Earth Research Articles

Shock-induced dissociation of soda-lime glass and the formation of single crystals of quartz and polycrystalline silicon

Amorphous soda-lime glass was subjected to shock induced loading with velocities of the impactor ∼10 km/s. The recovered sample was analyzed using high resolution x-ray diffraction and cross-polarized microscopy. The recovered samples were in form of aggregate consisting of the crystalline phases, polycrystalline alpha quartz, and silicon, which were identified in x-ray diffraction scans. We demonstrate high velocity impacts result in the transformation of amorphous glass to single crystalline quartz as a alpha-phase, and shock induced dissociation of silica into Si. In addition, a trace amount of tetragonal stishovite phase, which is extremely hard high-pressure phase of silicon dioxide, has been observed. This provides a new insight in understanding materials transformation behavior under extreme conditions. This will also contribute to our understanding of astronomical phenomenon, including meteorite and asteroid impacts on Earth and Earth-like planets.

Transient wave activity in snow avalanches is controlled by entrainment and topography

Waves are omnipresent in avalanches on Earth and other planets. The dynamic nature of waves makes them dangerous in geological hazards such as debris flows, turbidity currents, lava flows, and snow avalanches. Extensive research on granular waves has been carried out by using theoretical and numerical approaches with idealized assumptions. However, the mechanism of waves in realistic complex situations remains intangible, as it is notoriously difficult to capture complex granular waves on real terrain. Here, we leverage a recently developed hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian numerical scheme and an elastoplastic constitutive model to investigate the processes involved in waves of snow avalanches, including erosion, deposition, and flow instability induced by terrain irregularity. This enables us to naturally simulate roll-waves, erosion-deposition waves, and their transitions in a single large-scale snow avalanche on real terrain. Simulated wave features show satisfactory consistency with field data obtained with different radar technologies. Based on a dimensionless analysis, the wave mechanics is not only controlled by the Froude number and local topography but also by the mass of the wave which governs the entrainment propensity. This study offers new insights into wave mechanisms of snow avalanches and provides a novel and promising pathway for exploring transient waves in granular mass movements.

Climate Change and Poultry Production - A review

Climate changes are one of the most significant aspects, which cause a threat to all human beings living on the planet Earth. Climate shifts may result from enduring human modifications, from internal natural processes to external pressures. People's diets are significantly influenced by chickens because many of them substitute poultry for red meat. Additionally, eggs are a highly nutrient-dense food item that is widely consumed globally. Despite the fact that the poultry industry is one of the most developed in the world, there is a misconception that it has little effect on global potential warming because, in contrast to ruminants, their digestive processes do not produce methane. Global warming and climate change have been demonstrated to have a significant impact on the chicken production subsector, despite the industry's little Greenhouse gas emission. One of the most significant environmental factors affecting poultry production globally is heat. Heat stress causes laying hens and broilers to suffer from decreased growth and egg production as well as diminished poultry and egg quality and safety. There is need to campaign to poultry farmers on how to reduce the effects of seasonal fluctuations on poultry production. Extension managers and other development organizations need to educate the poultry farmers more about the effects posed by seasonal fluctuations on poultry production. One way is to put energy-efficient systems, like solar power and energy-saving technologies, into place. Water management strategies that reduce the effects of water scarcity include rainwater collection and effective irrigation.

Reliability of LoRaWAN Communications in Mining Environments: A Survey on Challenges and Design Requirements

While a robust and reliable communication network for monitoring the mining environment in a timely manner to take care of people, the planet Earth and profits is key, the mining environment is very challenging in terms of achieving reliable wireless transmission. This survey therefore investigates the reliability of LoRaWAN communication in the mining environment, identifying the challenges and design requirements. Bearing in mind that LoRaWAN is an IoT communication technology that has not yet been fully deployed in mining, the survey incorporates an investigation of LoRaWAN and other mining IoT communication technologies to determine their records of reliability, strengths and weaknesses and applications in mining. This aspect of the survey gives insight into the requirements of future mining IoT communication technologies and where LoRaWAN can be deployed in both underground and surface mining. Specific questions that the survey addresses are: (1) What is the record of reliability of LoRaWAN in mining environments? (2) What contributions have been made with regard to LoRa/LoRaWAN communication in general towards improving reliability? (3) What are the challenges and design requirements of LoRaWAN reliability in mining environments? (4) What research opportunities exist for achieving LoRaWAN communication in mining environments? In addition to recommending open research opportunities, the lessons learnt from the survey are also outlined.

Possible Motivations for Christians to Preserve Creation

Three different aspects are presented that can motivate people to work for the preservation of creation. All three motivations are closely linked to Christianity, so that Christianity could become the key to solve the global problems. The three motivations are 1) the admiration and the praise of creation, 2) the personal relationship with the God of Christianity and 3) the planet Earth is precious because of Jesus Christ. The third motivation results from the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Every suffering and death of every human being and every other living being gets its meaning, value and redemption through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is explained using the keywords enabling, participation, solidarity and resurrection. This salvation event took place on this planet and the Creator of the universe became a human being, a creature of this planet. Through this, all human beings, but also all the other living beings on Earth and even the entire planet Earth are sanctified in an extraordinary way. In this way, all living beings on Earth and the entire planet have an inalienable dignity and a supreme value that is established, defended and restored by the Creator of the universe.

Metaversal sustainability: conceptualisation within the sustainable tourism paradigm

Purpose This paper aims to address the novel phenomenon of tourism in the metaverse and analyse possible scenarios that could influence the resilience of a sustainable tourism paradigm in response to this new phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach Based on Kuhn’s paradigmatic framework, this paper offers an innovative perspective for the integration of new theories and practise-relevant phenomena. It emphasises the relevance and commensurability of different paradigmatic dimensions and outlines the scenarios for the integration of metaversal sustainability. Findings The phenomenon of tourism in the metaverse of the 21st century poses a new challenge to the existing paradigm of sustainable tourism, which traditionally focuses on the economic and ecological sustainability of planet Earth’s physical environment. The adoption of a metaversal sustainability scenario for the virtual and mixed reality is key to a responsible implementation of the paradigm of sustainable tourism development that considers all its environments, whether fantastic or realistic. Research limitations/implications This study has its limitations, as metaversal tourism is still in the experimental phase. A more comprehensive understanding of the metaverse and its terminology is still evolving. There is potential to adapt the sustainable tourism paradigm to new technological environments if the metaverse is recognized as one in the future. Practical implications There are practical implications for tourism policy and practise. Tourism stakeholders need to adapt to the changing tourism landscape by recognising the metaverse as a viable environment committed to sustainable development. This will enable innovative strategies to govern, lead, promote and manage metaversal tourism and ensure that it is in line with the long-term goal of sustainability. Social implications The metaverse holds considerable potential for transforming social perception and behaviour. Integrating the metaverse into the sustainability pillars of the sustainable development paradigm implies a forward-looking approach that takes into account the dynamics of people’s evolving desires and preferences. This inclusion advocates for sustainable development in all environments in which people live and explore. Originality/value This research stands out for its pioneering role in advancing a sustainable tourism paradigm that goes beyond the traditional planetary dimensions. By examining the impact of tourism in the metaverse, it proposes a path towards a more holistic and future-oriented paradigm of sustainable tourism in both the physical and virtual worlds. The coining of the term “metaversal sustainability” contributes to the lexicon of paradigms for both tourism and societal sustainable development.

Unlocking the Secrets of the Onion Genome: A Path to Sustainable Onion Production

Onion is a vegetable plant with high nutritional and biological value, which is why it is an essential food in the human diet. The annual production of onions in Serbia is about 30 thousand tons, with an increasing tendency to grow. A similar trend is observed worldwide, bearing in mind that every year, it is necessary to produce about 800,000 tons more onions to match the production with the increase in the global population of people on planet Earth.

Puisi media penanaman nilai-nilai karakter: suatu kajian ekologi sastra

Ecological literature is an approach or method used to understand the relationship between ecology and literature. Literature connects human life with the surrounding natural environment. The focus of the study is how literature parses its environment so that it can be a concern for its readers that the natural environment is an ecosystem for human life so that it needs to be maintained and or preserved. The poems that are the object of study in this research are poems that have ecological literary nuances. The ecological literature referred to in this study is poetry that talks about the sea. The sea as a vast source of livelihood, so the poet is interested in writing in his work so that readers understand about the sea as one of the ecosystems that is very urgent in the life of mankind in the universe or on this planet earth. To reveal the character values of the selected poems, an ecological approach to literature is used.

Delivery of Organic Matter to the Early Earth

The inner Solar System—including the planet Earth—was heavily bombarded by comets, asteroids, and their fragments (i.e., meteorites, micrometeorites, and interplanetary dust particles) from 4.56 to about 3.5 billion years ago. This bombardment resulted in a rich assortment of organics delivered to the Earth, as comets and many asteroids contain carbonaceous material. These organic compounds were likely further processed on the early Earth (e.g., by impact-shock reactions), providing a feedstock of prebiotic molecules to the crust and oceans. In this chapter, we review the mechanisms of organic matter delivery to the primitive Earth, further reactions and processing, and the importance of exogenous material in the evolution of our planet and life.

Future of Planet Earth and its Humanity based on the Experience of Three Extraterrestrial Humanities

The BIFL function of the brain refers to the biointeraction that it has with that universe, which is confirmed in current events such as dreams, relaxation, intuitions, and other events.

Keeping the health of our home planet in mind as we do research

ABSTRACT Climate change stood out as an important ethical issue that is contemplated, at least among early-stage researchers, in Buedo and colleagues’ collected views on ethical issues in preclinical research. It is about time that all scientists and researchers, young or old, to stand to be accountable for our contributions toward environmental crises in our work, and conversely to think about how these crises could be mitigated by our research.

Civilized Global North versus rebellious Global South: a socio-semiotic analysis of media visual discourse

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the ideological, social, economic, and political aspects of life on planet Earth. This study examines the visuals associated with COVID-19 published in Pakistani English newspapers. Visual data were collected through purposive sampling, analyzed using social semiotic theory, and discussed through a post-colonial lens. The visual data were grouped as Global South and North owing to socioeconomic and political categorization among countries. The results show that the Pakistani media portrayed the Global South as rebellious, miserable, and noisy against the government. However, the Global North is depicted as civilized, stress-free, and abiding by all the instructions of the authority. Analysis shows that the two realms are visually represented as remarkably divergent from each other, and media portrayal has attached stereotypes identities to the nations. Pakistani media follows a basic restricted code of conduct, which should be extended to avoid labelling and politicizing groups and nations.

The distributional impacts of high speed rail: Evidence from China

This paper develops a spatial general equilibrium framework to study the distributional impacts of high-speed rail (HSR) construction. HSR does not directly lower the trade costs but lowers the travel costs among cities. This encourages firms to gain larger market share in the destination city, and export to more distant markets. We estimate the matrix of travel costs among 279 prefectural-level Chinese cities by taking into account the real world geography. The model is calibrated to the Chinese economy to match stylized facts since 2005. We show that the improvements of passenger networks lead to higher inter-regional trade and increase the total real income by 3:07 percent. The cities unconnected to HSR are also found to enjoy income gain from the HSR construction. HSR construction directs more people to work in the inland region. Both labor mobility and international trade serve to amplify the income growth from HSR construction.

Bowling for Better: Reforming World Geography Bowl to Create a More Inclusive Geography

Since 1993, the World Geography Bowl (WGB) has been a part of the fabric of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), with competitions happening at nearly all AAG regional and national meetings. Initially intended as a way of encouraging attendance and participation by undergraduates and geographers at non-research-intensive universities, today the competition exhibits problematic understandings of how best to create community and foster future generations of geographers. In this article, we briefly recount our experiences with the WGB and explore how aspects of the WGB’s operations reinforce many of the same problematic aspects of the discipline that many geographers seek to dismantle as geographers. We outline some of the issues with the WGB as it is currently constructed and propose several ways it could be reformed toward a more inclusive community-building activity. Given the appropriate reform, we conclude that the WGB can serve as an important part of the discipline’s framework and social reproduction.

The legacy of terrestrial plant evolution on cell wall fine structure.

The evolution of land flora was an epochal event in the history of planet Earth. The success of plants, and especially flowering plants, in colonizing all but the most hostile environments required multiple mechanisms of adaptation. The mainly polysaccharide-based cell walls of flowering plants, which are indispensable for water transport and structural support, are one of the most important adaptations to life on land. Thus, development of vasculature is regarded as a seminal event in cell wall evolution, but the impact of further refinements and diversification of cell wall compositions and architectures on radiation of flowering plant families is less well understood. We approached this from a glyco-profiling perspective and, using carbohydrate microarrays and monoclonal antibodies, studied the cell walls of 287 plant species selected to represent important evolutionary dichotomies and adaptation to a variety of habitats. The results support the conclusion that radiation of flowering plant families was indeed accompanied by changes in cell wall fine structure and that these changes can obscure earlier evolutionary events. Convergent cell wall adaptations identified by our analyses do not appear to be associated with plants with similar lifestyles but that are taxonomically distantly related. We conclude that cell wall structure is linked to phylogeny more strongly than to habitat or lifestyle and propose that there are many approaches of adaptation to any given ecological niche.

Advanced Placement Human Geography Exam Participation and Performance in Texas School Districts

Texas is the state with the largest number of students taking the Advanced Placement (AP) Human Geography exam. State policy allows schools to offer AP Human Geography in ninth grade as a substitute for the on-level World Geography Studies course. AP’s growth in Texas has been driven by state policy that financially incentivizes students, teachers, and schools to participate in the program. This article examines changes in the geographic distribution of AP Human Geography course offerings and exam results in school districts across the state. Using data provided by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), AP Human Geography exam participation rates and scores were mapped for the period from 2014 to 2019. The results show the number of districts with low rates of qualifying scores has increased in each participation category with fifty-seven additional low-qualifying districts in 2019 compared to 2014. Racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps exist in many schools, calling into question the inequitable impacts of the state’s AP incentives and the practice of using AP Human Geography as a warmup AP course. Texas school districts should improve the preparation of students for advanced course work. Researchers can further explore district-level AP participation and performance through case studies and other methods.

All roads lead to Rome: Cyclic di-GMP differentially regulates extracellular electron transfer in <i>Geobacter</i> biofilms

<p>Microbial extracellular electron transfer (EET) in dissimilatory metal-reducing microorganisms (DMRMs) is a widespread biological process and is involved in biogeochemical cycling of a variety of elements on the planet of Earth. However, the regulatory networks controlling such important process have been under-investigated. Here, we reported that the intracellular messenger bis-(3��-5��) cyclic dimeric guanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP) signaling network controls EET in <i>Geobacter sulfurreducens</i>. The low and high levels of c-di-GMP both improved EET in <i>G. sulfurreducens</i> electrode-respiring biofilms by differentially regulating the expression of EET-associated genes. In particular, we found that a low c-di-GMP level reduced the formation of the anode biofilm but enhanced EET by upregulating the transcription of all known nanowire genes (i.e., <i>pilA</i>, <i>omcS</i>, <i>omcZ</i> and <i>omcE</i>). Upregulated <i>omcZ</i> transcription was further determined to play a decisive role in improving EET. Given that c-di-GMP is present in diverse DMRMs, this study substantially expands our understanding of the regulatory role of c-di-GMP signaling and the varied strategies for efficient EET employed by DMRMs. In addition to be fundamentally significant to understand microbe-mineral and microbe-microbe interactions driven by EET, it is also instructive to develop effective engineered microbial systems for practical applications.</p>

The potential use of Pseudomonas in terrestrial and space agriculture.

In the last few years, there has been an increasing interest in solutions for sustainable agriculture to reduce negative impacts on the environment resulting from modern agricultural practices. The use of environmentally beneficial bacteria, like Pseudomonas, which can increase plant productivity by reducing growth time, is a promising opportunity for sustainable agriculture. Pseudomonas is a gram-negative bacterium genus, commonly present in soils, plants, and irrigation water. Pseudomonas has a wide range of metabolic routes that could benefit agriculture, such as nutrient uptake, pathogen suppression, heavy metal solubilization, drought tolerance, and high salt concentration tolerance. Pseudomonas may even be proposed as a potential tool for future agriculture on other planets, where the use of microorganisms would be essential for crop development in hostile and inhospitable environments. Hence, the present review discusses the potential use of Pseudomonas in sustainable agriculture on planet Earth and potentially on Mars, highlighting its role in plant growth enhancement and plant protection from pathogenic microorganisms.

Solar Tracking for Automation of Irrigation System

Solar energy is considered the most important form of renewable energy resource, as the sun is the main source of energy for our planet Earth. Solar tracking makes sure the sun’s rays are always projected at an angle perpendicular to the solar panel. The main aim of our project is to increase the quantity of energy generated from the solar panel by using an automated Solar tracking system to capture the maximum radiation of the sun i.e., the maximum intensity of the sun’s rays. Our proposed system consists of the development of an automated water pumping system with the help of solar tracking. The proposed method increases efficiency. The power generated from a solar panel is stored in a battery and the power is sent to the water pump only when the soil is dry, this happens with the help of a soil moisture sensor. The solar panel rotates with the help of a DC motor and light-dependent resistor sensors. This is a low-cost project with the embedded system to produce electrical energy from the solar panels by using a microcontroller and sensors light-dependent resistors, where the power required for the automation of the tracking system and the working of the microcontroller is given by the electrical energy which is produced from the sun itself. In rural areas where there are several power cuts, this project can be very useful for the supply of water where the required power is given to the motor from the battery which is charged by the solar panel from its maximum intensity of light which can be tracked by the tracking system.

New ethics as a reaction to globalization

Topicality. In the modern geopolitical space, the most urgent issue is the national security of individual states in the conditions of various forms of geopolitical expansion. Ukraine is at the epicenter of these extremely difficult conditions. The national security of our country is under threat. Socio-political forecasts and globalization processes point to the reformatting of the consciousness not only of an individual nation, but also of the entire world society. The cultures of the peoples of the entire planet Earth are under the powerful influence of globalization processes. The purpose of the article is to analyze the expected and unexpected changes that we will receive as a result of this large-scale and multifaceted process. especially the emergence of new ethics as a reaction to globalization. Therefore, the main tasks are to determine the possible interpretations of globalization processes in the conditions of geopolitical expansion, the main manipulative components: politics, economy, mass culture, mass media; analysis of consequential phenomena, such as: deformed consciousness of individuals and society as a whole, crisis of self-understanding in the globalized world, risks of loss of identity. As a result of the research, it was found that we associate the emergence of new narratives, norms, and prescriptions with the emergence of new ethics, which will become the main regulator within the limits of civilized globalization. As a conclusion, it can be argued that the most important problem remains the place of man and his relationships in the world of total globalization.