Soil: The world beneath our feet

Lots of new ideas about plants encouraging bacteria around their roots, I guess this started before gut fauna in animals.

So many things to think about.

This is a great article. I forgot where I read it, but someone basically said that we need to stop treating soil as just dirt.

I have found out through my research that replacing invasive species and lawns with native plants and also composting organic waste, leaves, and twigs and returning that to your lawn are two of the best things a single person or group of persons can do to thwart climate change. Organic material decomposing in landfills generates methane, which is 26 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of its greenhouse effects. Composting organic material generates much, much less methane, and you can use it to return sustenance back to your soil. Instead of taking twigs and leaves and removing it from your property, you can compost them as well and return it back to the soil or also just leave the leaves in some cases. Planting native plants is a big win all around, from soil conditions, to using less or no water or fertilizer, to improving wildlife and pollinator conditions. Additionally, replacing lawns, which should be viewed as wastelands and green deserts, with plants greatly increases carbon capture. These are things that nearly everyone can do literally right now. I've tried finding research, and my current knowledge is that composting could save as much as 8-10% of global emissions and restoring areas with native plants could save as much as 20-30% of global emissions.

A few specific references that I have been using are Nature's Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy, as well as his other books, and the Monarch Gardens project (https://www.monarchgard.com/) by Benjamin Vogt.

It blows my mind that people keep looking for technocratic solutions when we have solutions right in front of us that could be done right now. Take a look around next time you're driving around and just note all the lawn spaces sitting there and doing literally nothing. They could be replaced with native plants with zero negative impact, and it would do wonders for the local ecosystem.

Closed-system farming, where basically everything is recycled - nutrients, water, biomass (except what goes onto people's tables) - is theoretically possible and this article describes what looks like a successful system. This is also the kind of thing you'd need on a large spaceship or Martian colony (where human feces/urine would also need to be recycled).

However, the increase in labor needed shouldn't be underestimated. Some automation is likely possible with advanced robots, but this would mean a much larger fraction of the population would be involved in agriculture, perhaps as much as 10X as are currently employed.

In the cited example in the article, apparently one worker has managed 7 hectares using a closed-system model, if we take 'single-handedly' at face value. In contrast, according to wikipedia, in the USA on average one worker can manage 100 hectares (1 square km) with industrial methods (lots of water and fertilizer wastage).

This would be a pretty radical social restructuring, probably not what most people have in mind when they talk about 'postindustrial society'.

What level of magnification would you consider decent in a microscope?

you really only need 10x or 25x.

https://www.tiktok.com/@madscientistken

This guy does live streams almost nightly and I've found myself entranced more than I'd like to admit.