QUANTITY OF LIVING PLANT MATERIALS IN PRAIRIE SOILS IN RELATION TO RUN-OFF AND SOIL EROSION

The menace of soil erosion did not appear in the west until much of the prairie was broken for cropping or weakened by continuous overgrazing. The grassland sod is a great conserver of rainfall; the amount of run-off water is relatively small, and the soil is firmly held against the forces of erosion. This study is concerned with the role that the living underground plant parts play in promoting the absorption of water by the soil, and especially their importance in reducing run-off. Their holding of the soil against the forces of water erosion has been experimentally determined. A study of the quantity of living plant materials in native prairies and pastures near Lincoln, Nebraska, has just been completed. These materials-largely the underground parts of grasses-are composed of roots, rhizomes, and the bases of stems. In the case of non-grassy species or forbs, they sometimes include corms, bulbs, and certain other underground plant structures. The relation of the vegetation to the effectiveness of the precipitation in supplying water to the soil is one of great importance. When the fate of the water falling as drops of rain is studied, it is found that a part is intercepted by the vegetation and never reaches the soil. Much water is lost as run-off when absorption is not sufficiently rapid. This frequently results in erosion. Large amounts are absorbed by the soil and again used by the plant, especially when the vegetation has produced good soil structure and abundant humus. Some water may percolate beyond the depths of the roots of even the most deeply rooted species. The cover of vegetation and the amount of living and dead organic materials in the soil both play an extremely important role in all of these processes. Although this study is not concerned primarily with the effects of the cover of vegetation on soil water relations, yet plant cover is closely related to quantity of underground plant parts and to run-off. Hence, brief consideration will be given to the interception of rainfall, decrease in run-off, and promotion of absorption by the cover of vegetation

NBS monograph

From Abstract: "Revised reference data for thermocouples have been generated in a cooperative program between groups of the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder and Gaithersburg.This Monograph contains tables, analytic expressions, various approximations, and explanatory text

Spectral and Timing Evolution of the Black Hole X-ray Nova 4U 1543-47 During its 2002 Outburst

We present an X-ray spectral and timing analysis of 4U 1543-47 during its 2002 outburst based on 49 pointed observations obtained using the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The outburst reached a peak intensity of 4.2 Crab in the 2-12 keV band and declined by a factor of 32 throughout the month-long observation. A 21.9 +- 0.6 mJy radio flare was detected at 1026.75 MHz two days before the X-ray maximum; the radio source was also detected late in the outburst, after the X-ray source entered the low hard state. The X-ray light curve exhibits the classic shape of a rapid rise and an exponential decay. The spectrum is soft and dominated by emission from the accretion disk. The continuum is fit with a multicolor disk blackbody (kT_{max} = 1.04 keV) and a power-law (Gamma ~ 2.7). Midway through the decay phase, a strong low-frequency QPO (nu = 7.3-8.1 Hz) was present for several days. The spectra feature a broad Fe K alpha line that is asymmetric, suggesting that the line is due to relativistic broadening rather than Comptonization. Relativistic Laor models provide much better fits to the line than non-relativistic Gaussian models, particularly near the beginning and end of our observations. The line fits yield estimates for the inner disk radius that are within 6 R_g; this result and additional evidence indicates that this black hole may have a non-zero angular momentum.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 17 pages, 10 figures, uses emulateapj.cls and apjfonts.st

Variable water input controls evolution of the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc

Oceanic lithosphere carries volatiles, notably water, into the mantle through subduction at convergent plate boundaries. This subducted water exercises control on the production of magma, earthquakes, formation of continental crust and mineral resources. Identifying different potential fluid sources (sediments, crust and mantle lithosphere) and tracing fluids from their release to the surface has proved challenging1. Atlantic subduction zones are a valuable endmember when studying this deep water cycle because hydration in Atlantic lithosphere, produced by slow spreading, is expected to be highly non-uniform2. Here, as part of a multi-disciplinary project in the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc3, we studied boron trace element and isotopic fingerprints of melt inclusions. These reveal that serpentine—that is, hydrated mantle rather than crust or sediments—is a dominant supplier of subducted water to the central arc. This serpentine is most likely to reside in a set of major fracture zones subducted beneath the central arc over approximately the past ten million years. The current dehydration of these fracture zones coincides with the current locations of the highest rates of earthquakes and prominent low shear velocities, whereas the preceding history of dehydration is consistent with the locations of higher volcanic productivity and thicker arc crust. These combined geochemical and geophysical data indicate that the structure and hydration of the subducted plate are directly connected to the evolution of the arc and its associated seismic and volcanic hazards

Finding Our Way through Phenotypes

Despite a large and multifaceted effort to understand the vast landscape of phenotypic data, their current form inhibits productive data analysis. The lack of a community-wide, consensus-based, human- and machine-interpretable language for describing phenotypes and their genomic and environmental contexts is perhaps the most pressing scientific bottleneck to integration across many key fields in biology, including genomics, systems biology, development, medicine, evolution, ecology, and systematics. Here we survey the current phenomics landscape, including data resources and handling, and the progress that has been made to accurately capture relevant data descriptions for phenotypes. We present an example of the kind of integration across domains that computable phenotypes would enable, and we call upon the broader biology community, publishers, and relevant funding agencies to support efforts to surmount today's data barriers and facilitate analytical reproducibility

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 15

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]