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News tagged with nutrient

Fungi shifted plant balance of power

Cooperating with fungi didn't just help the earliest plants spread across a barren, rocky landscape; it also played a decisive role in the rise of more complex plants with roots and leaves that make up most ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Sea lions fuel ocean life

Like whales, sea lions are contributing to marine ecosystems in the most fundamental way possible, research by a Flinders graduate has found.

Biology / Ecology

created May 15, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Mathematical physics reveal nature's formula for survival (w/ Video)

(Phys.org) -- The vascular system of a leaf provides its structure and delivers its nutrients. When you light up that vascular structure with some fluorescent dye and view it using time-lapse photography, details begin to ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created May 14, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (12) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Tracking nutrient pollutant in Chesapeake

Too much of a good thing can kill you, the saying goes.

Space & Earth / Environment

created May 10, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Crop root study to boost Australian grain production

Researchers at The University of Western Australia say that "next frontier" of agricultural science is understanding the root system and function of crop plants to significantly increase Australian grain production, ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created May 09, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Agricultural bacteria: Blowing in the wind

The 1930s Dust Bowl proved what a disastrous effect wind can have on dry, unprotected topsoil. Now a new study has uncovered a less obvious, but equally troubling impact of wind: Not only can it carry away soil particles, ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created May 09, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1

Avocado oil: The 'olive oil of the Americas'?

Atmospheric oxygen facilitated the evolution and complexity of terrestrial organisms, including human beings, because it allowed nutrients to be used more efficiently by those organisms, which in turn were able to generate ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Apr 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 2

Analysis raises atmospheric, ecologic and economic doubts about forest bioenergy

A large, global move to produce more energy from forest biomass may be possible and already is beginning in some places, but scientists say in a new analysis that such large-scale bioenergy production from ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 18, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Toxic menu: Marine worm feeds on carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide with the help of symbiotic bacteria

In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen and Greifswald University, together with collea ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 17, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Asteroid sites hint at life on Mars

(Phys.org) -- Craters made by asteroid impacts may be the best place to look for signs of life on other planets, a study suggests.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 16, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 2

Strip-till improves soybean yield

Crop yield can be improved by ensuring adequate nutrient availability. But how should you place the fertilizer and what cropping system gives the best yields?

Biology / Other

created Apr 12, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Study resolves debate on human cell shut-down process

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have resolved the debate over the mechanisms involved in the shut-down process during cell division in the body.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Apr 12, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Study: 800-year-old farmers could teach us how to protect the Amazon

In the face of mass deforestation of the Amazon, we could learn from its earliest inhabitants who managed their farmland sustainably. Research from an international team of archaeologists and paleoecologists, ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 09, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (14) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Analyzing food quality with an artificial intestine: the NutriChip

EPFL researchers have developed a miniature on-chip gastrointestinal tract in order to observe the effects of various nutrients on health. The “NutriChip” project’s in vitro tests have already ...

Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry

created Mar 26, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Pulp NonFiction: Fungal analysis reveals clues for targeted biomass deconstruction

Without fungi and microbes to break down dead trees and leaf litter in nature, the forest floor might look like a scene from TV's "Hoarders."

Biology / Biotechnology

created Mar 22, 2012 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Nutrient

A nutrient is a chemical that an organism needs to live and grow or a substance used in an organism's metabolism which must be taken in from its environment. They are used to build and repair tissues, regulate body processes and are converted to and used as energy. Methods for nutrient intake vary, with animals and protists consuming foods that are digested by an internal digestive system, but most plants ingest nutrients directly from the soil through their roots or from the atmosphere.

Organic nutrients include carbohydrates, fats, proteins (or their building blocks, amino acids), and vitamins. Inorganic chemical compounds such as dietary minerals, water, and oxygen may also be considered nutrients. A nutrient is said to be "essential" if it must be obtained from an external source, either because the organism cannot synthesize it or produces insufficient quantities. Nutrients needed in very small amounts are micronutrients and those that are needed in larger quantities are called macronutrients. The effects of nutrients are dose-dependent and shortages are called deficiencies.

See healthy diet for more information on the role of nutrients in human nutrition.

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