A new study offers tantalizing evidence that filamentous fungi extending from roots, along with treated astronaut waste, could provide sufficient scaffolding to help plants grow in planetary regolith.
poop
Posted inNews
Pungent Penguin Poop Produces Polar Cloud Particles
The discovery highlights how penguins and other polar seabirds help shape their environments, even as they are under threat from climate change.
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Burning Cow Dung Emits an Inordinate Amount of Air Pollution in India
Dried cow dung, a main source of household cooking fuel for many in rural India, releases more particulate matter across the country than wood and other biofuels.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Bat Poop Records Fire History
Charcoal stored in preserved guano gives researchers a new way to reconstruct regional fire histories.
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Mammal Droppings Preserve Human and Climate History on the Tibetan Plateau
Geochemical signatures in sediment, which includes organic molecules from human and animal poop, help scientists track the rise and fall of the Tibetan Empire.
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Microbe Goo Could Help Guide the Search for Life on Mars
Sticky substances secreted by microbes may help create landforms on Earth. And new research shows that these substances are more preserved in iron-rich sediment. Mars is decidedly iron-rich (it’s the Red Planet, after all), so the new study adds to evidence that microbe goo could help researchers explain landform creation there. “I think this is […]
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How Llama Poop Is Helping an Andean Community Adapt to Melting Glaciers
Reintroducing these animals can enrich barren soils and potentially reduce water contamination, a study shows.
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Penguin Poop May Flush Iron into the Southern Ocean
Nutrients from the seabirds’ guano fuels the growth of carbon-storing phytoplankton, but penguin populations have plunged in the past 4 decades.
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Harpy Eagles Concentrate Precious Nutrients in the Amazon
Amazon soils are usually low in the nutrients that plants covet, but harpy eagles can create local hot spots with their poop and prey.