Nathalie Cabrol is a planetary scientist at NASA Ames and a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute. But just because her research focuses on the geology, ecology, and history of faraway planets doesn’t mean she stares through a telescope all day. On the contrary, Cabrol holds the world record for the highest elevation dive by a woman. And she got her record in the name of science! Cabrol climbs some of the world’s highest mountains and dives into their lakes to understand what life on other planets may have been like in the past before climate change eliminated their surface water. Cabrol sat down to chat with us about her legendary dive in the Andes and how we can learn about other planets by studying our own.

Free diving in a lake located at 8,000 ft as training for the Licancabur expedition.

How can you study Mars from Earth?

My field is on Mars. So that makes it a big commute to get there. So I chose to go, not exactly halfway, but I climbed some way towards it.

If you want to go to Mars, you want to know what is the environment in the past and was it suitable for life? I have to go to Mars analog environments. The higher you go on earth, the thinner the atmosphere is, the more UV, and the temperature changes are the same as they are on Mars at the equator (even today). A volcanic environment is a good analog.

This is what drove me to climb the high volcanoes in the Andes. I was interested in the combination of extremes. I am a lake person. My husband and I have been promoting the idea that there were lakes on Mars. Nobody had thought about the fact that water could have pooled. Once the idea was OK in the community, we went to those very high volcanic lakes to try to understand what the environment would have been like.

What does it take to get to the bottom of the lake at the top of a mountain?

Not being afraid to put a foot in front of the other. For a long time you have to think only about that and not about the goal which is the summit. Those are very high climbs -- 20,000 foot high mountains. In the Andes climbing to 20,000 feet you have all the mountain gear on you, it’s cold, you have to get acclimatized, you go with your colleagues, and when you get there they have become your friends too.

The year where we did our diving expedition we carried 500 kilograms. That’s half a ton of equipment and we were traveling light. Believe me, we had the most competitive diving equipment possible. It was very light.

Watching certain episodes of the the original Star Trek, it's hard not to laugh at the show's 1960s-era technology transplanted into the future. But one of the series' most famous pieces of technology, the science tricorder, is still ahead of its time--it may be bulky, but it's still able to identify any known life form in a way modern scientists dream of. More than forty years later, we're still jealous of the tricorder, but scientists have actually figured out how to replicate its technology using a process called DNA barcoding. It's almost as good as Spock's magic box.

In "The technologhy that links taxonomy and Star Trek," BoingBoing describes the advances biologists have made in being able to identify different animal species. Ironically, the computational power needed for DNA barcoding fills a lab, much like the gigantic computers that existed when Star Trek was on the air in the 1960s. Spock's tricorder still has an advantage when it comes to portability, but as BoingBoing writes, we really can identify most organisms on the world with DNA barcoding.

Photo credit: Flickr user hartsell via Creative Commons.

"Canadian biologist Paul Hebert...thought there might be an easy way to quickly identify species using short DNA sequences that are unique to one species or another. If you had a database of these sequences, then all you'd have to do would be to match a sample to a sequence and you'd know what species you were looking at. It's similar to the way we store fingerprints, and then use those to match prints from a crime scene with an individual person."

Sounds easy! But it's not, of course. Here's the problem: DNA barcoding animals commonly relies on a gene called COI, which is a piece of mtDNA found within a cell's mitochondria. This DNA is passed down from generation to generation in the egg cells of organisms, picking up errors and changes in the sequence from one mother to another. Those changes in the sequence are what make DNA barcoding work, but they're also what make it tough.

One of the best gags in Aaron Sorkin's West Wing played out when the White House staff dedicated a single day dealing with the small organizations that were ignored the other 364. One of those groups, the Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality, petitioned the government to ditch Mercator maps in schools in favor of the Peters Projection map. Why? Because the Mercator map is distorted--we all know Greenland isn't that big--and the organization argues that size is associated with power. Africa and South America, which appear far smaller than they really are, don't get the respect they deserve.

The gag works because it actually has a good point behind it, something we don't think about very often. The Mercator map is really, really inaccurate. And the Peters Projection is inaccurate, too, just in a different way--it stretches all the continents vertically to approximate their actual landmasses. Maybe the Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality should've been pushing Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Map, which just turned 70. To celebrate, the Buckminster Fuller Institute is looking to give the map a rebirth.

The Dymaxion world map looks nothing like what we typically associate with a map, but its tesselated design, which folds up to form an icosahedron, does a better job of preserving the shapes and sizes of the continents than either the Mercator or Peters maps. The downside, of course, is that the array of unfolded triangles would make sea navigation impossible. But the map offers something unique as well: there's no "right" direction to look at it from, no real up or down. The Dymaxion is all about equality.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute's Dymax Redux contest " is calling on today’s graphic designers, visual artists, and citizen cartographers to create a new and inspiring interpretation of the Dymaxion Map. BFI will publish accepted entries within an online gallery, feature the selected finalists in a gallery exhibition in New York City and select one winning entry to be produced as a 36" x 24" poster." Anyone can enter a map design, and the deadline is on June 14.

Gizmodo's story on the contest includes some pretty cool versions of the Dymaxion map, as does the contest page itself. The map may never replace Mercator as the go-to representation of the Earth, but at least it's produced some pretty cool art.

No one knows what the power source of the future will be, but one thing's for sure: the Earth's deposits of oil will only last so long. As we consume more and more fuel, alternative energy sources become more critical. We put more money and research into electric cars like the Tesla. We improve the output and install base of solar and wind power facilities. And we think real hard about nuclear power. After Japan's Fukushima disaster, nuclear is a tough sell in all parts of the world, but especially in Japan.

On Tuesday the New York Times reported that Japan may have made a breakthrough in a new energy source to augment its remaining nuclear program. Japan's fossil fuel imports have increased over the past two years, since the Fukushima incident, which the Times reports has "weighed heavily on its economy, helping to push it to a trade deficit and reducing the benefits of the recently weaker yen to Japanese exporters."

Japan's new resource is methane hydrate, which looks a whole lot like ice and is sometimes referred to as flammable ice. "Methane hydrate is a sherbetlike substance that can form when methane gas is trapped in ice below the seabed or underground," writes the New York Times. "Though it looks like ice, it burns when it is heated."

A Japanese drilling sihp started a trial extraction process to retrieve the methane from a depth of approximately 1000 feet. After drilling into the seabed, the team lowered the pressure in the methane hydrate reserve, forcing the gas and ice to separate. The methane was pumped to the surface.

Japan's new resource, methane hydrate, looks a whole lot like ice and is sometimes referred to as flammable ice.

According to the Times, Japan has been researching methane hydrate extraction for about a decade. It's a difficult extraction process, which is why methane hydrate hasn't, until now, been considered a viable resource. The gas could also contribute to global warming like other fossil fuels, though the Times points out it's a cleaner alternative to coal, which Japan uses for about one fifth of its energy.

Methane hydrate could give Japan its own source of fossil fuels, allowing it to lower costly fuel imports. But if this drilling trial proves successful, it won't stay be a Japan-exclusive fuel source for long.

In the climactic moment of Richard Donner's 1978 Superman, the Man of Steel flies around the planet Earth so fast that he seemingly reverses the Earth's rotation in order to turn back time and save Lois Lane. It's his big selfish move, the one time he abuses his power for what he wants--even if he does end up saving Lois' life in the bargain. The decision looks even more selfish when you know what would happen if the Earth actually starting rotating on its axis in the other direction (we'll just ignore the ridiculous and impossible physics behind Supes' spin maneuver).

The Atlantic recently noted that a reverse spin would cause dramatic issues with our planetary climate. Quoting a BBC study by meteorologist Peter Gibbs, they explain that reverse rotation would do more than reverse the flow of everything across the planet. It would interfere with the Coriolis effect and trade winds, changing how weather moves across the world.

This river of high altitude, fast-moving air steers the mid-latitude depressions across the planet from west to east. Swirling masses of cloud and rain are pushed from Japan to the Pacific coast of America, and from Newfoundland to Cornwall. Reverse the flow and climate changes dramatically. The British Isles loses the moderating effect of weather from the Atlantic. A harsher continental climate becomes more likely, with a predominantly easterly flow bringing bitter Siberian winds in winter and hot, dry weather in summer.

Assuming this reversal happened a few hundred years back, it would have changed the entire history of human exploration and discovery:

Rotation complicates things. The flow breaks up into three separate cells known as the Hadley cell, the Ferrell cell and the Polar cell. Northward and southward-moving surface winds generated by the cells are then deflected to right or left by our old friend the Coriolis effect and we end up with the trade winds.

These constant easterly winds in the tropical regions were the motorways of the seas for sailing ships. A captain heading out of southern Spain could depend on picking up the northeast trades for a free ride to the Caribbean. Again, reverse the Earth's spin and the whole thing switches. Patterns of human discovery, subsequent empire-building and the resulting political geography would all be different.

We know almost nothing about who and what is lurking in the very deepest parts of the ocean. The good news is we have ocean engineers whose job is to battle buoyancy, pressure, and the communications challenges that would attempt to thwart our ability to learn more.

Kevin Hardy, an engineer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is on the leading edge of the science that is, literally, probing the deep. You may have heard his name before. Hardy was responsible for building the Deep Ocean Vehicles that accompanied James Cameron on his submarine trip to the Mariana Trench. Just off the coast of Guam, the Mariana Trench is the deepest spot on earth (about 11 Kilometers or 7 miles).

The landers, as Hardy calls them, built for the Mariana dive are the result of more than a decade of research, but still just the beginning. Hardy is constantly updating his technology and his goal is to one day create a plug-and-play style vehicle that anyone can use.

“For me it’s the idea of building a pickup truck and the bed is open. It depends on the end user, what he puts in there. We’re trying to make it easy for any scientist, not just the big guys. There will be mechanical interfaces that work on small boats so you don’t have to need the big giant ships. We’re trying to come up with criteria that says, if it doesn’t weigh and more than this and fits in this space you’re good.”

In other words, Hardy wants to use his technology to make the deepest, most inaccessible place on the earth accessible to anyone that has an interest. He chatted with us about what it’s like to make machines and send them into the abyss.

What made you want to get into building machines to study the surface of the ocean?

Years ago, when I was just a little kid, I was reading Diver Dan. In the 50s, when I was a preteen, we had Mike Nelson and Sea Hunt. And in the 60s Cousteau and the Sealab project. I was intrigued by outer space, but the chances to go into orbit were a lot lower then going to the bottom of the ocean.

For me, I really enjoy science and math. Engineering is really applied science. Something like astronomy, meteorology, oceanography, all those are observational science. The way to make observations is tools. Ocean science requires submarines and all the toys.

It’s about moving outside the comfort zone. In oceanography I look as far outside the comfort zone as I can get with the chance to safely make it back. We look for ports and ships of opportunities and going to the deepest ocean depths. That just calls to you. You can’t ignore it.

Science largely goes down to 6 kilometers, but the ocean goes down to 11. So many of the basic questions of chemistry and biology and geophysics are yet to be answered. With vehicles we can go down and discover this stuff.

Is that why we study the bottom?

Besides basic knowledge and pushing the technology, we learn about the earth. Tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanoes all come from the plates down in the trenches.

There’s also different types of biology that lives down there. Even though it’s high pressure, it doesn’t change. There aren’t seasons really. The only effect is detritus falling from above. It’s actually fairly benign and the chemistry doesn’t change. Things have had the opportunity to stabilize. We think, from the site that we went to at the Mariana Deep, postulating based on our knowledge, that life may have started down there. We had this whole series of postulations but had no evidence and it was unbelievable the things we saw down there.

The reason I consider it important is the massive forces that come out of there. The beginning of life is potentially down there. We actually found some microbes down there that will help us fight against cancer and Alzheimer’s and improving life in general.

Volcanology is one of the most dangerous jobs in science -- mainly because flying in helicopters around active volcanoes has a history of leading to serious accidents. But it’s also because a volcanologist’s job description includes getting up close and personal with molten-hot lava.

Tim Orr, the head Geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, grew up in Montana, not far from Yellowstone National Park (which owes its geysers, hot springs, boiling mud pots, and steam vents to the fact that it sits on top of a hotspot and is sometimes referred to as a supervolcano). In 1980, when Mount St. Helens erupted Orr’s house happened to be downwind. “As a 12 year old boy I woke up to ash on my parents car. I was glued to the tv for weeks afterwards,” he says.

It’s no wonder that he went on to study geology and then head to Hawaii where he worked his way up the ranks of the HVO (it's also a photo of Orr at work that you see on the Wikipedia page for volcanologist). Now in charge of monitoring changes in the just about 30-year-long eruption of Mount Kilauea, Orr chatted with us about what it’s like to have an office at the top of a volcano.

Why do we study volcanoes?

Well, a significant portion of the Earth’s population lives in the shadows of dangerous volcanoes. Volcanology is geared towards trying to understand them -- why they erupt, when, what the dangers are -- all for the purpose of trying to mitigate the hazards. On Kilauea, we’re looking at a volcano which is relatively calm, compared to the others. Hawaiian volcanoes erupt more effusively, in a manner which is more approachable. Kilauea doesn’t usually send out widespread ash clouds that blanket wide areas. Most of the eruptions are comparatively benign so you can study how a volcano works in a relatively safe fashion. Interestingly, the repeat interval for ash-producing explosive eruptions at Kilauea is on par with that for Mount St. Helens.

What makes Kilauea so comparatively calm?

The Hawaiian volcanoes erupt basalt magma. There is less silica in basalt, so the lavas are not as viscous -- they’re more fluid. Other volcanoes that have more silica have magma that’s more viscous, so instead of flowing the magma is torn apart and forms ash.

Hawaii is located within the middle of an oceanic plate at what’s known as a hotspot. Some other volcanoes are on island arcs or continental margins so the magma has different composition (where there are thicker crusts). Most of the volcanoes that we hear about on the news are on island arcs or continental margins, but not all.

The oceanic crust is thinner in Hawaii -- thinner than continental crust -- and it has a different composition.

So it’s easier for the magma to come to the surface?

All magma rises through the earth due to buoyancy. Hot magma rises from the mantle here in Hawaii because there’s more heat in this area (the reason is unknown). But when you have more heat, which causes the hot mantle to buoyantly rise, as it reaches shallow levels the molten portions escape.

In March, James Cameron dove to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, becoming only the third person to reach the deepest known spot in the Earth's oceans. He built a new sub, the DeepSea Challenger, to do it. And while some footage of the dive was released after the historic event, Cameron's been holding the scientific results of his finding hostage since March. Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic--but until now, we haven't heard zip about how the expedition can benefit the oceanographic community. Until now.

Photo Credit: National Geographic

On Tuesday, Cameron talked to a meeting of the American Geophysical Union and revealed a bit of information about the dive. Turns out, not too surprisingly, the sea life population is a bit thin 10,900 meters deep; Cameron found far more life in an earlier dive 8200 meters deep to the New Britain Trench. Still, the project wasn't a lost cause. An unmanned, robotic-controlled dive to a basin called Serena Deep within the Trench returned some interesting results, according to Nature:

“What was very exciting about the Serena Deep dive was we could see outcrops and bizarre microbial mats covering the rocks,” says Kevin Hand, an astrobiologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The researchers suspect that the outcrops contain rocks from the mantle that are being altered by a process called serpentinization, in which sea water reacts with minerals and releases hydrogen and methane. Those could provide the energy to feed the microbial communities seen at the site, says Hand.

The findings have implications for the origins of life on Earth and other planets, he says. Researchers have speculated that the process of serpentinization in the early oceans could have supplied the energy and raw materials critical for a primordial metabolism, which could eventually have given rise to the first cells. “Serpentenization is seen to be a possible culprit in that step between geochemisty and biochemistry,” says Hand.

Clues to the origins of life? We won't get our hopes up, but that sounds like a pretty big deal.

Even if Cameron didn't discover anything groundbreaking at the bottom of the trench, the technology that went into DeepSea Challenger will undoubtedly continue to benefit the scientific community. He was the first person to reach the depth since 1960; we doubt it'll take another 50 years for someone to go poking around for more deep sea life in the Trench, this time around.

The wildfires that have been burning for more than a week near Colorado Springs are the subject of this image. Captured using ASTER--that's the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, obviously--this false color image shows living vegetation in red and areas burned by the fire in brown.

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

To date, more than 18,000 acres have burned and the Waldo Canyon fire is the worst in Colorado history. The Terra satellite, which houses ASTER, is part of the Earth Observing System. To find out more, or see some more amazing satellite images, check out NASA's Earth Observatory. (h/t to Smithsonian Smartnews)

Scientists studying the changes in Earth's ecosystems have recently taken to the term "Anthropocene", which describes the geological epoch in which mankind developed the ability to radically change Earth's environment through technology. Starting from the time that humans began farming on a large scale and escalating with the massive environmental effects of the industrial revolution, the Anthropocene accounts for changes in earth, oceans, and atmosphere that have affected the many biospheres beyond just the ones we live in. A new educational project aims to document these changes with satellite imagery and computer-generated visualizations, and recently released this animation of how the Earth has changed in just the past 250 years.

Our rapid industrialization and growth are obviously not without consequences, but tracking and identifying environmental "tipping points" of no return is not an easy task, as evidenced by the ongoing debate over climate change. And that's just one of the environmental thresholds we have to worry about:

Scientists are still trying to understand exactly where these tipping points lie, and what risks they pose. But even given the remarkable resilience of the Earth system, it’s increasingly clear that we’re heading into dangerous territory. Human society needs a stable environment; if things change too much or too fast, many societies may be unable to cope.

But we’re causing rapid changes in many areas. This has led a team of scientists to suggest nine critical boundaries we need to stay within to avoid unacceptable environmental degradation with serious consequences for societies. They suggest we’re close to or beyond at least four of them – ozone depletion, climate change, biodiversity loss and nutrient pollution. We’re also worryingly close to several other suspected tipping points.

Most scientists are in agreement that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a 6-mile (10-kilometer) wide asteroid that smashed into the Earth 65 million years ago. The asteroid's impact in what is today Mexico had numerous consequences, not the least of which was the mass extinction of almost all land-based life on Earth. But the dinosaurs weren't the only life forms affected by the force equivalent of a billion atomic bombs literally turning the sky black. Microbes living on rocks were flung far into space as a result of the impact. Whether these microbes could have survived an interstellar trip is unknown, but simulations of Earth ejecta conducted last year have placed potentially life-seeding rocks as far as Jupiter. Astrobiologists estimate that the sturdiest of microbial life forms could survive up to 30,000 years in space, which would be long enough for a journey to another life-sustaining planetary body (perhaps an ocean-bearing moon).

Photo Credit: Flickr user bryanto via Creative Commons

A more recent study from astrobiologists in Japan sought to calculate how much of Earth's mass could have potentially reached moons or planets fit for life, including the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and even exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. By estimating how much ejecta was flung into space 65 million years ago (we're talking billions of tons), scientists at Kyoto Sangyo University calculate that about a thousand microbe-housing Earth rocks could have even reached a red dwarf star 20 light years away, which is thought to have an Earth-like planet within its habitable zone. And if microbial life could survive that journey, the scientists say, then there's no reason why they couldn't flourish in alien environments. Life will find a way--we'll just have to check back in a few million years to see how far it's gone.