Michaelangelica Posted October 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2008 Sugar againThe trick now is to work out the simplest ways to get native grasses into weed dominated sites and which combination of native grasses best control weeds.” In previous trials, the researchers found applying sugar was very successful in helping establish Kangaroo Grass as the sugar reduced the soil nutrients available to competing exotic weeds. The sugar fed soil micro-organisms which absorbed lots of soil nutrients as they grew and so the weed species were 'starved.' “We used sugar as a tool to find out what the real problem was in getting native grasses to re-establish – this was the interaction between weeds and nutrients,” says Dr Prober. “Now we are working out ways to overcome the problem. In particular, if the native grasses we reintroduce really do take up the nutrients over the long term, then that's a sustainable solution. Sugar is just one way of achieving this outcome.”A little sugar could restore natives (ScienceAlert) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted November 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2008 I always thought slime moulds would be. . . well . . .slimy.But look at these fantastic macro photographs.HEREEnglish Russia Slime MoldsEG English Russia Slime Molds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted November 20, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2008 Worms help remediate soils listen now | download audio Earthworms can eat thirty times their body weight of soil each day. Metals in the soil are taken in and change in form, often becoming inert. Mark Hodson is investigating the use of earthworms to help remediate sites degraded by metal contamination. Show Transcript | Hide TranscriptTranscript Robyn Williams:Worms; pink ones, brown ones, and most not lowly at all. This lot are moving into toxic zones to gobble up heavy metals. Mark Hodson from the University of Reading. Mark Hodson: The soils that we want to do something about are fairly degraded, not much grows there, usually former industry sites. And the contaminants could be a whole host of things, things like arsenic, lead, zinc, copper, left over either from the actual processing and industry that was going on or even things like lead paint can end up contaminating soils. Robyn Williams: And I suppose that makes the soils pretty well unusable indefinitely. Mark Hodson: Yes, not indefinitely because it's always possible to clean these things up but in the first instance, yes, they're pretty grim places, there's not much growing there and there's not much life in the soil. Robyn Williams: Not much growing there, but before you talk about worms, it has been a suggestion to put plants in to help clean things up. Has that been effective? How long does it take? Worms help remediate soils - Science Show - 15 November 2008 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted November 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 This is a key point in relation to your beasties, Michael. Models of the soil carbon cycle (e.g. Colorado Uni's Century) usually allow for such pools as fast (1 year), slow (decades) and stable (centuries / millennia) turnover rates. However, even these are approximations: some papers on mycorrhizae suggest their turnover time can be as little as five days, as compared to the glomalin they produce which seems to join the slow pool. The headline is that, once creatures get hold of carbon, it is as good as gone, back to the air. This implies a trade-off between the two main goals of carbon burial, namely removal from the air and agricultural productivity. The former does not want creatures to access the carbon, the latter does. We have to examine our motivations for making terra preta, and the two camps might choose very different methods as a result. I suggest that atmospheric goals might require high-tech, high-volume, highly recalcitrant carbon while soil goals might require something much closer to Amazonian practices or RBlack's carbon-compost approach. Your history is in compost, isn't it? How do you feel about the potential conflict of goals between atmosphere and soil? MWell I've had a BIG THINK and it didn't help. Does anyone know the answers to your questions?.................................................Some lovely writing about wee beasties of all kindsEG1) Eat Radiation Humans have only three responses responses to radioactive waste: pay someone else to take it away quickly, die, or develop superpowers. Unfortunately the last option has a vanishingly small success rate and the tragic side-effect of utterly destroying the victims fashion sense. Luckily a species of bacteria with the ability to consume uranium and other extremely antisocial wastes has been discovered by US scientists - and as a bonus, it's utterly impossible to make a crap movie adaptation of a bacteria. Geobacter sulfurreducens has already been used at the Rifle Mills site to clear up a large amount of what the nuclear industry calls "oops!", and what us non-radioactive humans call "a goddamn nuclear contamination of groundwater and the Colorado river". Following on the brave scientific tradition of not only looking a gift horse in the mouth but sending it to the vet for a full set of dental X-rays, some scientists suggest the metal-munching microbe could form the basis for a bio-battery cell. Because when you've fed a superpowered organism nothing but nuclear waste for years, nothing can go wrong with then sticking it in a box and carrying it around with you."Super Cells" that Eat Radiation, Generate Electricity & Cure Cancer -A Galaxy Classic I loved "tragic side-effect of utterly destroying the victims fashion sense" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Essay Posted November 24, 2008 Report Share Posted November 24, 2008 Originally Posted by malcolmf This is a key point in relation to your beasties, Michael. Models of the soil carbon cycle (e.g. Colorado Uni's Century) usually allow for such pools as fast (1 year), slow (decades) and stable (centuries / millennia) turnover rates. However, even these are approximations: some papers on mycorrhizae suggest their turnover time can be as little as five days, as compared to the glomalin they produce which seems to join the slow pool. The headline is that, once creatures get hold of carbon, it is as good as gone, back to the air. This implies a trade-off between the two main goals of carbon burial, namely removal from the air and agricultural productivity. The former does not want creatures to access the carbon, the latter does. We have to examine our motivations for making terra preta, and the two camps might choose very different methods as a result. I suggest that atmospheric goals might require high-tech, high-volume, highly recalcitrant carbon while soil goals might require something much closer to Amazonian practices or RBlack's carbon-compost approach. Your history is in compost, isn't it? How do you feel about the potential conflict of goals between atmosphere and soil? M Well I've had a BIG THINK and it didn't help.Does anyone know the answers to your questions? === Sorry I missed this earlier:I think I have a point that somewhat answers the question regarding respiration and the "atmospheric goals." The respiration is indicative of growth and reproduction of the wee beasties in the microbiome. While much of the carbon is respired for energy, a proportion is incorporated into the growing biomass. It is the maintenance of a large healthy stable biomass that is the leveraged advantage of bio-char enhanced soils. For instance, you could bury a pound of char in the desert and you'd have sequestered a pound of carbon. ....But if you add a pound of manure, three pounds of water, and a pound of inoculated char, to 10 lb. of desert dirt (total =15 lb.), suddenly you'll have 20 lb of rich healthy soil.[numbers and timeline may not be accurate :phones: ] ...but for the purposes of illustration....That (magically appearing) extra 5 lbs comes from the increase in living biomass within the soil.That's 5 lbs of CO2 that is not floating around anymore, regardless of how much CO2 was cycled from the atmosphere to their food and back to the atmosphere--a proportion, equal to 5 lbs, was co-opted for growth and reproduction. Feed this 20 lb of soil an extra pound of manure and you might get up to 25 lbs total (keeping moisture content at 3 lb). ....There's another 4 lb CO2 sequestered. Now if you let the soil dry out or starve, then the 9 lb of biomass would die back and release most of their stored carbon....although given enough time as healthy soil, there would be a good bit of glomalin left behind. Char does increase the soils resilience to starvation and drying, but there's limits to that of course. Remember there are lots of algal species in the healthy soil biome also. Think of soil as an organism that breathes in CO2 during the day and exhales CO2 at night, while a small proportion of all that CO2 gets incorporated into its growing biomass. The biomass isn't eating the char for food (much), but is eating SOM (CO2 from the atmosphere) or fertilizer (also CO2 from the atmosphere). The same is true for nitrogen, nitrates, etc. although only about 1/5 the weight of biomass/ lb.CO2, if I recall correctly. A lot of these experiments on amending soils with biochar, which report plumes of CO2 (or NOx's), are just snapshots of a bacterial bloom within the life of the biome, and/or the release of gas from the subsequent die-off of that bloom. Results need to measure the long-term effects and stability, rather than the immediate reaction to the addition of something like char or fertilizer. Think about how fishtank chemistry fluctuates after a change in buffers, nutrients, or populations--soil would be similar. This is also similar to the "iron fertilization of oceans" problem. They can "fertilize" and cause an algal bloom, sequestering CO2; but unless the bloom is stabilized or incorporated into the food chain, the CO2 will only be sequestered as long as the bloom lives.=== ...and speaking of compost:Even composting temperatures, moistures, and inoculants can be managed to minimize release of gases and maximize incorporation into biomass. And remember, don't sweat the snapshots. Respiration is carbon neutral in the long run, but biomass is like gold (as long as we steward life everlasting). ~ :) p.s. ...hmmmm. Do all these blanket statements and overgeneralizations come together to paint a picture? Does the focus on respiration now seem secondary to the long-term health of the microbiome? ~Thanks Michaelangelica 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted December 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2008 MMMI wish I was better at sums and hadn't drunk that last glass of wine! Saturday, December 13, 2008Pedology and CO2 Something very positive can be expected for soil that is not captured in the shifting soil order paradigm. For plants and soil microbes, richer solute content would mean greater availability of mineral nutrients. In soil husbandry and slow food circles, higher mineral availability translates to healthier soil, lower plant disease, and more nutritious harvests. What the shifting soil order paradigm does signal is that soils will be at greater risk of losing their fertility to leaching. Having the soil chockablock full of biochar will be essential to mitigate this last effect. Let's start now.transect points: Pedology and CO2 DO we really need this at the entrance to the Terra preta forums?Science Forums - Woot! You have found our secret error page! This page is only displayed to the very select few people who are looking for the ultimate question to Life, the Universe and kitchen sinks (as opposed to everything). We have the Answer, which is somewhere in the vicinity of Northampton (or thereabouts), but sadly the question has gone missing and may now reside inside the zodiac of Sagittarius. But fear not!We may have something else to interest you... * Science Forums * Science Links * Science Images * Science News * Science Quizzes * Free Online Arcade Games * ...and even ye olde Science Portal!!! But if you still can't find what you're looking for...why not try our site search? If all else fails, remember there is always Swiss chocolate.Search Engine Book While you're here, why not dip your toes into one the most interesting aspects of being a webmaster? We heartily recommend the SEO Book - it's a great resource on search engine optimization. This book will... * Show you how to triple your traffic in 90 days * Learn the tricks of successful webmasters * Use your own knowledge about your site, your market, and your products, to enhance the value of your website Check out the SEO Book today! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erich Posted December 14, 2008 Report Share Posted December 14, 2008 Essay,........... totally with you, As the ACS paper speculated about the GHG effect of CO2 soil emissions , it's proximity to respiring plant canopy, it's not a GHG till it makes it above the trees. Phillip,...........Beautifully said , Ever since Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch soil chemistry has trumped soil bio-chemistry, the worms are turning now! "Pedology and CO2 Something very positive can be expected for soil that is not captured in the shifting soil order paradigm. For plants and soil microbes, richer solute content would mean greater availability of mineral nutrients.In soil husbandry and slow food circles, higher mineral availability translates to healthier soil, lower plant disease, and more nutritious harvests.What the shifting soil order paradigm does signal is that soils will be at greater risk of losing their fertility to leaching. Having the soil chockablock full of biochar will be essential to mitigate this last effect.Let's start now. " P.S. A great review of Haber's biography today, an object lesson maybe for us chartarians in the dangers of timidity and the need for acceptance, that can distort great accomplishments. washingtonpost.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted December 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2008 1 Energy in a Bucket of DirtWho needs nickel cadmium batteries or coal plants for electricity when you have soil? A Harvard team of faculty and African students have tapped into soil-dwelling microbes in order to provide electricity for families in Tanzania. When the microbes found in the soil digest organic materials, they naturally produce a small current, which can be harnessed with a simple device consisting of two electrodes and a small circuit board. One trash-barrel-sized unit filled with soil can produce enough electricity to light two bedrooms for a decade or more, says Harvard biology professor Peter Girguis. While each unit currently costs about $50, the team is testing new materials that would drive the price down to $7.10 Everyday Technologies That Can Change the World | Environment | DISCOVER Magazine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted December 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2008 Secret Ingredient For The Health Of Tropical Rainforests Discovered ScienceDaily (Dec. 10, 2008) — A team of researchers led by Princeton University scientists has found for the first time that tropical rainforests, a vital part of the Earth's ecosystem, rely on the rare trace element molybdenum to capture the nitrogen fertilizer needed to support their wildly productive growth. Most of the nitrogen that supports the rapid, lush growth of rainforests comes from tiny bacteria that can turn nitrogen in the air into fertilizer in the soil.. . .The biological enzyme, nitrogenase, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into soil fertilizer, feeds on molybdenum, the researchers found. "Nitrogenase without molybdenum is like a car engine without spark plugs,". . .Molybdenum, a lustrous, silvery metal, is found in soil, rock and sea water and in a range of enzymes vital to human health. Traces of the element have been found in Japanese swords dating back to the 14th century. In modern times, its high strength, good electrical conductivity and anticorrosive properties have made molybdenum desirable as an element of rocket engines, radiation shields, light bulb filaments and circuit boards.Secret Ingredient For The Health Of Tropical Rainforests Discovered Any chemists out there who can translate this for me please? Chemistry of the Nitrogenase Cofactor, FeMoco The nitrogenase enzyme catalyses the reduction of N2 to NH3 accompanied by reduction of protons to H2. The enzyme consists of Fe and MoFe component proteins which can be purified separately. The MoFe protein contains two types of metal-sulfur clusters, the P-clusters, and the Fe, Mo cofactor known as FeMoco, believed to be the site of substrate binding. Nitrogenase Cofactor ChemistrySEE this toohttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MoFe_clusters_on_nitrogenase_.PNG Looks like trace elements are sold for marine tanks so to replicate the many elements in sea water. I wonder what it would do in the garden? Perhaps seaweed or fish fertilisers do the same job (?)Comments: coral-vite, essential elements and strontium molybendium should be in the daily / weekly dosing diet for most reef tanks.https://www.petstore.com/ps_ViewItem-idProduct-KM3251-tab-0-child-KM3253.htmlSEE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted December 20, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 20, 2008 These guys need a better name or a better PR firm Top 100 Stories of 2008 #71: Slime Molds Show Surprising Degree of IntelligenceA creature with no brain can learn from and even anticipate events.by Jennifer Baronepublished online December 9, 2008 slime moldImage courtesy of Toshyuki Nakagaki Single-celled slime molds demonstrate the ability to memorize and anticipate repeated events, a team of Japanese researchers reported in January. The study [pdf] clearly shows “a primitive version of brain function” in an organism with no brain at all. In their experiment, biophysicist Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University and colleagues manipulated the environment of Physarum slime-mold amoebas (near right). As the cells crawled across an agar plate, the researchers subjected them to cold, dry conditions for the first 10 minutes of every hour. During these cool spells, the cells slowed down their motion. After three cold snaps the scientists stopped changing the temperature and humidity and watched to see whether the amoebas had learned the pattern. Sure enough, many of the cells throttled back right on the hour in anticipation of another bout of cold weather. When conditions stayed stable for a while, the slime-mold amoebas gave up on their hourly braking, but when another single jolt of cold was applied, they resumed the behavior and correctly recalled the 60-minute interval. The amoebas were also able to respond to other intervals, ranging from 30 to 90 minutes. The scientists point out that catching on to temporal patterns is no mean feat, even for humans. For a single cell to show such a learning ability is impressive, though Nakagaki admits he was not entirely surprised by the results. After working with the slime mold for years, he had a hunch that “Physarum could be cleverer than expected.” The findings of what lone cells are capable of “might be a chance to reconsider what intelligence is,” #71: Slime Molds Show Surprising Degree of Intelligence | Animal Intelligence | DISCOVER Magazine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted December 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 27, 2008 Urology. 2008 Jun;71(6):1091-5.* Urology. 2008 Sep;72(3):723. Detection of nanobacteria infection in type III prostatitis. Zhou Z, Hong L, Shen X, Rao X, Jin X, Lu G, Li L, Xiong E, Li W, Zhang J, Chen Z, Pan J, Song B.Department of Microbiology, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the relationship between nanobacterial infection and type III prostatitis. The etiology of type III prostatitis remains unclear to date, although the recently discovered nanobacteria (NB) have been implicated in this disease. METHODS: A total of 48 patients with chronic pelvic pain syndrome for whom conventional therapy had failed were selected and randomly divided into two groups, one receiving anti-NB treatment and the other receiving a placebo. The NB were isolated and cultured from expressed prostatic secretions and urine samples before and after treatment. The morphologic features were recorded and 16s rRNA gene expression was determined. The curative effect was evaluated by the NB-positive rate and symptomatic changes using the National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index. RESULTS: After anti-NB treatment, the NB-positive rates had decreased from 62.5% to 16.7% in the expressed prostatic secretions and from 12.5% to 0% in the urine samples after prostatic massage (P <0.001). In the patients receiving a placebo, the positive rates had no obvious change in either the expressed prostatic secretions or the urine samples after prostatic massage (P >0.05). The NB were coccoid or coccobacillary and clustered in a diameter of 100 to 500 nm. The BLAST result revealed that the 16s rRNA gene sequence from the NB in the patients with chronic pelvic pain syndrome was 97%, similar to that of the known NB with identity (97%). After anti-NB treatment, the Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index scores decreased significantly. In contrast, no change in the Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index scores was seen after placebo treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The results of our study have shown that nanobacterial infection might be an important etiologic factor of type III prostatitis. Anti-NB treatment could be an effective therapy against refractory type III prostatitis.PMID: 18538692 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Some more Australian stuff on nano-bacteria Science Show - 20/01/01: The Genesis Factor - 2 of 2 News in Science - Skeptical reaction to the resurrection of Martian fossils - 15/02/1999and thisNanobac Pharmaceuticals Announces Agreement to Validate Proof That Nanobacteria Promote GallstonesNanobacteria in Clouds Could Spread DiseaseNASA's Johnson Space Center Approves Grant for Nanobacterial ResearchGroundbreaking Collaboration to Photograph Never Before Seen Calcification MechanismDetection of nanobacteria infection in type III pr...[urology. 2008] - PubMed Result "Its life Jim; but not as we know it.""Life is not only stranger than we imagine; but stranger than we can imagine."-after Eddingtonm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted June 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 BTW thanks Essay Tonight on "Australian Story" a renegade CSIRO Scientist. The show should be available in a day or so.atAustralian StoryBack to EarthDr Maarten Stapper is a man with some fascinating ideas on how to manage our land better. The local DPI ran a free one day workshop for farmers on Soil microbiology last month. Pretty basic but The Message is getting though; though not one mention of charcoal. Also went to a lecture by Government Landcare person, on another topic, who said in passing "The most important thing we can do is to add carbon to the soil." Again no awareness of charcoal's catalytic effect on soil biota. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maikeru Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 BTW thanks Essay Tonight on "Australian Story" a renegade CSIRO Scientist. The show should be available in a day or so.atAustralian Story The local DPI ran a free one day workshop for farmers on Soil microbiology last month. Pretty basic but The Message is getting though; though not one mention of charcoal. Also went to a lecture by Government Landcare person, on another topic, who said in passing "The most important thing we can do is to add carbon to the soil." Again no awareness of charcoal's catalytic effect on soil biota. Fascinating. Still after all these years, people know little of the microbes beneath our feet and beneficial biochar. Feed the soil and it will feed you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted June 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2009 maikeru did you watch the video? The guy was basically fired because he wanted to reseach soil bacteria-- in Australia's premier science organisation. Plants are not the only life forms that depend on bacteria for food!We are more microbe than man It is said 'you are what you eat'. But Dr Karl says that when you eat you are feeding more than your appetite. By Karl S. KruszelnickiExamining an x-ray scan (Source: iStockphoto)Related Stories * Audio: We are more microbe than man (ABC Science) When you look at yourself in the mirror, it would be perfectly reasonable for you to assume that what you are looking at is mostly you. Sure, there might be some bacteria living on your skin, maybe a flea that might have jumped off a passing dog, perhaps even some lice from a friendly neighbourhood preschool lice plague, but by and large, you should be mostly you. But it turns out that hardly any of you is actually you. Surprisingly, a lot of the science in this story comes from nursery rhymes. You probably remember the one in which little girls are described as being made of "sugar and spice and all things nice". This is totally correct, because they are indeed made of sugars, fats and proteins. But, would you believe it, another line from the same rhyme is also kind of correct when it says that little boys are made of "slugs and snails and puppy dogs' tails". Yep, it's true. We humans are mostly made from other life forms. So here's the really weird part. Only about 10 per cent of the cells in your body actually belong to you. These add up to about 1–10 trillion cells. The other 90 per cent of the cells in your body belong to other living creatures. The vast majority of these other living creatures are the 10–100 trillion single-celled beasties (such as bacteria) living in your gut. In total, these bacteria and their little friends weigh about 1.5kg. The reason that they weigh so little, even though there are so many of them, is that these cells are much smaller than human cells. The result is that each of us is a strange bacterial-human hybrid. On a cellular level, we are more microbe than man. The bacteria started colonising your gut as you came down the birth canal, and were pretty well established by the time you were two years old. Your gut is surprisingly large. If you rolled it out it would be as long as a bus, and if you flattened it out, it has the surface area of a football field. There are at least 1000 different species of these single-celled critters colonising your gut. It's quite a fair and reasonable relationship that we have with them. On one hand, they do their own thing, in the comfort and safety of the human gut. They make little baby copies of themselves, and they communicate with each other. And when we eat, they eat. They store and redistribute energy, and they maintain and repair themselves.We are more microbe than man › Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science (ABC Science) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted June 13, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2009 Protein That Makes Phosphate Chains In Yeast Revealed; Implications On Crops, Human DiseasesScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2009) — It can be found in all life forms, and serves a multitude of purposes, from energy storage to stress response to bone calcification. This molecular jack-of-all trades is polyphosphate, a long chain of phosphate molecules. Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, are now the first to uncover how this chain is assembled in eukaryotes (organisms whose cells have a nucleus).. . .Since polyphosphate is a ubiquitous, multi-tasking molecule with many different functions, discovering how it is produced could have implications for many different fields. Although Vtc4p is not present in plants, the discovery could have implications for agriculture, for instance in the production of fertilizers and high-yield crops. Polyphosphate is important for plant growth, and the scientists suspect Vtc4p could play an important role in making it available to plants that have fungi living in their roots. Because the VTC can move from the membrane of the vacuole to that of the cell, it could assemble phosphate chains and transfer them to outside the fungus cell, where they would be available to the plant.Protein That Makes Phosphate Chains In Yeast Revealed; Implications On Crops, Human Diseases Under certain conditions, such as nutrient limitation, during stationary phase or osmotic stress some microorganisms have been shown to accumulate relatively large amounts of polyP (Tzeng & Kornberg, 1998). In Acinetobacter johnsonii polyP may account for up to 30% of the dry biomass (Deinema et al., 1985). Such levels of polyP are well in excess of the normal metabolic requirements for phosphate and indicate an important role of polyP in response to changes in nutritional status or environmental conditions (Kornberg et al., 1999). Phosphate transport systems in prokaryotesPolyphosphate in Microorganisms Soil Nitrogen Test Measures Microbial Nitrogen ScienceDaily (May 15, 2009) — Contrary to the prevailing view, cereal crops derive the majority of their nitrogen from the soil, not fertilizer. Soils differ considerably in microbial activities that determine nitrogen-supplying power, and these differences must be taken into account if nitrogen fertilizers are to be used efficiently.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511122416.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erich Posted June 13, 2009 Report Share Posted June 13, 2009 We may be a more Phosphate based life form than a carbon based one Origin of life: building an RNA world from simple chemicals - Ars Technica Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Healthy humans are covered in bacteria, study saysSkin has about 1,000 species, research finds. By Karen KaplanLOS ANGELES TIMESTuesday, June 02, 2009 This will make your skin crawl: A healthy human epidermis is colonised by about 1,000 species of bacteria. Furthermore, the microorganisms have evolved to exploit the unique attributes of the body parts they call home, according to a study published in the journal Science. Some thrive in the desert of the forearm; others are happiest in the tropical rain forest of the armpit. The study, by a team of researchers from the National Institutes of Health, reflects a growing realization that bacteria have colonised us inside and out, and that their presence is not only harmless but also probably essential to the functioning of the body. One example of that fact: Mice bred to be germ-free have smaller hearts and are unable to digest food properly. "We live in a microbial world, and these things are not all out to get us," said Noah Fierer, a microbial ecologist at the University of Colorado. Fierer, who has analyzed bacteria that live on hands, wasn't involved with the new report. The results of the study, reported last week, will lay some groundwork for a $115 million NIH venture dubbed the Human Microbiome Project, which is aimed at cataloging the bacteria and other organisms that inhabit the skin, gut, nose, mouth and vagina. Healthy humans are covered in bacteria, study says It dosn't make my skin crawl. I'd just like to know more about the "free loaders". We know so little don't we? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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