Word: nitrogenous
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...called the dead zone. Agricultural fertilizer byproducts like nitrogen are running off farms and into the Mississippi River, which then spills out into the Gulf of Mexico. Those chemicals help feed crops on land, but as they build up in the still, warm waters of the Gulf, they in turn feed excess growth of algae. When algae dies and decomposes, the process sucks much of the oxygen out of the water. A sea without oxygen is little different from the surface of the moon - nothing can live there. Fish and other sea life flee, or suffocate. That's the Gulf...
...what of the half a million leftover embryos, which now nestle in nitrogen? "What you do with the frozen embryos you don't use is your decision and yours alone," says the American Fertility Association. But it is not so simple. Are they people--or property? Stored embryos have been treated as part of an estate and the center of custody fights, like the Porsche or the puppy. Conservatives promote adoption as an answer, but some patients don't want their genetic offspring being raised by other people. Should they be required to keep them frozen indefinitely? Should governments...
...There’s a demo every day—it’s never just pure lecture. One day [Charbonneau] got into a rocket chair and zoomed across the room to demonstrate one of Newton’s laws. Another time he froze a grapefruit in liquid nitrogen and broke it on the floor...
Aresa uses a seeding hose known as a "hydroseeder"--groundskeepers use such a hose to grow green grass on golf courses--to cover about a football field of territory in a day. After four to five weeks the thale-cress will have sprouted and turned red if it encounters nitrogen dioxide. Normally, plants neutralize nitrogen dioxide, which they recognize as harmful. But Aresa scientists, led by founder Meier, have genetically engineered thale-cress, fusing its nitrogen dioxide neutralizer with an enzyme that creates red pigment (plants naturally produce red pigment, which isn't visible until the green disappears in autumn...
Aresa has had mixed results. The thale-cress does indeed turn red when it meets nitrogen dioxide. But Aresa can't get the weed to grow large enough to be easily visible. Aresa has experimented with only one of the more than 1,600 varieties of thale-cress. Following the summer letdown, the company ordered 174 different strains, and is awaiting seeds from Libya, Norway, the Caucasus, Britain, the U.S. and elsewhere...