Fix nitrogen without chlorophyll

Mysterious microbe plays important role in ocean ecology:
[Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]

An unusual microorganism discovered in the open ocean may force scientists to rethink their understanding of how carbon and nitrogen cycle through ocean ecosystems.

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Nitrogen fixation is necessary for plant life. This report describes a cyanobacteria in the oceans that can fix nitrogen but can not use sunlight to create carbohydrates. DNBA sequencing reveals that it lacks function parts of the photosynthetic system.

So, while they have no idea how it feeds itself, the ability to separate nitrogen fixation from photosynthesis means that this could be a potentially useful organism. It could result in real changes in how the Nitrogen cycle is calculated.

Technorati Tags: Science

The dead Greek sketch

by southtyrolean
Ancient Greeks pre-empted Dead Parrot sketch – Yahoo! News:
[Via http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081114/sc_nm/us_greeks_comedy_1]

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. It’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it.”

For those who believe the ancient Greeks thought of everything first, proof has been found in a 4th century AD joke book featuring an ancestor of Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch where a man returns a parrot to a shop, complaining it is dead.

The 1,600-year-old work entitled “Philogelos: The Laugh Addict,” one of the world’s oldest joke books, features a joke in which a man complains that a slave he has just bought has died, its publisher said on Friday.

“By the gods,” answers the slave’s seller, “when he was with me, he never did any such thing!”

[More]

Nothing new under the heavens. It is really interesting that every culture seems to have the student dunce jokes. Coming from Texas, we had our own.

I wonder if they had a Flying Sheep sketch? Or Argument Clinic? I wonder what the Greek equivalent of Four Yorkshire Men would be?

Technorati Tags: General