carbon

Growth in the sea comes down to a struggle for iron

...ent further than that. Since growing plants absorb carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, he suggested t...s during the geologic past may have removed enough carbon from the atmosphere to affect global climate, perhaps even contributing to the onset of ice ages. Ma...

Poplar trees redirect resources in response to simulated attack

...nal factors like insect attacks, disease, elevated carbon dioxide, soil toxins, and drought on vital plant p...- or their ability to perform useful tasks such as carbon sequestration, phytoremediation, or the production of bio-fuels -- could also use functional imaging...

Why do insects stop 'breathing'? To avoid damage from too much oxygen, say researchers

... and (2) it enables insects to rid their bodies of carbon dioxide, respiration's byproduct, when the insects... for their cells to produce energy, the removal of carbon dioxide from their bodies is equally important to prevent its toxic buildup in tissues. "Even in our...

New research indicates a 'troubled' greenhouse is brewing

...s is known to have been a time of high atmospheric carbon dioxide from studies of the breathing pores in fos...f the atmosphere, this natural methane oxidized to carbon dioxide and created a global greenhouse event," he explains. "The past methane outburst dwarfed even...

South America's vast pantanal wetland may become next everglades, UNU experts warn

...ld. It says wetlands hold roughly one-sixth of all carbon held in terrestrial sinks, most of it organic matt... about 1.6 gigatonnes (17%) of annual human-caused carbon emissions, the analysis says. And by 2100, "the terrestrial biosphere, which is at present a carbon ...

World's largest rainforest drying experiment completes first phase

...mplications for climate change since the amount of carbon removed from the atmosphere during tropical drough...of the region towards savanna scrub. The amount of carbon that could be released to the atmosphere by this savannization process is significant --equivalent t...

Family trees of ancient bacteria reveal evolutionary moves

...Cyanobacteria ?bacteria that use light, water, and carbon dioxide to produce oxygen and biomass ?has conclud...organisms metabolizing sulfur and a major shift in carbon cycling. "The question is: Why?" said Blank. "My contribution is the attempt to find evolutionary e...

LUCA technologies confirms real-time methane generation

...ion of hydrocarbons to alcohols, organic acids and carbon dioxide. Thermatoga also thrive in high temperature environments, such as those found in sub-surface oil wells. "Oil within the Monument Butte field has a waxy composition that may facilitate the strong real-time methane generation we see at this si...

Live fast, die young true for forests too

... trees could also lead to changes in the amount of carbon stored in forests, though the direction and magnit...tly unknown and require more research. Atmospheric carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas implicated in climatic warming, increases as carbon storage in forests ...

PET/MRI scans may help unravel mechanisms of prenatal drug damage

...r "tagged," with a short-lived radioactive form of carbon (carbon-11). This radiotracer emits a signal that is picked up by the PET scanner, which takes snapshots of the tracer's location over time to show how much and how quickly the cocaine (and/or the metabolic byproducts that retain the carbon-11) enter...

Discovery Promises Simpler Therapy for Sickle Cell Disease

...s the third major blood gas, along with oxygen and carbon dioxide. Those findings suggested that nitric oxide defects might play a role in the cardiovascular side effects of many disorders, including diabetes, heart attacks, septic shock and sickle cell disease. In the current study, the researchers found ...

Microbial fuel cell: High yield hydrogen source and wastewater cleaner

..."dead end" fermentation product, acetic acid, into carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Logan notes, "Basically, we use the same microbial fuel cell we developed to clean wastewater and produce electricity. However, to produce hydrogen, we keep oxygen out of the MFC and add a small amount of power into the system....

Buying Time Through Hibernation on Demand

... by exposure to gases such as hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide. Known as oxygen mimetics, these chemicals are very similar to oxygen at the molecular level and so bind to many of the same receptor sites. As a result, they compete for and interfere with the body's ability to use oxygen for energy product...

U-M team recovers ancient whale in Egyptian desert

... by exposure to gases such as hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide. Known as oxygen mimetics, these chemicals are very similar to oxygen at the molecular level and so bind to many of the same receptor sites. As a result, they compete for and interfere with the body's ability to use oxygen for energy product...

NASA study finds snow melt causes large ocean plant blooms

... is 310 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Thus, as very large phytoplankton blooms deplete more oxygen from the water, the creation of nitrous oxide in the Arabian Sea could exacerbate climate change, Goes said. ...

Small species back-up giant marsupial climate change extinction claim

...d expansion of grassland. To verify their results carbon dating was performed on samples. And further work, due to be published later in the year, on other sites in the region confirm the stratification of fossils in the creek bed. The dig also failed to unearth evidence of human activity, suggesting they...

Anammox bacteria produce nitrogen gas in oceans' snackbar

...overed nitrogen loss has also consequences for the carbon cycle in marine ecosystems. Denitrification. The measurements refute the dominating theory that oceanic nitrogen loss results from the activity of bacteria that convert nitrate (via nitrite) with organic matter to nitrogen gas in the absence of oxyg...

Shutting down the HIV assembly line

...us hijacks that cell's normal machinery to produce carbon copies of itself. New HIV particles roll off the cellular assembly lines, burst like bubbles out of the cell, and float off to invade other cellular factories. Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigators have now identified an early step in HI...

NYU and MSKCC research provides model for understanding chemically induced cancer initiation

...nce of a single methyl group (composed only of one carbon and three hydrogen atoms) on a cytosine base adjacent to the damaged site. Without this methyl group, the bulky chemical carcinogen resides at an external binding site in the minor groove of the DNA double helix. However, in the presence of this sing...

Could microbes solve Russia's chemical weapons conundrum?

...y when P putida was grown in the presence of these carbon sources. By the time the bacteria had stopped gro... PHT decrease was 83 percent. In the absence of a carbon source other than PHT, the PHT levels remained constant. When no bacteria were present, the PHT conc...

Low oxygen likely made Great Dying worse, greatly delayed recovery

...t the end of the Permian, the scientists said, but carbon dioxide levels were rising, leading to global climate warming. "Declining oxygen and warming temperatures would have been doubly stressful for late Permian animals," Huey said. "As the climate warms, body temperatures and metabolic rates go up. That...

Scientists reveal the shape of a protein that helps retroviruses break into cells

...t the end of the Permian, the scientists said, but carbon dioxide levels were rising, leading to global climate warming. "Declining oxygen and warming temperatures would have been doubly stressful for late Permian animals," Huey said. "As the climate warms, body temperatures and metabolic rates go up. That...

Currents could disrupt ocean food chain

...ts, however, that higher levels of human-generated carbon dioxide could increase water and air temperatures and decrease salinity in the North Atlantic at a rate significant enough to prevent the sinking and ultimate mixing of the water. That would not only disrupt the Atlantic Conveyer current, Schmittner ...

Hydrogen and methane provide raw energy for life at 'Lost City'

...live off bountiful methane and hydrogen. Absent is carbon dioxide, the key energy source for life at black-smoker vents. And there is little hydrogen sulfide and only very low traces of metals, on which many of the microbes at the other kind of vents depend. The difference in what's available is because wat...

A hope for oil spill bioremediation

...2C) to determine the origin of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in control and contaminated coastal marine w...ointing out to a natural population oxidizing this carbon source into CO2. This could be reproduced in the laboratory using water samples taken from the conta...

U.N. mulls the protection of Earth's forests

...ces provided by otherwise local forests, including carbon storage and life-giving oxygen." The U.N. Forum on Forests was created by the U.N. Economic and Social Council in 2000. For this key, current meeting, members of the forum were asked to collect information on the state of the world's forests, to rev...

Evidence of 600-million-year old fungi-algae symbiosis discovered in marine fossils

...ynthetic alga, or both, are able to form food from carbon dioxide, while the other partner, a fungus, provides moisture, nutrients, and protection for the consortium. "When and where did they first learn the tricks to form this collaboration?" Xiao asked. "The earliest lichen fossils described by Professor...

Study of energy and health in Africa focuses spotlight on charcoal and forest management

...cooking fires will release about 7 billion tons of carbon in the form of greenhouse gases to the environment...emissions, they said, with over 15 billion tons of carbon released into the atmosphere by 2050. "Most charcoal is produced in Africa by one or two guys going...

Circulating stem cells play small role in lung repair

...rways where the blood takes in oxygen and discards carbon dioxide. The processes by which alveoli recover from damage are complex and incompletely understood, Zander said. Previous research showed that type II pneumocytes in the lungs are known to play a central role, but the role of the bone marrow-derive...

Candida albicans Genome Fully Annotated

...rways where the blood takes in oxygen and discards carbon dioxide. The processes by which alveoli recover from damage are complex and incompletely understood, Zander said. Previous research showed that type II pneumocytes in the lungs are known to play a central role, but the role of the bone marrow-derive...

Amazon source of 5-year-old river breath

..."breathing" far harder ?cycling the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide more quickly ?than anyone realized. Most of the carbon being exhaled ?or outgassed ?as carbon dioxide from Amazonian rivers and wetlands has spent a mere 5...

Proteomics brings researchers closer to understanding microbes that produce acid mine drainage

...nt microbes called Archaea, in the biofilm capture carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere and derive energy from iron that has been leached out of the iron sulfide rock, also known as pyrite or "fool's gold." In the process, they produce sulfuric acid that leaches more iron from the pyrite and releases oth...

When it comes to cell entry, being average has its advantages

...ing the safety of nanotubes ?infinitesimal bits of carbon and other materials used in everything from cameras to clothing. "If you know how viruses get into cells, you know how to better design drugs to keep them out," said L.B. Freund, professor of engineering at Brown. "Or if you do want molecules to get...

Deep sea algae connect ancient climate, carbon dioxide and vegetation

...s mapped the first detailed history of atmospheric carbon dioxide between 45 - 25 million years ago based on stable isotopes of carbon in a National Science Foundation study reported in Science Express. "Through the energy we consume,...

Invasive parasite destroying fish species

...s mapped the first detailed history of atmospheric carbon dioxide between 45 - 25 million years ago based on stable isotopes of carbon in a National Science Foundation study reported in Science Express. "Through the energy we consume,...

Stem cells grown in lab mirror normal developmental steps

...s mapped the first detailed history of atmospheric carbon dioxide between 45 - 25 million years ago based on stable isotopes of carbon in a National Science Foundation study reported in Science Express. "Through the energy we consume,...

Self-assembled DNA buckyballs for drug delivery

...en used up to now for tiny spherical assemblies of carbon atoms known as Buckminsterfullerenes or just fullerenes. Under the right conditions, carbon atoms can link up into hexagons and pentagons, which in turn assemble into spherical shapes (technic...

Researchers Discover That Microbes Can Produce Miniature Electrical Wires

...e traditional materials such as metals, silica, or carbon is difficult and expensive. However, it is easy to grow billions of Geobacter cells in the laboratory and harvest the microbial nanowires that they produce. Furthermore, by altering the DNA sequence of the genes that encode for microbial nanowires, i...

Breakthrough: Scientists create world's tiniest organic particles

...d his research showing that it was possible to use carbon dioxide as a solvent in place of organic solvents, which polluted the environment. "We are most excited about the commercial implications of Professor DeSimone's breakthrough with PRINT," said Dr. Lowry Caudill, chairman of Liquidia. "We believe tha...

Tufts researchers shine light on firefly mysteries

...sting in tiny respirometry chambers to measure the carbon dioxide produced during flashing and resting. ...

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Many of 2 billion dryland dwellers at risk as land degrades

... include downstream flooding, impairment of global carbon sequestration capacity, and regional and global climate change. "Given the size of population in drylands, the number of people affected by desertification is likely larger than any other contemporary environmental problem," says the report. Occupy...

Most common lung cancers may begin in newly discovered cells

...s lined with microscopic vessels, where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged. At the junction of the bronchioles and alveoli, other groups have found evidence of cells that are resistant to damage and are involved in repair and maintenance of tissue. They have proposed that these junctions might be a st...

Oxygen increase caused mammals to triumph, researchers say

...and his colleagues have measured the abundance of carbon 13, a byproduct of photosynthesis, in deep-sea cor... Because photosynthesis produces oxygen and leaves carbon 13 behind, the presence of carbon 13 in the fossil samples allows scientists to estimate precisely h...

New Scripps Oceanography project to study sediments and ecosystem restoration in Venice lagoon

...arooq Azam: water column microbial communities and carbon cycle * Osmund Holm-Hansen: viability and photophysiology of autotrophic micro-organisms * Hany Elwany: currents, sediment resuspension and turbidity plumes associated with experimental subtidal banks Lisa Shaffer, Scripps director of polic...

Hybrid grass may prove to be valuable fuel source

...he said. Burning Miscanthus produces only as much carbon dioxide as it removes from the air as it grows, sa...alance means there is no net effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which is not the case with fossil fuels, she said. Miscanthus also is a very effici...

Genetic discovery could lead to drought-resistant plants

...colm Campbell. "This is a gene that helps regulate carbon dioxide uptake. If plants are the Earth's lungs, w... open their stomata at some point, both to pick up carbon dioxide needed for photosynthesis and to release oxygen back into the atmosphere. This new informati...

Chemical 'band-aid' prevents heart failure in mice with muscular dystrophy

...c myocyte. As the myocyte is stretched between the carbon fibers, a transmitter on one fiber measures the amount of stretch and a force transducer on the other fiber measures the contractile force of the cell in response to that stretch. "It's like stretching a rubber band," Yasuda says. "You can do specif...

'Sinkers' provide missing piece in deep-sea puzzle

...it became apparent that sinkers might be important carbon sources, we went around asking other oceanographer...uming it was contamination." To estimate how much carbon these sinkers might be delivering to the seafloor, Robison first needed to find out how common they ...

MERIS monitoring tracks planetary photosynthesis levels

...oking. It is especially significant as a 'sink' of carbon that might otherwise enter the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and hasten global warming. Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) acquir...

Organic farms produce same yields as conventional farms

...tems also absorb and retain significant amounts of carbon in the soil has implications for global warming, Pimentel said, pointing out that soil carbon in the organic systems increased by 15 to 28 percent, the equivalent of taking about 3,500 pounds of...

Microbe has huge role in ocean life, carbon cycle

...would die, and plays a huge role in the cycling of carbon on Earth. In nature, apparently, bigger is not a...the ocean, and microbes like SAR11 recycle organic carbon - producing the nutrients needed for algal growth. "Ultimately, SAR11 through its sheer abundance p...

Marine bacterium suspected to play role in global carbon and nitrogen cycles

...known to oxidize ammonia for energy and metabolize carbon dioxide by successfully growing the tentatively named, Nitrosopumilus maritimus, in the lab. "Data from several cultivation-independent, molecular experiments led us to suspect that Archaea could be involved in the marine nitrogen cycle. Subsequent...

Lands surface change on Alaska tundra creating longer, warmer summers in Arctic

... what might be observed if there was a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Continuation of this tr...sands of years is exposed, potentially adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The result is a positive feedback loop that could continue to raise temp...

Deep sea buffet for bone-devouring worms

...c bacteria can turn-over a large amount of organic carbon (one whale carcass may weigh up to 50 tons), appro...tely 2000 years faster than the usual mechanism of carbon deposition to the deep seafloor. The results of this study will aid understanding of the potential ...

Digging in the dirt for life's biochemical foundations

...es the nitrogen from the soil and then links it to carbon and moves this combination molecule towards the pl...efore delivery to the plant cell, it unhitches the carbon and releases only the nitrogen to the plant." The researchers demonstrated the results in a highly ...

Living with salt

...se, which may hold the key. Comparisons with known carbon anhydrases from animal sources showed that the Dunaliella enzyme shares a basic plan with its distant relatives, but with a few obvious differences. The most striking of these is in the electrical charges on the proteins' surfaces: Charges on the sal...

After the yeast is gone bacteria continue to develop flavor of sparkling wine

... wine is sold. The secondary fermentation produces carbon dioxide which dissolves in the wine and is perceived as bubbles when the bottle is opened, hence the term "sparkling". After the fermentation is completed the Cava wine is aged in the bottles with the yeast for at least nine months, or longer for pre...

World-first technology enables study of ancient bacteria

... super concentrated methane ice that contains more carbon than all conventional fossil fuels and, therefore, a potentially enormous energy source. However, we know little about gas hydrates as they melt during recovery due to the fall in pressure. Professor R. John Parkes, of the School of Earth, Ocean and...

'Gadonanotubes' greatly outperform existing MRI contrast agents

...tal atoms are encased inside a hollow tube of pure carbon called a nanotube. Shrouding the toxic metals inside the benign carbon is expected to significantly reduce or eliminate the metal's toxicity. The research was published t...

Researchers Create DNA-Based Sensors for Nano-Tongues and Nano-Noses

Nano-sized carbon tubes coated with strands of DNA can create tiny s...tranded DNA, which serves as the 'detector,' and a carbon nanotube, which functions as 'transmitter,'" said A. T. Charlie Johnson, associate professor in Penn...