In certain trees, soils can form along branches and can support varied plant and animal life. However, what conditions these ‘canopy soils’ form in, and what kind of biodiversity they support, has ...

In the multicellular soil bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor, some cells start producing lots of antibiotics after mutations delete big chunks of their genomes. Now a computer model has helped to ...

Soils produce more than 95% of the food we eat. We depend upon them for our food and the clothes on our back but they are so much more than natural factories. For one thing, they act as an important ...

You can learn a lot about your soil by simply running it through your fingers. Healthy soil is the key to growing a beautiful and thriving garden. Building and nourishing the soil begins with getting ...

Manures, organic residuals (e.g., biosolids, food processing wastes), and many commercial fertilizers available to producers contain nitrogen (N). Nitrogen is an important plant nutrient that is often ...

Strange, regularly repeating stone patterns that sometimes form in cold settings are generated by needles of ice that push soil particles and stones slowly around. This is the conclusion of an ...

A study on 'canopy soils' on old trees in Costa Rica shows they are important habitats and carbon stores that cannot easily be replaced. In certain trees, soils can form along branches and can support ...