Carnegie Science

This oil painting of Herman Spoehr watched over Carnegie's Plant Biology library at Stanford for decades—a fitting post for the man who spent 40 years watching over American photosynthesis research. He arrived at Carnegie in 1910 as virtually the only U.S. scientist in the field, built the department into a world-class research center, and wrote the defining textbook on a process nobody fully understood yet.

Photosynthesis didn't give up its secrets easily. Spoehr spent his career probing what he called the "mother reaction" of life—knowing what went in, knowing what came out, but never fully unlocking the machinery in between. When he retired in 1950, the mystery remained unsolved. The groundwork he laid, however, gave his successor the foundation to lead Carnegie into the mid-century photosynthesis revolution. Sometimes the most important work is clearing the path.

Learn more about Object No. 12 in our series: https://bit.ly/4vaFSxF

🌈 To learn what distant stars or planet are made of, astronomers read hidden signals in their light.

Across the full spectrum, from infrared to ultraviolet, every element and molecule leaves its signature. It takes the whole range to read the universe.

This month, let's celebrates the full spectrum—in the cosmos and in our community.

Learn more: carnegiescience.edu/universe-color

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Meet a scientist who treats the ocean like a giant, slow bioreactor. 🌊🦠

This , learn how Carnegie's Emily Zakem studies the invisible marine microbes that help drive the ocean's carbon cycle and shape Earth's climate.

👉 carnegiescience.edu/meet-emily-zakem

🌊 Happy ! The ocean drives our weather, our climate, and nearly every living system on the planet. But here's a question the experts can't agree on: where did all that water come from in the first place? 👇

https://carnegiescience.edu/where-did-earth-get-its-water

There's a bridge at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, tucked into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains near Stanford, where you used to be able to look out at open water in both directions. Today, if you stand on that same bridge, you see nothing but trees. A willow forest has swallowed what was once open water.

Dukes knows, because he's been watching. He first walked Jasper Ridge's trails as a graduate student in 1994. He came back in the early 2000s to lead a long-term grassland experiment. And now he's back again, this time installing sensors across the preserve designed to run for up to 14 years, quietly measuring the microclimates that exist between a shaded redwood grove and a sun-baked hilltop just a hundred meters apart.

Those differences matter. A weather forecast (or a climate model) treats those two spots as identical. The organisms living there don't. Dukes wants to know what that simplification costs us, and what it might mean for how we predict the future of ecosystems on a warming planet.

So what does a place remember? He's betting it's more than our models give it credit for.

Read more at the link below. 👇

Today in , a team led by Carnegie's Andrew Newman used and gravitational lensing 🔍 to peer into the heart of an early-universe galaxy and directly measure its dormant black hole—a cosmic first!

🧭 In 1907, a Carnegie "magnetician" named Harlan Wilbur Fisk boarded a ship for Bermuda with a magnetometer, an observing tent, and a mystery to solve.

🔗 carnegiescience.edu/object-11-bermuda-cahiers

🥼💎⚛️ We sat down with Timothy Strobel, whose lab at predicts, synthesizes, and characterizes novel materials using high-pressure, high-temperature laboratory techniques. 

Some of his team’s work occurs on our Washington, D.C., campus and other aspects of his research require travel to and other highly specialized facilities that scientists call “beamlines.” He talked us through how they work and some of the things they can help experts like him learn.

There are a lot of different techniques that are deployed at beamlines, Strobel said. One method that's commonly used by Carnegie scientists is what’s called X-ray diffraction, which involves taking a small sample, usually but not necessarily a crystal, and seeing how the X-rays scatter after hitting the sample. The pattern that this creates allows you to understand the material’s structure. 

Other people use different techniques, Strobel explained, but regardless of what approach you are taking during your beam time, what you’re trying to reveal are the material’s atomic structure and physical properties including thermodynamics, mechanical strength, and response to external stimuli.

To ensure success at the beamline, Strobel indicated that you need to develop a clear experimental plan tied to your proposal, and well‑prepared samples. For high‑pressure work that means many pre‑loaded diamond anvil cells—specialized tools that scientists use to compress materials to extreme pressures between two gem-quality diamonds—alignment and insulation for heating, and wiring for electrical or cryogenic setups if needed. 

"We plan months ahead but expect last‑minute packing," he said, noting that airport security can be a challenge for traveling with samples.

📡🌟“Radio astronomy is simply looking at the universe in its radio emission,” said Allison Matthews, a postdoc at , who studies the cosmos in wavelengths far longer than can be perceived by human eyes.

✨ She explained that radio astronomy has unveiled some of the most energetic physics occurring in the cosmos.

“We can see the dynamic processes occurring within and around the objects in the universe in a totally different way than optical astronomers do," she said.

For Matthews, radio astronomy’s appeal has always been tactile. A formative moment occurred at Arecibo Observatory when she was an undergraduate. She was awestruck by standing before a wall of oscilloscopes and watching electromagnetic waves from space ripple across screens. 〰️〰️〰️

“You’re seeing the waves that are coming from the universe, rather than an optical picture,” she concluded. “That directness—the feeling of listening to signals rather than looking at photons—hooked me.” 🪝

LEARN MORE ➡️ https://carnegiescience.edu/tuning-cosmos

What if we told you that Bermuda shouldn't exist?

A hidden geologic structure deep below the island may explain why Bermuda still rises above the Atlantic Ocean more than 30 million years after its volcanoes went quiet.

Next week, Carnegie Science seismologist Will Frazer—alongside Carnegie's Diana Roman, Katy Cain, and Navid Marvi—returns to the island for the next phase of the Bermuda Earthquake & Structure Test ( ). The team will check in on a network of 10 broadband seismometers deployed back in February, and collect the first major dataset from the project.

Learn more about the project: https://carnegiescience.edu/bermuda-under-surface

Bermuda: Under the Surface Carnegie Science researchers are using seismic waves to investigate a geologic mystery hidden beneath Bermuda. In late May 2026, they will return to the island to service their instruments and collect new data that could reveal a clearer picture of what lies below.