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Margulis believes that mitochondria were originally parasites (or predators - the distinction is not important at this level) which attacked the larger bacteria that were destined to provide the shell of the eucaryotic cell. There are still some bacterial parasites that do a similar trick, burrowing through the prey's…
The basic idea of Astrochicken is that the spacecraft will be small and quick. I do not believe that a fruitful future for space science lies along the path we are now following, with space missions growing larger and larger and fewer and fewer and slower and slower as the decades go by. I propose a radical step in…
By blending water and minerals from below with sunlight and CO2 from above, green plants link the earth to the sky. We tend to believe that plants grow out of the soil, but in fact most of their substance comes from the air. The bulk of the cellulose and the other organic compounds produced through photosynthesis…
Sir Edward has calculated that quick-growing Indian eucalyptus trees have a yield of nine and one-quarter tons of wood an acre a year. As the wood contains 0.8 per cent of the solar energy reaching the ground in the tropics in the form of heat, Sir Edward has suggested that in theory eucalyptus forests could provide a…
Is the climate crisis real? Yes, of course it is. Pause for a moment to consider these events of just the past 12 months: • Heat. According to NASA, 2010 was tied with 2005 as the hottest year measured since instruments were first used systematically in the 1880s. Nineteen countries set all-time high temperature…
One, two, three ragged files of Canada geese skim the treetops, preceded and followed by their honking chorus. I freeze in my tracks to watch them pass, heading south, feathers ruffled by the last warm breezes of the season. When their honks have faded into silence, I notice a chill in the air. The spinning planet has…
No law of physics is more basic than the law of entropy, the tendency of the universe to move toward disorder and death. But life bucks the tide. using available free energy wherever it can get it, and hereabouts the most abundant source of energy is sunlight. The mayflower constructs its tiny oasis of order by…
What gravity is and why it is, no one knows. Albert Einstein spent most of his life trying to figure it out, but the secret eluded him. it is simply a fact that everything in the universe with mass pulls on everything else. If it weren't for the initial outward impetus of the Big Bang, gravity would have caused the…
The natural economy is solar-powered. Photons from the sun rain down upon the entire daytime surface of the planet. Many photons do nothing more useful than heat up a rock or a sandy beach. A few find their way into an eye - yours, or mine, or the compound eye of a shrimp or the parabolic reflector eye of a scallop…
Humanity pumps 53.4 billion liters of bloodper minute, but that red river is not surprising; it must flow to sustain life. At the same time, humanity's male organs eject forty-three tons of semen, and the point is that though each ejaculation is also an ordinary physiological act, for the individual it is irregular…
For the globe as a whole, the ocean is the great regulator, the great stabilizer of temperatures. It has been described as 'a savings bank for solar energy, receiving deposits in seasons of excessive insolation and paying them back in seasons of want.' Without the ocean, our world would be visited by unthinkably harsh…