[HN Gopher] Algae that can fix nitrogen - thanks to a tiny cell ...
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Algae that can fix nitrogen - thanks to a tiny cell structure
Author : rntn
Score : 83 points
Date : 2024-04-14 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| adolph wrote:
| Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011438
|
| The source paper:
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk1075
| bugbuddy wrote:
| Can anyone say whether it is possible to have an accident where
| this becomes a runaway process like the Great Oxidation Event?
| jerf wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nitrogen_Fix
| nebben64 wrote:
| that was cool, thanks!
| Cacti wrote:
| Just want to point out, the Great Oxidation Event took 400M
| years.
| MeteorMarc wrote:
| Once nitrogen is not a limiting factor for growth anymore,
| other elements will be, like phosphorus and sulphur.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Given that we're talking about eukaryotes here, you can't just
| sprinkle some modified DNA on it and expect it to start
| executing that code (like you can with bacteria, see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_(genetics) ). So
| patching the organism with the code for the new organelle
| requires some kind of vector, like a virus or CRISPR. If such a
| thing were to be surprisingly widely applicable across species
| and also escape the lap, I suppose it could update more than
| just the desired plant.
|
| Given that some other nutrient would then become the
| bottleneck, I think this would be ok though. You'd just have
| upgraded plant growth, which would mean locking carbon into
| biomass at an increased rate, which might be kinda helpful
| around now.
|
| Would it have unintended consequences? Probably. Would they be
| worse than the unintended consequences of industry? Maybe not.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I suspect what stops this from being a universal feature of
| plants is the energy required to fix nitrogen. A plant is
| better off not trying to do that. Especially since if nitrogen
| is a limit then other nutrients are probably close behind.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| Scientists tell us that when microbes started making O2, they
| changed Earth's atmosphere and triggered nass extinctions.
|
| I wonder what consuming most of the N2 would do?
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Well, if we could fix even a fraction of the Nitrogen, we could
| support a lot more plant life, that's for sure! Oxygen is very
| reactive, Nitrogen, not so much. I don't think the lack of
| Nitrogen would be very noticeable even if it dropped by half.
| Forge36 wrote:
| What would replace it? I'd expect a thinner atmosphere.
| thriftwy wrote:
| _I_ 'd expect the lack of anything that it is made to react
| with.
| robocat wrote:
| Mostly Nitrogen does not constrain growth in natural
| ecosystems. There are plenty of plants that fix nitrogen
| already, and nitrogen fixing plants would dominate an
| ecosystem if Nitrogen were a primary constraint on growth.
| There is plenty of Nitrogen available from the air - the main
| restriction is energy - the second restriction is that plants
| prefer to use most of their available energy on other things.
|
| Nitrogen is important in fertilizer because our farming and
| agriculture is not a natural ecosystem.
| mile3island wrote:
| > There are plenty of plants that fix nitrogen already, and
| nitrogen fixing plants would dominate an ecosystem if
| Nitrogen were a primary constraint on growth.
|
| No plants can fix nitrogen. Hence this research?
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| You said this with such confidence I had to look this up,
| because I am quite familiar with the types of plants
| referred to as "nitrogen fixing plants" such as legumes.
| But here's the answer for anyone else curious:
|
| "Nitrogen fixing plants don't pull nitrogen from the air
| on their own. They actually need help from a common
| bacteria called Rhizobium. The bacteria infects legume
| plants such as peas and beans and uses the plant to help
| it draw nitrogen from the air. The bacteria converts this
| nitrogen gas and stores it in the roots of the plant."
|
| https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-
| fertiliz...
| 00N8 wrote:
| If atmospheric nitrogen dropped by half, I'd imagine the
| effects would be pretty significant for aircraft, birds &
| internal combustion engines. Rocket launches would become
| more efficient (less drag), but reentry would be more
| challenging, w/ less overall drag & proportionally more
| oxidizing effect when aero-braking
|
| Most engines would probably run hotter & weaker w/out as much
| nitrogen to use as a working fluid (maybe we'd compensate for
| this w/ water injection & get even better performance
| though?)
|
| The speed of sound would decease slightly, while the speed
| needed to generate lift at a given altitude would increase.
| This would definitely affect airplanes, e.g. a plane that can
| cruise at 15k feet but not 30k feet might not be able to
| reach 15k feet anymore
| Forge36 wrote:
| Nitrogen is 77% of the atmosphere by weight.
|
| For reference at 1 mile is Denver Colorado (which while
| researching is enough to cause altitude sickness) with 18%
| less atmosphere. Water boils at 200deg F.
|
| If half the nitrogen was gone (38.5% of atmosphere), sea
| level world be equivalent to ~15,000 feet today) water
| would now boil at ~194.3deg F.
| juliangamble wrote:
| There have been several PhD theses on trying to fix nitrogen
| to grow wheat in the dessert. To my knowledge none have been
| successful.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011438
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