[pf] NSF director: "Complexity is a defining characteristic of life"

· Not uncommonly I am critical of "over-simplified" views, and make
comments like "we need people who revel in complexity".

  The item below has:
 "Earth is a living, ever-changing planet, with interconnecting threads
everywhere," explained NSF director Rita Colwell. "Complexity is a defining
characteristic of these threads. All levels of biological organization are
more than the sum of their parts. Understanding how complex systems develop
from the interactions of living things and their environment is critical to
an understanding of how our planet supports life."   D.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/oct2001/2001L-10-18-09.html
  is:
         $55 Million Supports Study Of Biocomplexity

 - The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $55 million in
research grants to scientists, engineers and educators to discover the
relationships between living things and their environment. 

 "Earth is a living, ever-changing planet, with interconnecting threads
everywhere," explained NSF director Rita Colwell. "Complexity is a defining
characteristic of these threads. All levels of biological organization are
more than the sum of their parts. Understanding how complex systems develop
from the interactions of living things and their environment is critical to
an understanding of how our planet supports life." 

 Investigations of biocomplexity in the environment, Colwell said, provide
science a more complete understanding of natural processes, of human
behaviors and decisions in the natural world, and of ways to use new
technology effectively to observe the environment and sustain the diversity
of life on earth. Scientists, engineers, and educators must work in teams
across diverse fields, she added, that go well beyond biology to include,
for example, physics, systems engineering, mathematics, economics, and
geochemistry on studies that extend from the submolecular to changes in the
world's climate. 

 "The biggest, most exciting scientific questions are now at the interfaces
of traditional disciplines, such as biological chemistry, computational
ecology, and environmental genetics," said Colwell. 

 This special competition, called Biocomplexity in the Environment:
Integrated Research and Education in Environmental Systems 2001, is the
third phase of a multi-year effort supporting full research projects and
smaller exploratory projects, workshops and planning activities. In the
competition, 32 research projects and 41 exploratory projects were funded. 

 Research project topics include: modeling the interactions among urban
development, land cover change, and bird diversity; coupling rhizosphere
biogeochemical cycles to plant growth under differing levels of carbon
dioxide; meta-genome analysis of extreme microbial symbiosis; and
developing instrumentation to measure the emission and transport of
biological aerosols into the atmosphere. 

 Exploratory projects include: sustaining multiple functions for urban
wetlands; simplification and recovery of soil biocomplexity following
agricultural cultivation and forest logging; complementary development of
new chemical sensor and probe microscopy techniques for environmental
research in hydrothermal ecosystems; and developing portable devices to map
the distribution of arsenic in groundwater in Bangladesh. 

 For a complete list of research and exploratory projects, visit:
http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/be/ere_be-competitions.html

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
David (who's immediately suspicious of someone saying: "simply, ...").
David MacClement [davd @ ihug.co.nz] (remove spaces)
http://davd.tripod.com/GrRR-011012_titles.html#top
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
***********************************************

==^================================================================
EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://igc.topica.com/u/?aVxifP.aVEN4x
Or send an email To: positive-futures-unsubscribe@igc.topica.com
This email was sent to: csf@moscow.com

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================