Ecology and the Environment

Can anybody tell me why methanotrophy would decline in soils exposed to excessive mineral nitrogen loading?

Hello! I'm not sure this doesn't belong in the engineering thread. Admins should feel free to move it, of course! I have an idea I'd like to run past you guys. I have been interested in energy efficiency for a number of years (along with pretty much anyone else who pays bills), but my interest is usually not in reducing power use (though I do use energy efficient devices where possible). Instead, I'm interested in simply using the energy we already use more intelligently. One example of this that I've been meaning to implement for years is perfect for warm places like California: a refrigerator radiator that is exposed to the outside (leaving the bulk of the uni…

in general what factor would determine the appropritate scale? I dont understand..what are plots and what determines how large or small they are?

Would you use a large number of replicates in a field or lab experiment? I would think you use a large number in both..? How would i know how many replicates i need?

Since Satan is the ruler of the air and his job is to keep people from God, then most of the world will buy into Satan's delusions. Another delusion is that of an ice age. Why did this ridiculous theory come into place to begin with? The answer is easy; to try to prove the bible wrong. But the problem is, that in order to prove the bible wrong, one must again, make up his own history, a history which is not only bizarre and impossible, but which NO ONE in the past can verify. Louis Agassiz first came up with this ridiculous theory when he noticed some rocks in the northern plains not indigenous to that area. So how did they get there? The most obvious and rational…

Why in the troposphere the temperature is falling? I can't understand generally what causes the temperature to fall with the altitude. Maybe it is something related to the amount of gases. Thank you for your help!

There doesn't seem to be a forum here for geology so I'm posting this question here. Is there any geological evidence which supports all the flood myths that exist in so many different cultures? I.e. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(mythology) I see a lot of hypotheses there but no mention of evidence. Pete

Seriously. Would this work? Grab that extra bit of energy from the sunlight and add it to the energy already being generated by the wind turbines?

Hi, I've joined this forum basically for some expert advice, so please bear with me (I'm not sure if I'm even in the right part). I recently started a thread on the BBC History Message Boards (Ancient and Archaeological) entitled 'Human Advancement Without Fossil Fuel' (regretably BBC don't offer a Science forum proper). 'While on holiday I was wondering how advanced human technology would have come with out coal, gas and oil. It would seem a mass of eras, inventions, appliances and plain old stuff would be wiped out due to their reliance on fossil fuel at some stage of their conception. Would we be able to reach temperatures high enough to produce steel with…

Hello. My name is Edward Martin, and I am a retired professor of biology. I'm very concerned about the community and the harm that may come to it by the propagation of bad science and ignorance. I am interested in global warming - or rather, attempting to correct the myth of global warming. To this end, I have created a website (http://www.ausclimate.com/) about the truth behind global warming. Please check it out and email me your opinions. Thanks in advance, Edward

What will be the repercussions on humanity if amphibian were to become extinct?

Just a selection of quotes from the article. There is more background information... I have little to say. I don't want any climate change discussion here. Just numbers of CO2 emissions. People changing the atmosphere's composition. That's a fact. The effects of that can be discussed in other threads. I'll just add this xkcd.com cartoon:

I wandered outside into my backyard this morning. The intense heat had caused most of our grass to wither and die. To my surprise, I found two "baby" mango trees growing along our fence in good condition. I wondered whether I could grow them hydroponically in my aquarium. As I'm typing this, my hands are still dirty from digging them up. I have a 50 gallon tank running on a dual filter. I put one plant in each portion of the filter and have it rigged up according to information I found on Wikipedia. I have a turtle and a school of goldfish I use for naturally skeletonizing remains of small animals, so a great amount of waste is generated. Will the plants be able to su…

is it posible to model and predict the behavior of an ecosystem? From what I've read they are chaotic systems and close to impossible to model. If you can what sort of mathematics would you require to do so? (sorry, if this belong to the maths forum,I thought it would involve more ecology)

And if you know any cool ones that may be interesting I wouldn't mind a link. Thanks.

Very interesting, cows have a compass? Also, we should sleep North/South? Maybe there is something to Feng Shui? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/26/dude_wheres_my_cow/

With all this gloom and doom about global warming destroying species, what species, that benefit humans, will actually benefit from global warming? Is there an existing thread on this?

It seems that the Earth may experience a reversal in the Geomagnetic Poles so that the Magnetic North and Magnetic South get reversed. Now, I can see this being a problem for migrating birds and marine animals that may use fields to navigate. However, it is not likely to affect humans to a significant extent, for example to cause large numbers of casualties... or is it? Any thoughts? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal from: http://www.mnh.si.edu/earth/text/4_1_5_0.html

Just been reading about the world population, and according to the U.S. Census, this is the estimated current world population: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html About 6,705,153,833 human beings now inhabit the Earth as of today. The above link also gives figures for how much the population has changed since last year. Of course, it's been well known that nowadays the population growth rate has been decreasing for the past 40 years, as shown on the graphs provided: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopinfo.html But even with those scenarios, the population is still going to increase to at least 9 billion by 2050. Even wo…

... using only a stick. And more tree "wisdom" from Markus at

Is Al Gore right about the effects of global warming? A lot of scientists think that Gore is wrong, but his data seems pretty solid to me. Any thoughts, opinions, facts?

Surprising enough, nobody has brought up the latest theory for the mass extinction of mega-fauna in North America at the end of the last ice age, and the cause for the Younger Dryas. What I am talking about is the latest evidence leading to the theory, which is still theory, that a comet Impactor exploded in the upper atmosphere, causing the end of Clovis culture, and a large portion of fauna on the North American Continent. In order to stimulate discussion on this interesting topic, I will post what I have recently written at Ai-Jane.org. I know that we all have our own idea as to what is vitally important to this planet and humans, but the thought of millions, eve…

I have been reading up on recruitment papers for planets in the face of global warming I am just wondering exactly how much of a bottleneck on biodiversity humans happen to be generating. I am sure that it will not cause life to go extinct in general, just that modern life will surely have to change via adapting, radiation and of course extinction. The question to me simply is so large though, I mean how will the microbial level of life change, what new niches will it obtain or lose, what will happen to ocean life, or land life? Will certain types of plants emerge or certain phenotypes become dominant? I mean to create such a shift in the global environment will sure…

Recently I've been thinking about switching my house from being purely oil heated to relying on solar passive heating, or something similar. However, to install a full blown system costs a considerable amount of money, too high an investment for me right now. Are there any very cheap ways to do it? Even if it means relying a lot less on that gas heater of mine rather then eliminating it all together. Most of my house already faces the south side, and there is lots of wall space to put larger windows, so it's not so much of a problem to actually change it around a little....

In the Ethanol Subsidies thread, Norman Albers got me thinking when he said: That's what I like to hear. My Big Green Truck was rated for 8 MPG city and 15 hgwy when it was new. It gets about 12 MPG city and 20 hgwy now (smaller motor, different cam, some fussing with carb jets, bigger exhaust, and a performance rebuild kit for the distributor). That's still with a carb and no computers. If a half-assed backyard mechanic like me can manage that kind of gain, what the hell is wrong with the car companies? They've managed about the same increase in mileage for trucks that size (of course the price has gone from 6K to 30K), but they have weight reduc…