To finish up the microbial marvels, I want to go over a couple of cool things about their research. But first let's review the carbon cycle and how humans are impacting it.
If you remember the diagram from yesterday, you will notice that the natural flow of carbon exchange is pretty even. For example, the process of photosynthesis takes in about 120 billion metric tons of carbon. At the same time plant respiration releases about 60 billion metric tons of carbon and microbial respiration and decomposition releases about 60 billion metric tons also. So it's an even exchange. But...how much did you notice humans dumping into the atmosphere? Do you see the red 9? That means roughly 9 billion metric tons per year. In the U.S. there are approximately 314 million people. When you look at oil consumption, which is through many, many ways - transport, using materials which used oil to make them, etc., it averages out to 2.5 gallons per person per day. This country emits roughly 5.4 metric tons of carbon per person which totalled comes out to 1.5 gigatons per year. A gigaton is a billion tons. A lot. 16% of global carbon emissions. The excess carbon in the atmosphere is a cause for concern from a number of angles. In terms of marine study - the oceans are a huge carbon sink. We talked about this in an earlier journal. The CO2 enters the water and the chemical reaction creates carbonic acid.
Back to the research on microbes. I want to introduce you to the flow cytometer. An amazing piece of technology that counts and analyzes individual cells. Remember the gadget that Theresa Grove used that measured the oxygen consumption? Well, the flow cytometer is equally impressive. This counts and sorts cells and detects specific markers that help to identify the cell and the proteins within. It basically suspends a cell in a stream of extremely pure water and passes a laser through it to detect all sorts of physical and chemical characteristics of the cell. And it can analyze thousands of particles in a single second. As you may have guessed, this device is used in health care and disease detection as well.
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