Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by egberts1 on Sunday April 21, 2024 @01:04AM
(#40103302)
Or worse, multiple faster than algaes and sucking up all the Nitrogen from thr air.
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Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by yxhuvud on Sunday April 21, 2024 @01:17AM
(#40103337)
Do you realise 70% of the atmosphere is nitrogen? We will not run out of it.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by agos on Sunday April 21, 2024 @09:54AM
(#40105816)
make that 78%
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by __MatrixMan__ on Sunday April 21, 2024 @01:40AM
(#40103409)
Removing the nitrogen bottleneck would let them capture carbon faster. Given our predicament I'd say we should take all the help we get.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by gjytfhbfd on Sunday April 21, 2024 @03:55AM
(#40103935)
Remove too much carbon however and the plants die.
We don't want a Great Decarbonification Event.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by __MatrixMan__ on Sunday April 21, 2024 @01:22PM
(#40107430)
Decaying plants emit carbon. The extra nitrogen would just be changing is the length of the give-your-carbon-back-to-the-atmosphere queue. It's negative feedback: stable.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by adastra22 on Sunday April 21, 2024 @02:25AM
(#40103572)
Nitrogen is inert. Even if you could run out of N2 (unlikely), it would have no effect.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by bonzini on Sunday April 21, 2024 @03:12AM
(#40103763)
Except burning your lungs in the not-so-long run, as they are not evolved to deal with a pure oxygen atmosphere.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by nradov on Sunday April 21, 2024 @12:47PM
(#40107189)
Lungs are damaged by high PPO2, not high FO2.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by adastra22 on Sunday April 21, 2024 @04:16PM
(#40108837)
Lungs do absolutely fine in 3 psi pure oxygen.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by gitanovic on Sunday April 21, 2024 @02:57AM
(#40103703)
That's wrong, the fact that is inert doesn't mean it's useless
If you remove all nitrogen from atmosphere, there WILL be consequences
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by gjytfhbfd on Sunday April 21, 2024 @03:56AM
(#40103940)
Current planes will not be able to fly since they will lose 70% of lift. They will grow gigantic wings.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by gibolt on Sunday April 21, 2024 @04:31AM
(#40104066)
There'd be less drag on rockets too. That could be a plus for when we need to escape the death spiral we create
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by adastra22 on Sunday April 21, 2024 @04:15PM
(#40108835)
The sibling comment about lift is one of the few things I can think of. Birds would have a tough time.
Eliminating a gas while keeping all other partial pressures constant only affects physical processes. Biochemistry on the other hand only relies on partial pressures, and the number of organisms which interact with atmospheric nitrogen are literally so few that you could count them on one hand.
Re:Scientists discover first nitrogen fixing organelle
by pfdietz on Sunday April 21, 2024 @06:51AM
(#40104636)
A photosynthetic organism that fixed more nitrogen than it needed would (1) be at a terrible competitive disadvantage (nitrogen fixation requires a great deal of energy), and (2) would be a source of fixed nitrogen when it died, boosting the growth of other plants that could leech off its efforts.