A bacterium has been discovered that can substitute arsenic for phosphorus in fundamental life chemistry.
Marine dead zones form when nitrogen and phosphorus pollution concentrates in near-coast waters through a process called eutrophication.
Once white phosphorus is released into the air it rapidly oxidizes. The interaction creates heat and produces a yellow flame and thick white smoke.
Each contains at least some so-called bright dust or soil that has proved to contain much sulfur, chlorine and phosphorus along with the typical ferric oxide that gives Mars its red tinge.
A stick of phosphorus fell on the floor.
Life on Earth requires six basic ingredients-carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus.
It would also take a huge quantity of water and phosphorus fertilizers, resources we are straining to their limits.
But it might be time to update that list. Because scientists have found a bacterium that can do without phosphorus-live on arsenic instead.
No animal or plant can exist without phosphorus.
When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow.
Recent high-precision measurements have shown that phosphorus-the critical energy carrier in all known forms of Earth life-is equally abundant in such patches of Martian dirt.
With crops that rely on phosphorus, he's breeding shallow roots, since phosphorus is typically found in topsoil.
"Such high levels of correlation between phosphorus and sulfur can likely only be obtained under acidic conditions," they note.
But phosphorus is a different story.
Apart from poisoning the catalytic converter and reducing its useful life, zinc and phosphorus mixed in with the exhaust gases add to the motor industry's emissions woes.
Animals end up excreting the phosphorus, which pollutes the ground and water.
The results show that with strong phosphorus immobilization capabilities, forest soils can immobilize a great amount of applied phosphorus.
"manufacturing processes involving the use of arsenic, lead, manganese, mercury, phosphorus, or any compound of any of them [dangerous trade]"
And the phosphorus glow.
Article 31 It is forbidden to discharge or dump into any water body or directly bury deadly toxic soluble slag, tailings, etc. containing such substances as mercury, cadmium, arsenic, chromium, lead, cyanide and yellow phosphorus.
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