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McDonald, G.

Publications and source records attributed to McDonald, G..

12 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2002

Amino acids as a source of organic nitrogen in Antarctic endolithic microbial communities

In the Antarctic Dry Valleys, cryptoendolithic microbial communities occur within porous sandstone rocks. Current understanding of the mechanisms of physiological adaptation of these communities to the harsh Antarctic environment is limited, because traditional methods of studying microbial physiology are very difficult to apply to organisms with extremely low levels of metabolic activity. In order to fully understand carbon and nitrogen cycling and nutrient uptake in cryptoendolithic communities, and the metabolic costs that the organisms incur in order to survive, it is necessary to employ molecular geochemical techniques such as amino acid analysis in addition to physiological methods.

Antarctica↗
NASA NTRS1999

Evaluation of Meterorite Amono Acid Analysis Data Using Multivariate Techniques

The amino acid distributions in the Murchison carbonaceous chondrite, Mars meteorite ALH84001, and ice from the Allan Hills region of Antarctica are shown, using a multivariate technique known as Principal Component Analysis (PCA), to be statistically distinct from the average amino acid compostion of 101 terrestrial protein superfamilies.

meteorites Amino acids Multivariate Analysis↗
NASA NTRS1999

Martian Oxidant: May be Ferrate (Fe(VI))?

Fe(VI) in the form of ferrate salts, with FeO(sub 4)(sup 2-) anion, was studied for its spectral and oxidative properties, with the question of whether it might be a suitable analog of the Mars soil oxidant, proposed as a result of the Viking missions of the early 1970s.

Iron Ferrate Martian Oxidant↗