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Oh Dusty, Dusty Earth

02/23/2010 by Stacy W. Kish

New satellite images suggest that the Earth is getting dustier. Well, not necessarily, chimed in Dan Muhs of the U.S. Geological Survey. Scientists increasingly turn to satellite images to track dust plumes in the atmosphere.

“The ability to monitor dust plumes is better now than in the past. This new information gives us a better appreciation of atmospheric dust,” said Muhs.

And it is important to study dust, because it is, in the words of Karen Kohfeld of Simon Fraser University, Burnaby Canada, the great communicator of the Earth System. “Dust links the land, air and sea system,” said Kohfeld.

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Posted in Climate, Geology |

Scientists Launch the Genetic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea

12/28/2009 by Stacy W. Kish

Unlocking the diversity of microbial communities may benefit biofuel production, global carbon storage, and bioremediation.

Scientists estimate that there are approximately 4 × 1030 microbes living on the planet.   To put this number into perspective, there are 4,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 microbes living on the planet compared to a mere 6,793,220,750 humans.

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Posted in Genetics |

What Happens When the Earth Belches?

10/30/2009 by Stacy W. Kish

When the Earth has indigestion, it belches massive amounts of basaltic material from its interior producing a Large Igneous Province (LIP) over a geologically short period of time. The volume of basalt produced at an LIP often exceeds the volume of basalt produced at a mid-ocean ridge system. LIPs are associated with continental breakup and regional-scale continental uplift. The oldest LIP has been dated to 2.5 billion years ago, but the most well preserved features have erupted since the breakup of the Pangean supercontinent, approximately 250 million years ago.

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Posted in Geology | 2 Comments »

Pond Scum Becomes Biofuel

08/07/2009 by Stacy W. Kish

Corn, switchgrass, sugar cane, and poplar trees – each has been suggested as potential feedstock options for biofuel production. Using these feedstocks efficiently is hampered by identifying the right bug to break down the plant biomass, locating land to grow these crops, and finding the huge volume of water needed to produce the ethanol. Scientists in the heartland have bypassed plants and moved to an alternate feedstock–algae.

Algae are small single-celled organisms that, like plants on land, capture the energy from the sun and store it as chemical energy during photosynthesis. Unlike plants on land, algae do not have the more complicated biomass that makes corn, switchgrass, and all of the other feedstocks difficult to break down.

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Posted in Climate | Tagged , | 2 Comments »

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