In December 2008 the Trustees encouraged development of a new basic science program on "Deep Carbon," tentatively described in the Transition Strategy paper provided to the Trustees. With Trustee support, the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) will launch the development of a worldwide Deep Carbon Observatory and serve as its anchor institution. The Deep Carbon Program would address four major areas. First, it would seek to estimate more accurately the reservoirs of carbon from the core, where iron may bind large amounts of carbon, through the mantle where convective cells may carry it upward to the crust which traps the reservoirs that are most familiar to humanity. While some crustal reservoirs may be "biotic," that is, formed from formerly living matter that is buried and cooked in the crust, it is now clear that Earth also contains much larger amounts of abiotic carbon, part of the primordial rock and gas at the planet's origins. Improving estimates of fluxes would be the second major focus of the Deep Carbon Observatory. The third focus would be the origins and synthesis of the particular chemical forms that carbon takes, including methane, which the high pressures and temperatures at great depths make possible. The fourth focus would be deep life. Humanity has never drilled deeper than life. The mud recovered from the deepest holes contains microbes. Geobiologists conjecture that the weight of the "deep hot biosphere" may rival the weight of the surface biosphere. The strategy of the Deep Carbon Observatory proposal draws on experiences of the Digital Sky Survey, Census of Marine Life, and other Sloan science initiatives. Success will depend on development of innovative instruments for working at very high pressures and temperatures. Success will also depend on high leveraging of Sloan funds: the CIW proposal aims to reach $50 million in additional commitments within three years. The leaders of the effort-Robert Hazen, a geologist and superb communicator with broad interests including biology, and Russell Hemley, a top expert in high-pressure instrumentation-have strong worldwide networks and propose the Deep Carbon Observatory with enormous excitement. The highly respected President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Richard Meserve, former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has participated directly in the project development and pledged Carnegie's own assets to the effort.

This is one of a trio of three-year renewal grants from the nation's leading film schools to continue awarding screenwriting and production awards for science and technology films and to hold an annual science and technology seminar. Many producers are now combing through all the Sloan student winners for new scripts. Our 2008 Sloan Summit, which showcased the work of student winners, attracted executives from the major studios and independent film companies. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which had some earlier issues due to personnel changes, has made great strides during the past three years. In the last cycle, UCLA turned in the best performance of any Sloan film school, including two outstanding scripts (The Magic Pill; The Ten Commandments of Leo Szilard). Several Sloan films UCLA submitted to festivals across the country have won awards and one production (Death Strip) took home a Student Emmy. UCLA is now next in line should we support another first feature production grant. While UCLA has increased its film production grants to offset rising production costs and added a modest stipend for more science advisors, it has compensated for these increases with other cuts so there is no net budget increase from 2006.

This is one of a trio of three-year renewal grants from the nation's leading film schools to continue awarding screenwriting and production awards for science and technology films and to hold an annual science and technology seminar. Many producers are now combing through all the Sloan student winners for new scripts. Our 2008 Sloan Summit, which showcased the work of student winners, attracted executives from the major studios and independent film companies. University of Southern California (USC) is the oldest film school in the country and consistently competes with New York University for the ranking of number one film school in the nation. It boasts the biggest program among our six schools and is also the only one that gives out a Sloan animation prize. USC has very strong ties with the industry and active alumni involved with the school include George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis. USC graduates have done well in securing industry jobs and enjoy the benefits of a very strong network. USC has been very sensitive to the economic situation and this request is $5,000 lower than the previous request in 2006.