Word: polarity
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...dispute the idea that human activity is heating up the planet. all the signs seem to point that way: storms have become more intense and weather patterns more erratic; the past decade has been by far the hottest on record; and the rise in temperature has been greatest in polar regions and around cities. These facts dovetail ominously well with the theory that carbon dioxide (CO 2), released by burning coal, oil and gasoline for heat, electricity and transportation, is trapping excess energy from the sun. Global warming is real--and will probably get worse...
...remarkable species, the "extremophiles," have achieved astonishing feats of physiological adaptation at the ends of habitable Earth. In the most frigid polar waters, fish and other animals flourish, their blood kept fluid by biochemical antifreezes. Populations of bacteria live in the spumes of volcanic thermal vents on the ocean floor, multiplying in water above the boiling point. And far beneath Earth's surface, to a depth of 2 miles (3.2 km) or more, dwell the SLIMES (subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystems), unique assemblages of bacteria and fungi that occupy pores in the interlocking mineral grains of igneous rock and derive their...
...flows the continuity of life itself. That our human trash stream crosses even this sacred bond is evidence of a world wounded and out of round, its relationships disfigured. The albatross's message: consumer culture permeates every watery point on the compass. From sun-bleached coral reefs to icy polar waters, no place, no creature, remains apart...
Those riveting Earth photos reframed everything. For the first time humanity saw itself from outside. The visible features from space were living blue ocean, living green-brown continents, dazzling polar ice and a busy atmosphere, all set like a delicate jewel in vast immensities of hard-vacuum space. Humanity's habitat looked tiny, fragile and rare...
...foods--so-called Frankenfoods--the supersalmon was born almost accidentally. About 20 years ago, a fish researcher in Newfoundland found that even though his saltwater tank had frozen, the flounder in it survived. Adapted to icy Canadian waters, the fish turned out to have a gene, known in other polar fishes, that produces an anti-freeze protein. While trying to splice this gene into salmon so it too could be grown in colder waters, scientists made a second accidental discovery: they found that while the gene didn't keep the salmon from freezing, a portion of it, when stitched onto...