This grant provides two years of continued support for the Reservoirs and Fluxes Directorate of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO).  Led from the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the Ecole Nationale Supйrieure de Gйologie in Nancy, France, the Directorate is the division of the DCO dedicated to transforming our understanding of the distribution, abundance, and movement of Earth’s subsurface carbon.  The group aims for important discoveries in five areas:  degassing deep carbon through volcanic processes; degassing deep carbon through tectonic and other diffuse processes; origin, age, and depth of diamonds and mineral inclusions found within them; fluid dynamics of carbon transport in volcanoes and global circulation of carbon from Earth’s surface to its core; and chemical forms, mineral hosts, and reactions of carbon moving between reservoirs. Collaborating with national volcano observatories, group members will also begin to establish the first global network for direct measurement of volcanic carbon dioxide flux and produce a new database on eruptions and volcanic gases.  Expected outcomes from this grant include new instruments, databases, models, insights, and several doctoral and postdoctoral researchers trained in deep carbon research.  

The Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) hosts the Sloan Science and Film website, the most comprehensive single resource documenting outputs from Sloan’s Film program, including a growing library of 439 Sloan film projects; 282 screenplays; and 76 Sloan-winning films presented by the Hamptons, Sundance, and Tribeca Film Festivals. In addition to the video content and award history the site catalogues, the website features articles about Sloan films; status updates about members of the Sloan film community; and general interest articles, news items, and features about science as depicted in film and television in the broader culture. This grant provides three years of continued support to MoMI for hosting and curation of the Sloan Science and Film website. Additional funds support a series of science and film events hosted by MoMI during the World Science Festival and the Imagine Science Festival.

Funds from this grant provide one year of continued support to efforts by a team led by Pamela Samuelson at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law to examine the legal obstacles posed by copyright law to digital library initiatives and the digital storage and dissemination of in-copyright works. The Berkeley team will examine a diverse range of issues, including orphan works, library and archive copyright exceptions, private ordering solutions, collective licensing for certain copyrighted works, digital lending of in-copyright works, and metadata ownership and use issues. Samuelson’s team will also provide advice and counsel to the Digital Public Library of America on legal issues related its mission and will serve as a locus for informed legal discussion of copyright issues in the digital age.

This grant funds an ambitious new project by the Chemical Heritage Foundation to build a free mobile app for iPad that recreates the excitement and educational potential of working with a chemistry set. Structured like a game, the app will instruct users in the principles of chemistry and guide them through a series of increasingly complicated virtual experiments that explore the properties of matter, thermodynamics, gases, and chemical energy. The app will be focused on 12 to 15 year olds and, when completed, will be available to download for free. The project is an experiment in how to leverage new developments in information technology and media to advance the public understanding of science.

Funds from this grant provide three years of continued operational and programming support to Science Friday, the only regular weekly slot on public radio—two hours long—devoted to all things science. Reaching more than two million people each week via his radio show, podcasts, blogs, online videos, mobile apps, and social media, award-winning host Ira Flatow targets the fertile intersection between science and the arts and has made the show a magnet for filmmakers, playwrights, authors, musicians, sculptors, painters, and digital artists who engage with science. In addition to providing operational support, funds support several new initiatives, including collaborative (audience) art projects, a Science Friday book club, a film viewing and discussion series, an artist of the month spotlight, and an annual remote broadcast about science and the arts produced in conjunction with the Foundation-supported Science and Entertainment Exchange.