- Industry: Biology
- Number of terms: 15386
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Terrapsychology is a word coined by Craig Chalquist to describe deep, systematic, trans-empirical approaches to encountering the presence, soul, or "voice" of places and things: what the ancients knew as their resident genius loci or indwelling spirit. This perspective emerged from sustained ...
An organelle (although outside the cell nucleus) that power the cell by converting organic matter into ATP (energy)--see Carbohydrate Catabolism. Mitochondria also regulate bodily heat and refine the oxygen that would otherwise poison us. They look like upturned pillbugs.
Industry:Biology
The ongoing transformation of water in the biosphere from ocean water evaporation to clouds, rain, groundwater and runoff, storage in organisms, etc. Until its return to the oceans. The Earth holds roughly 326 cubic million miles of water, 97% of it in the oceans.
Industry:Biology
Body divisibility into mirror-image halves (right and left arms and legs, for example). Animals with bilateral symmetry display dorsal (top), ventral (bottom), anterior (front), and posterior (rear) orientations, whereas radial animals like starfish have only the dorsal and ventral. (Arms, legs, and wings evolved from the fins of lungfish swimming around over 400 million years ago. )
Industry:Biology
From the Greek oikos (household) and logos (study): the study of interrelationships between organisms and their environment. The term was coined in 1866 by German biologist and philosopher Ernest Haeckel, famous also for his discredited but interesting dictum that ontogeny (individual physical development) recapitulates phylogeny (the evolutionary development of its species).
Industry:Biology
The interval between the shore and the ocean floor; includes the continental shelf, rise, and slope. Active margins mark sites of heavy geological activity, including continental collision and subduction. Earthquakes, volcanism, mountain formation, and a narrow continental shelf characterize the tumultous active margins. Passive margins are the opposite, calmer and steadier, with flat land and wide shelves. In North America, the west coast is active and the east coast passive.
Industry:Biology
Enriching a soil's nutrition and CEC (cation exchange capacity) by adding decomposed organic matter to it. Grass clippings, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, and even certain kinds of weeds will serve when mixed with brown matter (dry twigs, newspaper), but not animal fat, meat, oil, or cat or dog feces. A properly built, moistened, and aerated pile will gradually heat up as microorganisms break it down into humus; for faster results, shred the materials before composting, keep sponge-moist, and turn the pile every three days, shoveling undigested matter at its edges into its baking heart. It is ready to spread on soil when flaky brown and no longer hot. A thin layer of soil on the pile gets it off to a start. A pile of less than three cubic feet may not heat up properly.
Industry:Biology
Rich, black organic material; the living component of soils where plant and animal matter has been allowed to decompose. Ideal humus: 100 parts carbon, 10 parts nitrogen, 1 part phosphorous, 1 part sulfur. Most of the important micronutrients are cations; the most important anions are boron and molybdenum. Fertile soil contains 4-10% organic matter.
Industry:Biology
A planetwide celebration of our home that started on April 22, 1970 with a "Teach-In" organized by Gaylord Nelson to bring greater awareness to environmental concerns. It spread spontaneously to thousands of campuses and involved at least 20 million participants. Earth Day has become popular enough that politicians and corporate heads have started giving speeches on April 22. (President Bush tried it in 2005, but the Great Smoky Mountains thundered and rained him out. See Animism. )
Industry:Biology
Precipitation heavy with nitric and sulfuric acid. Most of it is generated by sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide (air pollution). Its pH is less than 5. 6. Results include fish and plant deaths, corrosion, groundwater pollution, and soil erosion. Its long-term effects are unknown.
Industry:Biology
There are many cloud types which include:
* cumulonimbus (thunderheads): near ground level to above 50,000 feet.
* cirrostratus: above 18,000 feet.
* cirrus: above 18,000 feet.
* cirrocumulus: above 18,000 feet
* altostratus: 6,000-20,000 feet
* cumulus (fair weather): below 6,000 feet
* stratus: below 6,000 feet.
Industry:Biology
