fungi – the “circulatory system of the planet” – are to be mapped for the first time, in an attempt to protect them from damage and improve their ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide. Fungi use carbon to build networks in the soil, which connect to plant roots and act as nutrient “highways”, exchanging carbon from plant roots for nutrients. For instance, some fungi are known to supply 80% of phosphorus to their host plants. Underground fungal networks can extend for many miles but are rarely noticed, though trillions of miles of them are thought to exist around the world. These fungi are vital to the biodiversity of soils and soil fertility, but little is known about them.
Many hotspots of mycorrhizal fungi are thought to be under threat, from the expansion of agriculture, urbanisation, pollution, water scarcity and changes to the climate.
The new project, from the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), will involve the collection of 10,000 samples around the world, from hotspots that are being identified through artificial intelligence technology.
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Added by Michael Grove at 13:52 on November 30, 2021
[DEED] very clear that you have already sown "the seed", so to speak, which will indubitably establish a mechanism by which the ‘few' can become the ‘many'.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, IT IS the only thing that ever has."
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=michael%20grove%20The%20Lucid%20Interval…
would take a look at Netfix's latest showing last evening, as a reminder of [IT]'s basic premise that methane was more of the cause of the problem which underlines the issue of climate change, that Carbon Dioxide.So having watched what to ALL intents and purposes was a valid proposal from the film, to "feed ourselves directly with products of the grain which we otherwise feed to cows" I was inclined to re-watch the TED talk "How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change" which I had originally found so inspiring at the outset to the launch of the Transition Towns initiative.
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special, "Becoming Human," examines what the latest scientific research reveals about our hominid relatives—putting together the pieces of our human past and transforming our understanding of our earliest ancestors.
Featuring interviews with world-renowned scientists, each hour unfolds with a CSI-like forensic investigation into the life and death of a specific hominid ancestor. The programs were shot "in the trenches" where discoveries were unearthed throughout Africa and Europe. Dry bones spring back to life with stunning computer-generated animation and prosthetics. Fossils not only give us clues to what early hominids looked like, but, with the aid of ingenious new lab techniques, how they lived and how we became the creative, thinking humans of today.Rick Potts, a paleo-anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, sees evidence that early humans were adapted to change itself, specifically the frequent and severe environmental changes that occurred in Africa and elsewhere beginning around 800,000 years ago.
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