AMHERST, Mass. - University of Massachusetts climate researcher Julie Brigham-Grette, department of geosciences, has just returned from a month-long, international expedition to a remote lake in Eastern Siberia – the site of an ancient meteorite crater. The crew camped in the middle of frozen Elgygytgyn Lake, drilled through seven feet of ice, then dropped specialized coring equipment attached to steel cables through 175 feet of water to collect several 10-foot-long cylinders, called "cores," of layered sediment from the lake bottom. Scientists hope that the sediments will give them clues about the region’s past climate since the area was hit by a meteorite 3.6 million years ago, Brigham-Grette said. This is a pilot project to determine whether it would be worth a much larger effort to collect sediments down to the original crater floor.

AMHERST, Mass. - A chemical in comets thought to reveal secrets of the early days of the solar system may be only the result of a chemical reaction caused by the sun’s radiation. A report by University of Massachusetts astronomer William Irvine cautions that materials in the atmosphere of a comet could have been caused by chemical reactions related to heat from the sun, and may have little direct bearing on what happened when the sun and planets were formed. Details will be published in tomorrow’s issue of the prestigious journal Nature. Besides Irvine, co-authors include UMass astronomy professor Peter Schloerb; former UMass graduate student Edwin Bergin; postdoctoral researcher Matthew Senay; doctoral candidates James Dickens and Amy Lovell; and University of Hawaii astronomers David Jewitt and Henry Matthews.

AMHERST, Mass. - More than 200 physicists from around the world will meet at the University of Massachusetts June 9-14 for a physics symposium, said Robert Hallock, a UMass physicist and organizer for the Symposium on Quantum Fluids and Solids.

AMHERST, Mass. - Environmentally friendly chemistry, with an emphasis on polymers, will be the focus of a two-day workshop at the University of Massachusetts, June 11-12. The meeting is expected to draw participants from academia, industry, and government laboratories, and will be hosted by two UMass groups: the National Environmental Technology for Waste Prevention Institute (NETI) and the Center for UMass Industry Research on Polymers (CUMIRP), said Joseph Larson, director of the Environmental Institute at UMass, and chair of the NETI advisory board.