Scientists

As world leaders in Copenhagen last week negotiated a global response to the threat of impending climate change, a different meeting of the minds was taking place in San Francisco. As many as 15,000 of the world?s leading scientists in astrophysics, oceanography and Earth science convened at the American Geophysical Union conference in an attempt to better understand the scope of changing weather patterns and what it could mean for future generations. Among them was Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist and longtime La Cañada resident Moustafa Chahine.

Judy Seckler TOLL MIDDLE SCHOOL -- Boeing Propulsion and Power in Canoga Park came to Toll Middle School bearing gifts. A team of five scientists on Monday brought props like a mockup of the space shuttle with its Soviet rocket boosters and fuel tanks. The scientists explained to students how math and science are used to create a rocket, and what principals are used to build, design and test them. The group showed students the scientific method of testing and collecting data to complete the final design, said Hagop Panossian, team leader and technical fellow at Boeing.

Robert Chacon Rosaly Lopes, a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was awarded the 2005 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communications, acknowledging her outreach efforts. Lopes, a principal investigation scientist for the Titan radar mapper on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moon, Titan, has been active in reaching out to the global community since joining the Galileo mission team in 1991, spokeswoman Annie Carone said.

A hearing is scheduled to be held Sept. 24 for a lawsuit brought by 27 scientists and one engineer from Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center against NASA/JPL who object to a new background check requirement, saying it is an invasion of privacy. ?These scientists [and the engineer] work in non-sensitive, unclassified areas,? said attorney Dan Stormer, a partner at Hadsell and Stormer who represents the plaintiffs. A Bush administration directive requires new background checks for all government employees.

Marshall Allen LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will celebrate Earth Day Monday with a live Web cast of a panel discussion. The Web cast will be from 11 a.m. to noon Monday. The Web cast will be in Real Player format, and can be found at: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov. The site also includes information, animation and interactive features explaining JPL's search for planets. The panel will examine the conditions that make Earth a habitable environment and discuss the possibility of Earth-like planets around other stars.

At La Crescenta Elemen-tary, 33 students in the Gifted and Talented Education program gathered in a classroom last week to face a potentially yucky science lesson. "Now we are all scientists," explained teacher Peter Michelena as he began the assignment. "Treat this seriously and we will actually learn something." Then Michelena explained that the students would dissect squid. The project was assisted and overseen by Carol Weston, owner of Scholastic Advantage, a company that specializes in education programs.

Since its Martian Memorial Day weekend touchdown, the Phoenix lander has been sending back pictures and data that have kept scientists and engineers busy. Although there have been some small glitches along the way, the bottom line is the Phoenix is fine and the team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is very happy, according to Mark Lemmon, camera team lead. The Phoenix website has been updated daily on the progress of the lander, with detailed photos that allow scientists and the world to see the arctic area they are investigating.

Before the sun rises at JPL it is not uncommon to see a family of deer roam through the campus. The scene is tranquil, like that on Walden's Pond, and yet inside the buildings, historical events are taking place. On Oct. 3, scientists and engineers of the Mar Reconnaissance Orbiter entered an area in a JPL office titled the Purple Pigeon Coop before 5 a.m. in anticipation of the first test of the satellite's capability to "roll" in order to take pictures of the surface of Mars.

Seven high school students from around the Los Angeles area have been invited to present their research to an international audience of scientists at two different scientific conferences to be held later this year. The students, ages 16, 17 and 18, have completed sophisticated research projects and generated new scientific results because of work they've been doing for about a year at the Jisan Research Institute in Pasadena. Local youths include Crescenta Valley High School students Ryan Chang and Justin Huang.

What I'm Thankful for Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for what you have. Everybody has many things they are thankful for. The three things I'm thankful for are family, sports and friends. I'm most thankful for my family. My family keeps me company when I don't have a friend over. They are very fun to be around. My mom and dad take me to all my after school activities like baseball, basketball and friend's houses. For my birthday and Christmas they give me great gifts.

Scientists and engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were unfairly disciplined for sending emails about a U.S. Supreme Court decision involving background checks at the agency, a judge has ruled. The ruling comes after the JPL employees challenged being disciplined for using their work email accounts to disseminate information to colleagues about the 2007 Supreme Court decision upholding federal background checks for scientists. JPL administrators said using work email accounts for such purposes violated employee policy.

Hydrogen peroxide is used to clean counter tops here on Earth, but Jupiter's moon Europa may use it for a more important endeavor - to supply energy to simple life forms. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech proposed the theory in a paper recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "Life as we know it needs liquid water, elements like carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur, and it needs some form of chemical or light energy to get the business of life done," JPL scientist Kevin Hand said in a statement.

Several Armenian engineers who helped launch the Curiosity rover to Mars this past summer were celebrated during a visit Monday afternoon at Chamlian Armenian School, where they shared stories about their work. Engineer Arbi Karapetian brought along face masks, full body suits and booties - the everyday outerwear of the rover scientists during the seven years they assembled Curiosity at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. “Imagine working like this 12 hours a day,” Karapetian said.

With the space shuttle Endeavour nearing Los Angeles airspace, a crowd started to amass at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, where there was a sense of mourning among some of the onlookers. "It's kind of sad, actually. It's sort of like a flag ceremony," said Steve Collins of the Curiosity Mars rover team. "It feels like they should be flying in the missing man formation. " Still, he said he was excited to meet up with several other rover team members to watch Endeavour's final flight, even if it is a somber occasion.

A man who claims he lost his job at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory because he voiced support for the theory of intelligent design is seeking $1.36 million in damages and lost wages, according to court papers filed as the case winds down. David Coppedge, a former administrator on the Cassini project to Saturn, is seeking $860,000 for lost wages and $500,000 for emotional distress damages. Attorneys for Coppedge claimed in Los Angeles County Superior Court earlier this year that his discussions of intelligent design with co-workers led to discipline that improperly curtailed his free speech rights, amounting to religious discrimination.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists hit the desert this week to get eyeball to eyeball with a passing asteroid, using a massive satellite dish to ping microwaves off the huge space object and gain a sense of what it is made of and when it is coming around again. Scientists at NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex 30 miles north of Barstow were just 200,000 miles or so from asteroid 2005 YU55. Lance Benner, the lead scientist on the project, said the close encounter “significantly refined [understanding of]

Federal funding cuts continue to impact the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where 40 workers were laid off last week, the latest notch in a prolonged period of cutbacks for the agency. It was the second round of layoffs this year for NASA's JPL, which cut its workforce by 250 people in February and March, agency spokeswoman Veronica McGregor said. The latest round of layoffs affected the business and facilities divisions, McGregor said. No science or research jobs were affected, she added.

The 28 Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists suing the federal government over what they say are new invasive security screening procedures are calling for comments about space shuttle security by U.S. Solicitor Gen. Neal Katyal to be stricken from the Supreme Court record. In making his case that background checks involving medical records, personal finances and sexual preference are necessary to guarantee NASA security, Katyal told justices on Oct. 5 that holders of a JPL clearance enjoy extensive access privileges outside the La Cañada Flintridge facility.

Over the next few months, NASA scientists will begin to analyze information gathered by the Phoenix Mars Lander, whose mission ended earlier this week after unsuccessful attempts to communicate with the craft. The announcement comes two years after the Phoenix Mars Lander touched down on the Red Planet. The mission began May 25, 2008, and lasted five months — two months beyond its operating expectancy, scientists said. "It did its job better than expected," said Dr. Deborah Bass, deputy project scientist for the Phoenix Mission.

As world leaders in Copenhagen last week negotiated a global response to the threat of impending climate change, a different meeting of the minds was taking place in San Francisco. As many as 15,000 of the world?s leading scientists in astrophysics, oceanography and Earth science convened at the American Geophysical Union conference in an attempt to better understand the scope of changing weather patterns and what it could mean for future generations. Among them was Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist and longtime La Cañada resident Moustafa Chahine.