- Industry: Biology
- Number of terms: 15386
- Number of blossaries: 0
- Company Profile:
Terrapsychology is a word coined by Craig Chalquist to describe deep, systematic, trans-empirical approaches to encountering the presence, soul, or "voice" of places and things: what the ancients knew as their resident genius loci or indwelling spirit. This perspective emerged from sustained ...
The luminosity shining from a reflective surface. Earthshine is one type. About 1/3 of the sun’s radiation is reflected back into space, with the remaining 42% warming the land and air and 23% moving water through the hydrologic cycle. See Emissivity.
Industry:Biology
Two annual dates when the sun is farthest from the celestial equator: June 21 or 22, when it stands the farthest north, and December 21 or 22, its southernmost position (in the northern hemisphere; dates for the southern hemisphere are the reverse).
Industry:Biology
Simple, usually one-celled animal whose cells contain a nucleus. Examples include flagellates, amoebas, ciliates, sporozoa, radiolaria, and slime molds. Some (microalgae) are photosynthetic; most are microscopic; all sit at the base of the food web.
Industry:Biology
The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally kill themselves in really stupid ways. Fair enough, but the biologically pertinent question is: do they do so before, or after, they pass on their genes?
Industry:Biology
A gaseous compound of nitrogen and hydrogen (NH3) formed as a byproduct when bacteria decompose substances high in nitrogen. Compost piles thick with manure often emit ammonia when hot. Synthetic ammonia is a key component of artificial fertilizers.
Industry:Biology
When tropical Pacific trade winds strengthen enough to pile cold water into the central and eastern Pacific. An intensification of normal conditions (in North America, stormy in the northwest and dry in the southwest). The opposite of an El Niño.
Industry:Biology
Created by C. Hart Merriam in 1894 to classify environments by temperature and rainfall. There are eight major life zones: Arctic-Alpine, Boreal (Hudsonian), Boreal (Canadian), Transition, Carolinian, Loouisianian, Upper Sonoran, and Lower Sonoran.
Industry:Biology
Tiny organic and inorganic (often clay) particles found in a soil. They carry a negative electrical charge, have much to do with the soil's chemistry, and serve as the primary sites for cation exchange and the capture and transport of nutrients.
Industry:Biology
The Earth's magnetic field, generated by the planet's nickel-iron core and extending thousands of kilometers into space. It shields the Earth from the highly charged plasma (mostly hydrogen particles) of the solar wind that emanates from the sun.
Industry:Biology
Gross domestic product is a measure of the total production and consumption of goods and services in the United States. Because it does not take resource depletion or pollution into account, the GDP gives a false picture of the wealth of nations.
Industry:Biology
