Word: soiling
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When scientists selected some bacteria for experimental exposure to moon soil brought back by Apollo astronauts, Staphylococcus aureus, Azobacter vinelandii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa seemed to be well-qualified choices. All three species are exceptionally tough. They thrive in and around man, displaying extraordinary ability at resisting his antibiotic weapons and adapting well to other environmental challenges. Thus, microbiologists at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center last week were still baffled by the fate of the hardy organisms. After only ten hours' exposure to lunar dust from the Sea of Tranquility, the bacteria had died...
...microscopic calamity occurred in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, where Microbiologist Gerald Taylor had been looking for signs of lunar life by exposing moon soil to hundreds of life-enticing mixtures of gases and nutrients. After 67 days in a brew called TGY -made up of an enzyme, a sugar and a yeast extract-the soil showed no signs of life, so Taylor added the three bacteria to the mix to see if lunar soil affected their growth rate. In mixtures containing surface samples from both Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 and core samples from 12, the single-celled plants continued...
Blue Grass songs span the gamut of human emotion. From the melancholy love ballads so beloved in American popular music, Blue Grass stretches to deal with love from home and family; the life of the soil: the chronicling of great events in ballad form (e.g., "White House Blues," a song about the death of McKinley); the perils of such diverse occupations as truck driving, horse racing, railroading, mining, soldiering, and crime of all types; loneliness; the joy and humor of living and the pathos that goes along with it. The range of expression in Bill Monroe's songs and music...
...alter their beautiful structure under the influence of wind, temperature change, icy vapors and the weight of fresh snow, they may lose their ability to interlock. They degenerate into coarser, larger crystals and sometimes even into lumps of ice. Such "old" snow cannot maintain a good grip on the soil or underlying layers of snow. The slightest disturbance may tear it free: the sonic boom of a passing aircraft, the stresses created by a pair of skis...
Botanists have estimated that 50 per cent of Vietnam's soil is laterizable-it can be converted irreversibly to rock when deprived of organic matter...