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Biology in the News is presented by Dr. Lamar's Biology A/B classes. Each student is responsible for posting ONE blog entry and commenting on ONE post submitted by a fellow student.

About your initial posting . . . . . (approximately 150- 300 words)

Your initial posting is worth 30 points. It must be submitted by October 15th. - Locate an electronic article about a new finding in biology. Article must be been written in the last 12 months. Your posting should include 1) the name of the article (3 point), 2) article source - be specific (3 point), 3) date of article (2 point), 4) link to article (2 points), 5) summary of article in your own words (0-10 points), and 6) significance of article (0-10 points). Comments on significance of article can include (but not be limited to) importance of article to self, to society, or to the further advancement of a particular area of biology.

NOTE: To add link, select text in post that you want to link, click on link icon above posting field, and then paste URL information into appropriate field.

About your comments to a fellow classmate's posting . . . . (approximately 100 - 200 words)

Your comments to another student's posting is worth 20 points. Comments must be submitted between October 16 and November 19 - "The more you know, the more you realize there's a lot more to know" is certainly true to science. Read our Biology in the News blob posts. Pick one post (not your own) and submit comments about this post. Comments should included 1) A question that is raised in your mind by the post. The question should have scientific relevance (0 - 5 points) 2) a response to your question. (0-15 points) Research your question and answer it. If the answer is currently unknown, provide additional background information, describe research that is being done in this field, and/or research that is required for the question to be answered.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Genetically altered trees, plants could help counter global warming

In this article from Biology News Net, October 1, 2010, it is said that forests of genetically altered trees and other plants could withdraw several billion tons of Carbon from the atmosphere each year, and so it will help ameliorate global warming, according to estimates published in the October issue of BioScience.

The study was done by researches at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory that outline the finding of the trees and plants natural absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They noticed that these plants would know how to convert the carbon dioxide into long-lived forms of carbon. Thus this would keep carbon inside the plants letting out the oxygen being able to keep carbon out of the air reducing the effect of global warming.

Besides the fact of genetically increasing the plants absorbing light, the researchers have discovered that they can make it possible to genetically alter plants to absorb the carbon into their roots releasing it into the soil which will in return keep the carbon out of circulation from the atmosphere for centuries to come.

This is a significant finding by scientists because first off they are willing to explore for alternatives on resources to reduce global warming. These types of researches will improve the quality of air in the atmosphere and ultimately reduce the global warming for future generations to come. Second, with these findings of genetically altering the plants to absorb the carbon dioxide taking out the carbon from the air and reproducing pure oxygen back into the air will be cleaner to breath and the pollution in the air will be greatly reduced. This article is a great finding and shows that scientists across the world are working on a way to reduce pollution and in return reduce the effect of global warming which has been growing as a great concern to today's society. Yet, these observations and experiments have not been put into effect in society for, they are just a mere baby step in what is to come for the future. They are in the right direction of ways to reduce global warming and when these experiments are perfected and are no harm to society these motions will start taking effect across the world.

1 comment:

  1. Question:
    What exactly would happen if carbon continued to destroy the atmosphere and is there a known date global warming will occur?

    Answer:
    The rising temperatures will cause the icecaps to melt and water levels will rise dramatically. This is the short term problem, but when this happens, the freshwater melted from the icecaps of Greenland will actually stop the Thermo-Haline current which brings warm water/energy to the northern hemisphere. When the warm water stops flowing north then the earth will actually go into the next ice age. So whoever manages to survive the part of global warming most likely won't survive the ice age that follows. There is no set date global warming will actually happen, or if it even will happen. But the evidence is there that this could very well occur if we don't find a way to protect the atmosphere from harmful toxins.

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