Genius geoscience professor makes it rain
Today in people who are way smarter than any of us could ever imagine being: Princeton geoscience professor Daniel Sigman was named a MacArthur Fellow for 2009 for his work as a biogeochemist. This means he's going to receive a "genius grant" and a huge wad of cash worth $500,000 - with "no strings attached," the devil.I know what you're thinking: Biogeochemist? Is that even a thing?You bet your ass it is - and Sigman's the best one this side of Jurassic Park.Sigman's been studying how the interactions between the Earth's biomass and climate affect the planet's geologic history. I don't quite understand that, but the MacArthur fellowships are usually only awarded to, as the Director of the MacArthur Fellows Program puts it, people who
are illuminating our evolving planet, saving lives, building solutions to vexing problems, creating new technologies, revealing war’s wake, and illuminating beauty and mystery for us all.
So, I'll go ahead and take their word for the guy's having a lot of lab cred.The MacArther Fellows website describes his work in more detail, which unfortunately makes almost no sense to someone who P/D/F'd his global warming class:
By comparing the bioavailable inorganic nitrogen (e.g., in nitrates or ammonium) with organic nitrogen extracted from once living cells, Sigman has been able to construct models of paleoceanographic nitrogen cycling. Using sediments collected from the deep sea floor — both at its surface and deeper core samples — at various water depths and latitudes throughout the world’s oceans, Sigman is carefully reconstructing the quantitative net contribution of ocean biology to the carbon cycle over geological time scales. He and his colleagues are also developing clearer notions of the effects of biomass in present-day carbon cycling. To this end, he has improved the resolution of a method for measuring nitrate flux through sophisticated analysis of the stable oxygen and nitrogen isotopes.
If you're at all interested (or have an inkling of what's going on in that paragraph right there), you might be interested to know Sigman's teaching a course this semester, ENV 102, Climate: Past, Present, Future. Switch into it quick, or maybe just drop in for a lecture or two even. You can bask in the glory of a genius, a genius teaching an intro level undergrad course with students who just want an easy ST.But a genius nonetheless.