Word: soiling
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...scientists are placing particular emphasis on one robot, tellingly named Mars 2003. This vehicle, now slated for launch in 2011, will ostensibly touch down, collect soil samples, and zip back to Earth. NASA estimates the 300-pound rover will cost between $1 billion and $2 billion...
Ruvkun and other scientists choose to work with the laboratory roundworm, a tiny bacteria-eating soil-dweller, because the sequence of its entire genome is known and its 302-neuron nervous system has been described in detail...
...Freedom to Farm Act and talked about better husbandry of the land. He called farmers the "first environmentalists" and suggested expanding the conservation reserve program so that farmers could manage their land themselves but be rewarded for keeping it healthy, for instance by leaving weakened fields fallow to prevent soil erosion. Bush, on the other hand, talked in general terms about his desire to see U.S. farmers feeding the world through exports to open markets. It was unclear how this addressed the farmer's concerns. He also spoke about not using food as a diplomatic weapon, but failed to elaborate...
...Nino, the periodic warming of Pacific waters that plays havoc with the world's weather. El Nino helped cause the 1998 Amazon dry spell, and ecologist Nepstad has studied the vicious circle of drought and fire. The first year of drying and burning sucks vital moisture from the soil and leaves the forest littered with tinder. Sheltering leaves that ordinarily prevent the forest floor from baking in the sun are thinned out. The rainy season may provide a brief respite, but during the next dry season, the remaining trees quickly exhaust soil moisture and become more susceptible to fire. When...
...which fires during the first year of a drought encourage further fires even if rains return the next season. During the first year of a disruption by El Ni?o, the plant life of the rain forest will suck all the water from the upper 5 m of the soil that supports it. Unless a series of biblical deluges recharges that soil, the water deficit will not be overcome in the next rainy season, so that by the following dry season, soil moisture will be drawn down even further, beyond the reach of the rain-forest root network...