The question of whether Mars ever supported life has captivated the imagination of scientists and the public for decades. Central to the discovery is gaining insight into the past climate of Earth's neighbor: Was the planet ...
Planetary Sciences
1 hour ago
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0
Quality is the core characteristic of cultivated land and is crucial for ensuring sustainable resource utilization and national food security. To meet the increasing demand for food driven by rapid population growth and the ...
Agriculture
2 hours ago
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0
Researchers in South Australia are digging deep into history of soil biology in the state to gain a better understanding of how the soil microbiome functions to ensure sustainable broadacre farming into the future.
Cell & Microbiology
4 hours ago
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Twelve million hectares of agricultural soils are lost globally through soil degradation every year. As an ecologist, I work alongside farmers and growers in the field and have seen how farming can help solve this global ...
Biotechnology
6 hours ago
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0
Soil stores large amounts of organic carbon, whose dynamic changes can cause a huge impact on the global climate system. Forest succession is a long-term ecological process that can exert powerful effects on soil organic ...
Ecology
Jul 8, 2024
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19
In a study published in One Earth on July 5, a research team led by Prof. Deng Ye from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed the core-bacteria-forecast model (CoBacFM), ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 8, 2024
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0
For several years, a team of economists from the University of Passau has been investigating in Indonesia which measures are effective in ensuring that sustainable farming methods are used in the long term. They found that ...
Agriculture
Jul 8, 2024
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3
Soil salinization poses a threat to global agricultural production, food security and sustainable development. Affected by China's population growth and social and economic development, China's arable land has been decreasing ...
Ecology
Jul 8, 2024
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0
The Negev desert of southern Israel is renowned for its unique rock art. Since at least the third millennium BCE, the hunters, shepherds, and merchants who roamed the Negev have left thousands of carvings (petroglyphs) on ...
Ecology
Jul 5, 2024
0
48
RPTU University of Kaiserslautern-Landau has shown for the first time, in a joint study with BOKU University, that permaculture brings about a significant improvement in biodiversity, soil quality and carbon storage.
Agriculture
Jul 4, 2024
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Soil is a natural body consisting of layers (soil horizons) of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics. It is composed of particles of broken rock that have been altered by chemical and environmental processes that include weathering and erosion. Soil differs from its parent rock due to interactions between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and the biosphere. It is a mixture of mineral and organic constituents that are in solid, gaseous and aqueous states. Soil particles pack loosely, forming a soil structure filled with pore spaces. These pores contain sol solution (liquid) and air (gas). Accordingly, soils are often treated as a three state system. Most soils have a density between 1 and 2 g/cm³. Soil is also known as earth: it is the substance from which our planet takes its name. Little of the soil composition of planet Earth is older than Tertiary and most no older than Pleistocene. In engineering, soil is referred to as regolith, or loose rock material.
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