Synthetic routes towards monodisperse polyhedral liquid-crystalline silsesquioxanes are described. The liquid-crystalline phase behaviour of these structurally uniform materials, with various silsesquioxane core and mesogenic side-chain structures, were analysed and compared with those of related oligomeric and polymeric materials. Common features of the solid-state behaviour of these organic/i...

Sweet potato (Solanum tuberosum), a staple tuber crop in parts of the Sudan and Guinea savanna zone of Nigeria is known for its resistance to drought, vigorous early growth and low input requirements. Increase in population which has resulted to land shortages has led to reduction in traditional methods of maintaining soil fertility. Technologies based on combinations of organic and inorganic s...

Permeable sediments are common across continental shelves and are critical contributors to marine biogeochemical cycling. Organic matter in permeable sediments is dominated by microalgae, which as eukaryotes have different anaerobic metabolic pathways to prokaryotes such as bacteria and archaea. Here we present analyses of flow-through reactor experiments showing that dissolved inorganic carbon...

Airborne suspended particulate matter is an important marker of air quality. The term 'particulates' includes organic and inorganic matter, nitrogen compounds, sulphur compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), several heavy metals, and radionuclides. The health risks from the 'classic' pollutants sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, carbon monoxide, and particulates have been comp...

Explores the life of stone, following its matter-energy as it confounds the boundary between organic and inorganic, art and nature, human and mineral. postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (2010) 1, 56–63 doi:10.1057/pmed.2009.1; published online 9 February 2010 Reality is a single matter-energy undergoing phase transitions of various kinds y Rocks and winds, germs and words, are...

Remote lakes are usually unaffected by direct human influence, yet they receive inputs of atmospheric pollutants, dust, and other aerosols, both inorganic and organic. In remote, alpine lakes, these atmospheric inputs may influence the pool of dissolved organic matter, a critical constituent for the biogeochemical functioning of aquatic ecosystems. Here, to assess this influence, we evaluate fa...

In this study we develop a secondary inorganic aerosol (SIA) module for the MOCAGE chemistry transport model developed at CNRM. The aim is to have a module suitable for running at different model resolutions and for operational applications with reasonable computing times. Based on the ISORROPIA II thermodynamic equilibrium module, the new version of the model is presented and evaluated at both...

This is a report on a limited evaluation of the low altitude Airborne Visible and Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) data, for identifying soil salinity and organic matter concentrations in soils using specific spectral bands cited in the literature. This study is part of a larger investigation for using AVIRIS as the image data layer in developing terrain models to simulate the content and...

The permanent ice covers of Antarctic lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys develop liquid water inclusions in response to solar heating of internal aeolian-derived sediments. The ice sediment particles serve as nutrient (inorganic and organic)-enriched microzones for the establishment of a physiologically and ecologically complex microbial consortium capable of contemporaneous photosynthesis, nitro...

The spontaneous increase of complexity in nature from the formation of elements, followed by the formation of compounds, both inorganic and organic, leading to the emergence of life -from a single cell to multi-cellular organisms -and the later formation of communities followed by the emergence of new technologies where complex structures are created by a humans is probably the most important p...