KNME's next Science Café is set for Saturday, Feb. 28, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. in Workman 101 on the New Mexico Tech campus in Socorro, N.M. Dr. Penny Boston, one of the New Mexico scientists featured in this fascinating NOVA episode that tours some of the most impressive caves in the world, reports on a revolutionary theory of cave formation that has startling implications for the development of life on Earth and on other planets.
Deep in the heart of New Mexico's Guadalupe Mountains, rock-eating microbes are at work. But their appetite is dainty compared to their voracious hunger millions of years ago, when they carved Carlsbad Caverns and Lechuguilla Cave.
KNME Science Cafes are presented with support from New Mexico Tech, Lockheed Martin/Sandia National Labs, Applied Research Technologies and The Online NewsHour Science Reports.
Penelope Boston is director of the Cave and Karst Studies Program and Associate Professor in the Earth & Environmental Sciences Dept. at New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology, in Socorro, NM. Boston is also Associate Director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute in Carlsbad, NM.
Her research focuses on geomicrobiology and astrobiology in extreme environments (caves, hot and cold deserts, high latitudes and altitudes); human life support issues in space and planetary environments; and use of robotics to assist exploration and science in extreme Earth and extraterrestrial environments.
Boston is author of more than 100 technical and popular publications, editor of 4 volumes. Her work has been featured in ~ 150 print and broadcast media over the past dozen years. Boston is a fellow of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, past President of the Association of Mars Explorers, and a founder of the Case for Mars and the Mars Society.
This Science Café is designed to be for the entire family. Parents and grandparents are strongly encouraged to bring their budding engineers and scientists along.
Admission is free, however a reservation is required. Reserve tickets by contacting Rose Poston at 277-2396 or rposton@knme.org to RSVP. Seating is limited and on a first come, first served.
For updates on KNME Science Cafes, and local and national science, nature and technology programs, visit KNME new online community web portal -- Science Central, at Science Central.