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News tagged with biosphere

Microbe understudies await their turn in the limelight

(PhysOrg.com) -- On the marine microbial stage, there appears to be a vast, varied group of understudies only too ready to step in when "star" microbes falter.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jan 11, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Impacts could be boon for subterranean life

An incoming asteroid is trouble whether you're a dinosaur or a Bruce Willis fan. But microbes living deep underground may actually welcome the news, according to a recent study of an ancient impact in the ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 16, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Planet Earth's playhouse

At Biosphere 2, scientists can move things around, control the climate, turn off certain parameters and run others full tilt.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 13, 2010 | popularity 4 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Buried alive: Half of Earth's life may lie below land, sea

While astronomers scour the skies for signs of life in outer space, biologists are exploring an enormous living world buried below the surface of the Earth.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 09, 2010 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (16) | comments 0

Oases for Life on the Mid-Caymen Rise

A team of oceanographers and astrobiologists is currently exploring one of the deepest points in the Caribbean Sea. Follow their blog as they search for life in this extreme seafloor environment.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 21, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

New proxy reveals how humans have disrupted the nitrogen cycle

More and more, scientists are getting a better grip on the nitrogen cycle. They are learning about sources of nitrogen and how this element changes as it loops from the nonliving, such as the atmosphere, soil ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jun 04, 2009 | popularity 2.6 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Biosphere 2 experiment shows how fast heat could kill drought-stressed trees

Widespread die-off of piñon pine across the southwestern United States during future droughts will occur at least five times faster if climate warms by 4 degrees Celsius, even if future droughts are no worse ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 13, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (33) | comments 1

Mission critical: Species explorers propose steps to map biosphere

Scientists say worldwide collections, existing experts and technology make charting 10 million species in less than 50 years achievable; a necessary step to sustain planet’s biodiversity.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

The future of plant science -- a technology perspective

Plant science is key to addressing the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st Century, according to Carnegie's David Ehrhardt and Wolf Frommer. In a Perspective published in The Plant Cell, the two researchers argue ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Mar 02, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Unknown species and larval stages of extremely long-legged beetles discovered by DNA test

The unknown larval stages and a new species of the curious Spider Water Beetles were described after their assignment by DNA sequences. These taxonomic works are groundwork for the development of water quality ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 18, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Human terrarium, Biosphere 2, looking good at 20

(AP) -- Jane Poynter and seven compatriots agreed to spend two years sealed inside a 3-acre terrarium in the Sonoran Desert. Their mission back in the 1990s: To see whether humans might someday be able to create self-sustaining ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 26, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1

The secrets of soil bacteria diversity

The soil is the biosphere's most biologically active zone and harbours the largest reservoir of genetic diversity. In various disciplines, scientists – among them Dani Or's group – employ models ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 17, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Microbes on the menu

The functioning of marine ecosystems depends on the size and flavor of microbes at the base of the food chain. Changes to the Earth's atmosphere might rearrange that microscopic menu. Microbes that currently ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jul 28, 2010 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

NASA, Google data show North Korea logging in protected area

Using NASA satellite data and Google Earth, a Purdue University researcher has reported finding evidence that North Korea has been logging in what is designated as a protected United Nations forest preserve.

Space & Earth / Environment

created May 17, 2010 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 6

Policy changes needed to protect southeast Mexico's farmers, forests

(PhysOrg.com) -- If it is to ensure a bright future for Campeche farmers and the tropical forests surrounding them, the Mexican government must institute new policies that are more responsive to economic and ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 27, 2010 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Biosphere

The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed (apart from solar and cosmic radiation) and self-regulating system. From the broadest biophysiological point of view, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. The biosphere is postulated to have evolved, beginning through a process of biogenesis or biopoesis, at least some 3.5 billion years ago.

In a broader sense; biospheres are any closed, self-regulating systems containing ecosystems; including artificial ones such as Biosphere 2 and BIOS-3; and, potentially, ones on other planets or moons.

For more information about Biosphere, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.