Dr. Joe McConnell’s analysis of lead deposited in the Greenland Ice Sheet between 1780 and 1998. The lead levels corresponded to changes in industrial activity, economic conditions, technological applications and, finally, environmental regulations. McConnell is an associate research professor in DRI’s Division of Hydrologic Sciences.

That article was followed several weeks later by another New York Times article quoting Dr. Chris Fritsen’s work on a project to analyze microscopic life forms in an extremely salty Antarctic lake covered with a 60-foot ice cap. The unique ecosystem is considered a possible analogue for the last life forms to exist on Mars billions of years ago. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted DRI scientist Dr. Eric McDonald on March 27 on the impacts of U.S. military traffic on the surface of the Kuwaiti and Iraqi deserts. He was also interviewed by reporters from the Los Angeles Times, Reno Gazette-Journal and Tahoe Quarterly. McDonald is an expert on desert surfaces who works with the Department of Defense to mitigate the impact of training activities on the desert and to retain a realistic desert setting to enhance that training. On April 2, a long-running DRI experiment testing the feasibility of using solar and wind power to produce hydrogen fuel for a fuel cell or other power systems was included in a CBS News “60 Minutes II” segment looking at the potential for hydrogen to replace oil as a primary energy source.