News tagged with decomposition
New Study of Meteorite Provides More Evidence for Ancient Life on Mars
(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1996, when scientists examined a meteorite from Mars previously uncovered in Antarctica, they were intrigued by what looked like microscopic fossils of ancient Martian life forms. Now, ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 17, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (47) |
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Microbiologist discovers new super-preservative
(PhysOrg.com) -- In one of those freak accidents that sometimes occur in science, where someone is looking at something for one purpose and finds another for it, Dan O'Sullivan has found a use for a byproduct of harmless ...
Aug 17, 2011 |
4.6 / 5 (26) |
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Graphene: Unravelling the secrets of a magic material
UCL researchers are helping to unlock the secrets of a material that could ultimately be used in a new generation of electronic devices.
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Oct 15, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (13) |
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Hydrogen may be key to growth of high-quality graphene
A new approach to growing graphene greatly reduces problems that have plagued researchers in the past and clears a path to the crystalline form of graphite's use in sophisticated electronic devices of tomorrow.
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Jul 18, 2011 |
5 / 5 (10) |
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Novel studies of decomposition shed new light on our earliest fossil ancestry (w/ Video)
Decaying corpses are usually the domain of forensic scientists, but palaeontologists have discovered that studying rotting fish sheds new light on our earliest ancestry.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jan 31, 2010 |
4.4 / 5 (11) |
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Simple approach could clean up oil remaining from Exxon Valdez spill
Traces of crude oil that linger on the shores of Alaska's Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez oil spill remain highly biodegradable, despite almost 20 years of weathering and decomposition, scientists are reporting ...
Sep 29, 2010 |
5 / 5 (6) |
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Colorful leaves: New chlorophyll decomposition product found in Norway maple
(PhysOrg.com) -- Autumn is right around the corner in the northern hemisphere and the leaves are beginning to change color. The cause of this wonderful display of reds, yellows, and oranges is the decomposition ...
Oct 10, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (5) |
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Gold-palladium nanoparticles achieve greener, smarter production of hydrogen peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide is one of the world's most versatile and widely used chemicals. A powerful oxidizing agent, H2O2 is commonly used as a bleach, an antiseptic and a disinfectant.
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Feb 19, 2009 |
4.4 / 5 (5) |
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New record in the area of prime number decomposition of cryptographically important numbers
An international team of scientists from EPFL (Switzerland), INRIA (France), NTT (Japan), CWI (The Netherlands) and Bonn University (Germany), has obtained the prime factors of the RSA challenge number RSA-768, using the ...
Jan 08, 2010 |
4.2 / 5 (5) |
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Exploding dinosaur hypothesis implodes
Exploding carcasses through putrefaction gases - this is how science explained the mysterious bone arrangements in almost fully preserved dinosaur skeletons for decades. Now a Swiss-German research team has ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Mar 28, 2012 |
4.2 / 5 (5) |
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Advanced Analysis Tools Aim to Reduce Uncertainty in Climate Data
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers have developed a new, advanced data-reduction method -- Stochastic Proper Orthogonal Decomposition -- that will greatly improve the capability to deal with ...
Mar 26, 2010 |
4 / 5 (4) |
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Greenpeace finds pollution from Italy cruise ship wreck
Greenpeace on Friday warned that chemicals from a cruise ship wreck were oozing into the sea around Italy's picturesque Giglio Island but the environment ministry said the levels were not "significant".
Mar 09, 2012 |
4 / 5 (4) |
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New insights into the 'smell of death' could help recover bodies in disasters and solve crimes
In an advance toward the first portable device for detecting human bodies buried in disasters and at crime scenes, scientists today report early results from a project to establish the chemical fingerprint ...
Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry
Aug 17, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (3) |
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Don't Compare Bananas to Pears
(PhysOrg.com) -- Yellow leaves on banana plants give off a blue glow when viewed under UV light. This luminescence comes from decomposition products of chlorophyll, the substance that makes leaves green.
Jun 23, 2010 |
4.7 / 5 (3) |
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Measuring the stability of organic waste
The number of waste treatment facilities using biological processes to biodegrade waste has been increasing over the years. These installations receive municipal and industrial organic wastes with the common main goal of ...
Mar 29, 2010 |
3.3 / 5 (3) |
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Decomposition
Decomposition (or rotting) is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death. Although no two organisms decompose in the same way, they all undergo the same sequential stages of decomposition. The science which studies decomposition is generally referred to as taphonomy from the Greek word taphos, meaning tomb.
One can differentiate abiotic and biotic decomposition or biodegradation. The former one means "degradation of a substance by chemical or physical processes, eg hydrolysis). The latter one means "the metabolic breakdown of materials into simpler components by living organisms", typically by microorganisms.
For more information about Decomposition, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
