Ecology and the Environment

Hello, I am looking for a book on plant hormones applied to agriculture crops, i.e. roles of the hormones, effect of crops, health issues... Can anyone recommend some books? Cheers, mstqgg

Activated sludge model: A theory of the lifecycle of bacteria

IS it possible that Environmentalism can become terrorism? Becos in a way, Environmentalism seems to resemble religion minus all the rituals and stuff. But however, like religion it seems it's like a philosophy.etc. And misinterpreted it could become like extremism. I look from it from a negative perspective, it makes humans look like the enemy of everything natural. From a positive, humans are part of the natural system. Discuss.

This is not great thread material, but I would appreciate any answers you have to offer..... I'm looking for an accurate definition of the term "host rock." In most instances it is used to refer to a bed, formation, or lithodeme that contains a mineral of particular interest. However, I am told by a colleague that it can also refer to any rock layer that has been intruded by an igneous pluton. Does anyone with a background in GEOLOGY know if this is true? (I would have posted this in a "Geology" section, but apparently one still does not exist on this site)

A recent article suggested we essentially revert back to the "outhouses" of yesterday. http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091207/us_time/08599194576400 While I agree that these are more energy efficient (by far), the article seems to lack mention of any drawbacks. I'm thinking if this goes into wide use, someone will eventually get sick from the bacteria. Thoughts?

Do all plants produce antioxidants on their own? I need one type of plant that doesn't if there is one. It doesn't have to be a vegetable or fruit, just a plant. Thanks for your help.

Let's say I want to test the levels of pollution inside of a room versus the air from outside in a particular spot (perhaps the area around beyond the room's window). I suspect I would have to take multiple measurements, but I'm thinking it could be done. Does anyone know how I could go about doing this? What I mainly want to do is test and examine the levels of air pollution. At the moment, I'm under the belief that the air outside of my window is more polluted than the air inside the room. Yes, unusual, I know. But I want to see if I'm right about this, as I seem to smell more smog and filth outside rather than inside the room.

One of my students brought in a large "meteorite" the other day. His father found it in a field in Iowa. What tests can we do here at school to determine if it is a real meteorite?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/arctic-seas-turn-to-acid Oh my...

I am currently a Gr10 Science student, and we are currently learning about soil. Does anyone have any idea on how to calculate soil's air content? Much help is appreciated. Thanks!

Just recently I have been spending alot of my time collecting fossils and I've noticed that where fossil beds made up of organic material there is a lot of iron pyrite. Some of the fossils from these beds are pyrite as well but not all, why is this and why is there large deposits of iron in these beds?

I recently went fossil hunting with my housemate in Folkestone (Kent, south coast of England), and I was wondering if anyone could help in identifying this find. The period is Cretaceous, mid possibly lower Albian, and the fossil is embedded in gault clay. At first glance it appears to be a fern, but the white coating is the same material as shell fragments found in the same slab, so calcite or possibly calcium phosphate. Note how the lower end curls round, and a series of smaller decreasing ridges can be seen on the right side, going back up. I've scoured a number of websites, but I can't find anything remotely similar. So, any ideas ?

Canada is known to hold large reserves of pristine fresh water. This valuable resource is becoming a growing concern simply because the financial incentives are quite attractive to many short sighted politicians and business men. It remains to be seen if it will be exported quickly or if the government will attempt to keep it. With Russia putting pressure on Canadian sovereignty of the Arctic and increasing demands from the U.S to buy massive amounts of water. Giving in would drain many of the Canadian lakes and consequently ruin the surrounding wildlife. How is it possible to satisfy everyone's needs here? The U.S needs water fast. Tensions are rising in the Arctic circ…

Is there any mosquitoes, flies, birds ? For how long ? Did most die or were just carried away ? (or new ones brought with the wind) If they persist, how does something like a dragonfly manages to stay put in the area ? Is it a major factor for dissemination of species across regions ?

I'm a bio student at the University of PR and we have to do an ecology experiment that is due for December. I decided to do it with plants since they tend to remain still, but I don't have a clear idea for it. So, can anyone suggest angles, some general ideas, subjects (I live in the island of Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean)? We were thinking to do something along the lines of measuring plant recovery from certain poisons but I don't know any poisons, or how to measure this. I also thought of somehow seeing how, in a given environment, changing the dominance of plant species (i.e. augmenting some while reducing others) would affect the system, but, again, I don't know how …

Hi Is there a chance that this can happen: When global warming has made all the ice melt will the earth turn faster or slower due to the centrifugal force made my all the extra H2O in liquid form? I think this because the earth's rotation will bring a lot of the water around the equator. And what can this lead to???

good evening everybody the electric scroll compressor used in cooling milk produces a considerable amount of CO2 gas .......knowing that this compressor is using an hcfc gas as refregirant what is the amount of co2 produced per kwh in this case?

Henrik Svensmark made a documentary about his hypothesis that cosmic ray's make part of the cloud earosoils the documentary is called: The Cloud Mystery Henrik Svensmark on Global Warming (part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1qGOUIRac0 http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/the-discover-interview-henrik-svensmark what do you experts think about this? is it great to think we (earth) are more of a part of the cosmos then we think?

A rather common complaint I see levied against calculations of the global mean surface temperature is that many temperature monitoring stations are located in urban areas. Urban areas are naturally warmer than the surrounding land because there's all sorts of radiant energy being used by the human inhabitants. However, urban areas comprise a relatively small part of the total earth's surface (including oceans), and a disproportionate amount of temperature monitoring stations exist within these areas. If we continue to follow this line of reasoning, they argue that warming is just occurring within our little urban heat islands and that an undersized sample is cloudin…

So says the science editor of Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/208164?1 I find it ironic the climate science denier crowd keeps trying to insist the opposite is true... in many regards detrimental climate change is happening faster than the model projections.

This does bring up a question I have with regards to global warming. From John's post above: It seems to me that the ppm atmospheric increase in CO2 (shown by various ice core data) is because of the cumulative addition of industry year after year. Without burning fossil fuels, nature is in a balance; 770Gt produced and 770Gt sequestered in plant material. So why is it that a mere 3% increase in CO2 emissions isn't all taken up by the environment? Why don't plants simply absorb this additional carbon? Is the ecosystem this finely balanced that some kind of limit is reached? Mods: Upon reflection, this question is not relevant to the topic of this thread, plea…

Glad to be a part of this community; the conversations are very interesting from what I have read thus far. I am highly interested in discussion clean energy sources that work in harmony with nature, and so I thought I'd start out my posting in the science section of the forum by sharing a little section on solar energy from a book that I am currently reading. ----- The following plan would solve all our energy, economic and pollution problems within a few years. Declare war for solar energy: The President would make an executive order to build and install enough solar cells to supply all of the US energy needs in two years and we would probably end up doing it …

I think there must be many, many different variables but still....other things being equal. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/09/980912112006.htm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html Has anyone here read "Heaven and Hell"? I know this is a very non-skeptical crowd hear but was wondering is any of the non-skeptics have lowered themselves to read this book? Also, if consensus shifts to a more skeptic view, will you still support CO2 limiting policy? If so, why?

This was pretty nifty: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2009/07/what_does_climate_model_output.php tbXwRP0CQNA It's a visualisation of one month's worth of simulation time from a general circulation model, condensed down to a 25 second video. This particular GCM is UCAR's CCSM, with the modeling having been done at NCAR. Oh, did I mention that both NCAR and UCAR are located right here in my hometown? Interesting stuff.