The Spring 2024 semester begins this week, and we are excited to welcome everyone back to campus. We reached out to members of the DEEPS community to hear what they're looking forward to in the upcoming semester, and here's what they shared:

Responding to a listener question, the Possibly Team spoke with Professor Jack Mustard about whether or not the garbage Americans throw into landfills could be fired into the sun.

DEEPS celebrated this year's annual holiday party with food, friends, and its first-ever trivia game.

Samuel W. Bell, a 2016 Ph.D. graduate of DEEPS, is currently the State Senator representing District Five (Providence) in the Rhode Island Senate. He recently sat down with the Brown Political Review to discuss his campaign and political journey.

Brown's Multimedia Lab encourages students to create projects using film negatives from NASA Lunar Orbiter 4 Mission. The scans were originally part of the Brown/NASA Northeast Planetary Data Center and were donated to the Creative Reuse Center in June 2023 after a DEEPS consolidation effort. “We were surprised and delighted to see some of the scans turn up back at Brown,” Jackson wrote to the Brown Daily Herald.

NBC 10's Mark Searles and Dan Jaehnig were joined by a panel of experts, including DEEPS Professor Meredith Hastings, to talk about climate change's impact in Rhode Island and possible solutions.

DEEPS PhD students Brianna Hoegler and Jared Nirenberg, with the support of hundreds of fellow scientists, have written a letter to the National Science Foundation expressing their concerns regarding the future of scientific ocean drilling research. The letter is published in AGU Perspectives, and garnered signatures from nearly three hundred scientists, a majority being early career scientists.

NASA-funded researchers have been granted permission to apply to the China National Space Administration (CNSA) for access to portions of samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 mission. This is an exciting and welcome development, DEEPS Professor James Head told SpaceNews. “The Solar System is a big place, and planetary science can benefit tremendously from complementary, non-duplicative exploration destinations, and the sharing of samples and other results.”

The next wave of lunar explorers is headed to terrain that promises to be both stunning and challenging. DEEPS Professor James Head offered his comment, saying "I don’t think we know yet how the trafficability is going to affect how the astronauts are going to be able to walk and drive."

The Odyssey orbiter captured clouds and dust in the Red Planet’s skies, along with one of its two tiny moons. Laura Kerber '11, deputy project scientist for NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, explains in a video how and why the spacecraft captured a view of the Red Planet similar to the International Space Station’s view of Earth.

DEEPS Professor Timothy D. Herbert spoke with Times Evoke about sea sediments, uncovering secrets of ancient Earth and climate change.

“There’s no scenario in which melting ice in the Arctic is good news,” said DEEPS Professor Amanda Lynch, the lead author on a 2022 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “But the unfortunate reality is that the ice is already retreating, these routes are opening up, and we need to start thinking critically about the legal, environmental, and geopolitical implications.”

Sonam Sherpa, one of IBES & DEEPS's newest postdoctoral researchers, recently offered insights in a Brown Daily Herald interview on an earthquake that shook her native Nepal earlier this month.

The Brown Daily Herald spoke with DEEPS researchers and faculty about the recent study using models atmospheric modeling to show that Venus once had plate tectonics similar to Earth.

The Community Noise Lab and Swearer Center at Brown University organized a forum titled, "Firing Back" held on November 13 at the School of Public Health. At the event, Juliet Fang, a second-year undergraduate student at Brown studying Public Health and Geology-Biology, shared data indicating that the noise levels from the firing range were higher than what the city of Cranston legally allows. Her study underscored the link between noise pollution and various health issues, including disrupted sleep, heightened stress, and cognitive impairments, as well as chronic conditions like hypertension and heart disease.

DEEPS Professor and IBES Director Kim Cobb offered commentary to TIME on the Fifth National Climate Assessment, noting, "at the center of the report are people ... who have escalating risks associated with climate change as well as clear opportunities for win-win climate action."

The last 12 months were the hottest Earth has ever recorded, according to a new report by Climate Central, a nonprofit science research group. IBES Director and DEEPS Professor Kim Cobb commented that the heat of the last year, intense as it was, is tempered because the oceans have been absorbing the majority of the excess heat related to climate change, but they are reaching their limit. “Oceans are really the thermostat of our planet ... they are tied to our economy, food sources, and coastal infrastructure.”

At the annual Careers Day, DEEPS students and community members had the opportunity to hear from two alumni, Isabella Gama Dantas and Mali'o Kodis, about their career journeys outside academia. 

The “Solid Earth Geophysics” class joined the North Burial Ground for a groundbreaking project this Halloween season, using ground penetrating radar (GPR) to help investigate the mysteries buried within the historic cemetery.

DEEPS & IBES Professor Meredith Hastings is a co-PI on a new project that will center on a field safety, anti-harassment, and bystander intervention training certificate program. “In scientific work, hostile behaviors such as bullying and harassment create a negative work environment that is more often experienced by people of color and those with disabilities. This is an important reason why the geosciences remain one of the least diverse STEM fields,” said Hastings.