24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Microbes Rule the World
Microbes make up 80 percent of all biomass, says microbiologist Carl Woese. In one-fifth of a teaspoon of seawater, there are a million bacteria (and 10 million viruses), Craig Venter says, adding, “If you don’t like bacteria, you’re on the wrong planet. This is the planet of the bacteria.” That means that most of the planet’s living metabolism is microbial. When James Lovelock was trying to figure out where the gases come from that make the Earth’s atmosphere such an artifact of life (the Ga...Stewart Brand describes the state of our world, engineered by microbes and ourselves as the vehicles for their propagation in many cases.
23 OCT 2011 by ideonexus
The Importance of Calculus
Calculus is one of the most important parts of mathematics. It is fundamental to all of modern science. How could one part of mathematics be of such central importance? It is because calculus gives us the tools to study rates of change and motion. All analytical subjects, from biology to physics to chemistry to engineering to mathematics, involve studying quantities that are growing or shrinking or moving—in other words, they are changing. Astronomers study the motions of the planets, chemist...Calculus measures rates of change and all of modern science is concerned with how things change.