The world is running out of phosphorus. And that's a really bad thing
https://cosmosmagazine.com/chemistry/the...-bad-thing
EXCERPT: . . . phosphorus is biologically vital. The average human body contains about 0.5kg of phosphorus, most of it in the form of phosphate to make bones and teeth strong. Phosphorus also crucially holds together DNA and RNA molecules – the backbone of these long chain-like structures contains two phosphate groups per pair of nucleic bases. Without phosphorus, it is hard to imagine any kind of life at all.
Foods rich in phosphorus include various meats, seafood, lentils, beans, nuts and seeds. At the other end of the spectrum, white phosphorus was long used in rat poison. Even more extreme, chemical warfare agents Sarin and VX are phosphorus compounds. Sarin, for example, is 21 times more deadly than potassium cyanide. It’s a great example of how elements occurring in different forms can have both very different appearances and biological effects.
Phosphorus has many other positive traits. Together with nitrogen, phosphates form the basis of the fertilisers used widely in agriculture. There is no substitute for phosphorus in this role; it cannot be replaced by any other element in plants.
This raises an important problem. Supplies of phosphate rock – the only major phosphorus ore – are limited. So much so that phosphorus has been listed among the “endangered elements” where there is a risk to future supply. The problem is that the phosphorus used as fertiliser ends up dissolved in rivers and oceans as soluble phosphate, eventually becoming sediment. Currently there is no economically viable way of recovering it, and scientists predict a shortage within about 30 to 40 years.
This points to the need to develop phosphorus recycling, ideally at the point before it becomes highly diluted in our water streams. So how could this be done? Humans consume 3m tons more phosphorus than they need each year, which is eventually excreted as urine and faeces. Recycling phosphorus from human waste might not sound a very uplifting endeavour, but it will be a golden egg for whoever finds a way to do it.
This raises an interesting point. It is tempting to look with amusement at the way [Hennig] Brand found phosphorus in buckets of urine. It may turn out that with the hindsight of 350 years, he was actually focusing on exactly the best place after all....
MORE (discovery & history of phosphorus): https://cosmosmagazine.com/chemistry/the...-bad-thing
New mathematical model can help save endangered species
https://scienceblog.com/505248/new-mathe...d-species/
EXCERPT: . . . The risk of extinction varies from species to species depending on how individuals in its populations reproduce and how long each animal survives. Understanding the dynamics of survival and reproduction can support management actions to improve a specie’s chances of surviving. Mathematical and statistical models have become powerful tools to help explain these dynamics. However, the quality of the information we use to construct such models is crucial to improve our chances of accurately predicting the fate of populations in nature. “A model that over-simplifies survival and reproduction can give the illusion that a population is thriving when in reality it will go extinct.”, says associate professor Fernando Colchero, author of new paper published in "Ecology Letters".
[...] Two commonly accepted assumptions are that survival and reproduction are constant with age, and that high survival in the species goes hand in hand with reproduction across all age groups within a species. Colchero challenged these assumptions by accounting for age-specific survival and reproduction, and for trade-offs between survival and reproduction. This is, that sometimes conditions that favor survival will be unfavorable for reproduction, and vice versa. For his work Colchero used statistics, mathematical derivations, and computer simulations with data from wild populations of 24 species of vertebrates. The outcome was a significantly improved model that had more accurate predictions for a species’ population growth....
MORE: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...112844.htm
https://cosmosmagazine.com/chemistry/the...-bad-thing
EXCERPT: . . . phosphorus is biologically vital. The average human body contains about 0.5kg of phosphorus, most of it in the form of phosphate to make bones and teeth strong. Phosphorus also crucially holds together DNA and RNA molecules – the backbone of these long chain-like structures contains two phosphate groups per pair of nucleic bases. Without phosphorus, it is hard to imagine any kind of life at all.
Foods rich in phosphorus include various meats, seafood, lentils, beans, nuts and seeds. At the other end of the spectrum, white phosphorus was long used in rat poison. Even more extreme, chemical warfare agents Sarin and VX are phosphorus compounds. Sarin, for example, is 21 times more deadly than potassium cyanide. It’s a great example of how elements occurring in different forms can have both very different appearances and biological effects.
Phosphorus has many other positive traits. Together with nitrogen, phosphates form the basis of the fertilisers used widely in agriculture. There is no substitute for phosphorus in this role; it cannot be replaced by any other element in plants.
This raises an important problem. Supplies of phosphate rock – the only major phosphorus ore – are limited. So much so that phosphorus has been listed among the “endangered elements” where there is a risk to future supply. The problem is that the phosphorus used as fertiliser ends up dissolved in rivers and oceans as soluble phosphate, eventually becoming sediment. Currently there is no economically viable way of recovering it, and scientists predict a shortage within about 30 to 40 years.
This points to the need to develop phosphorus recycling, ideally at the point before it becomes highly diluted in our water streams. So how could this be done? Humans consume 3m tons more phosphorus than they need each year, which is eventually excreted as urine and faeces. Recycling phosphorus from human waste might not sound a very uplifting endeavour, but it will be a golden egg for whoever finds a way to do it.
This raises an interesting point. It is tempting to look with amusement at the way [Hennig] Brand found phosphorus in buckets of urine. It may turn out that with the hindsight of 350 years, he was actually focusing on exactly the best place after all....
MORE (discovery & history of phosphorus): https://cosmosmagazine.com/chemistry/the...-bad-thing
New mathematical model can help save endangered species
https://scienceblog.com/505248/new-mathe...d-species/
EXCERPT: . . . The risk of extinction varies from species to species depending on how individuals in its populations reproduce and how long each animal survives. Understanding the dynamics of survival and reproduction can support management actions to improve a specie’s chances of surviving. Mathematical and statistical models have become powerful tools to help explain these dynamics. However, the quality of the information we use to construct such models is crucial to improve our chances of accurately predicting the fate of populations in nature. “A model that over-simplifies survival and reproduction can give the illusion that a population is thriving when in reality it will go extinct.”, says associate professor Fernando Colchero, author of new paper published in "Ecology Letters".
[...] Two commonly accepted assumptions are that survival and reproduction are constant with age, and that high survival in the species goes hand in hand with reproduction across all age groups within a species. Colchero challenged these assumptions by accounting for age-specific survival and reproduction, and for trade-offs between survival and reproduction. This is, that sometimes conditions that favor survival will be unfavorable for reproduction, and vice versa. For his work Colchero used statistics, mathematical derivations, and computer simulations with data from wild populations of 24 species of vertebrates. The outcome was a significantly improved model that had more accurate predictions for a species’ population growth....
MORE: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...112844.htm