英国防部发起新型航空母舰的竞争

日前，英国国防部向全球航空航天制造商发起了价值244亿美元、为英国海军制造两艘航空母舰的竞标活动。有6家公司参与了竞标，它们是波音、英国宇航防御系统、洛克希德、马丁、马可尼电子系统、雷神和汤姆逊一CSF公司。这6家公司都具有较强的海军系统综合能力。但英国政府坚持，新型航空母舰必须在英国制造。计划的第一阶段是在今年秋季选出3家承包商进行初步研究，台问价值830万美元。然后再从中选出两家公司进行减少风险的研究，台同价值3300万美元。最终承包商的确定预计将在2001年，第一艘航空母舰计划于2012年投入使用。该项目由国防…     

Impact disruption and recovery of the deep subsurface biosphere

Although a large fraction of the world's biomass resides in the subsurface, there has been no study of the effects of catastrophic disturbance on the deep biosphere and the rate of its subsequent recovery. We carried out an investigation of the microbiology of a 1.76 km drill core obtained from the ～35 million-year-old Chesapeake Bay impact structure, USA, with robust contamination control. Microbial enumerations displayed a logarithmic downward decline, but the different gradient, when compared to previously studied sites, and the scatter of the data are consistent with a microbiota influenced by the geological disturbances caused by the impact. Microbial abundance is low in buried crater-fill, ocean-resurge, and avalanche deposits despite the presence of redox couples for growth. Coupled with the low hydraulic conductivity, the data suggest the microbial community has not yet recovered from the impact ～35 million years ago. Microbial enumerations, molecular analysis of microbial enrichment cultures, and geochemical analysis showed recolonization of a deep region of impact-fractured rock that was heated to above the upper temperature limit for life at the time of impact. These results show how, by fracturing subsurface rocks, impacts can extend the depth of the biosphere. This phenomenon would have provided deep refugia for life on the more heavily bombarded early Earth, and it shows that the deeply fractured regions of impact craters are promising targets to study the past and present habitability of Mars.