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  • 2006
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      • Soil carbon in organic farming systems
        07/28/06
        Organic cropping systems cover less than three percent of farmland area, but acreage devoted to organic agriculture is growing by 12% per year and proceeds are growing by over 20% per year, making organic agriculture the fastest growing segment of US agriculture (Lotter 2003). In order to be certifi

      • The internet and peer review
        07/27/06
        Peer review is a foundation for scientific progression. Just like other interactions between people, it has its problems (cronyism, vendettas, sloth). But when peer review works well, it enables science to move forward conservatively and collectively. Email and the web have streamlined the jobs of

      • An aridity index?
        07/26/06
        Say you were asked to develop an index for aridity - how would you do it? I would use some measure of precipitation relative to evapotranspiration (i.e., water deficit)? What if climate data weren't available? Plant species composition is a good indicator and their photosynthetic pathways (C3 v

      • Earthworms and terra preta soil development
        07/25/06
        The Amazonian black earth - Terra Preta - soils are something of a mystery. They are very rich soils (15%C compared with <2% in surrounding soils) that are unevenly distributed throughout Amazonia. The increased fertility is evident via huge improevments to nutrient supply and retention of added

      • AP Article from 7/24/2034
        07/24/06
        Maldives - The presidents of the Oceanfront Real Estate Professionals Guild and the Small Island Developing States Network jointly announced the formation of a new partnership, the Tropical Resources Expansion and Development Coalition, with the intention of investing $37B to support land conservati

      • Net impact of land cover/use on tropical carbon stocks?
        07/22/06
        We know that land cover change continues to liberate vast amounts of C from biomass to the atmosphere - about 2.2 Pg C yr-1... over 1/3 of that emitted from fossil fuel burning worldwide. However, there are reasons to suspect that C is also being stored in tropical systems - just as in the northern

      • Straight dope on desertification
        07/21/06
        A recent article by Veron et al. (2006) has a very good discussion on the history of desertification assessments and popular press reactions to scientific articles (much of that from an book chapter by Reynolds and Stafford Smith 2002). They explain that desertification is a really inclusive term, m