December 20, 2018 Thursday
Bedtime Story
Primary Production
We may be under the belief that it is only
about the universe that we are ignorant of; but the truth is that we have
extremely poor knowledge about the microbial diversity that are found on land
and more importantly those that inhabit the inaccessible oceans.
For instance life in the deepest of the
oceanic trenches or near the thermal vents on the ocean floors is still under
exploration.
The marine microbial community is not only
incredibly vast and humongously diverse but plays a vital role in the global
eco system driving the changes such as aquatic photosynthesis and recycling of
carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and other trace elements.
Many may not be aware of the fact that
phytoplankton are the most numerous primary producers of the planet.
What do I mean by primary producers or more
correctly primary production?
Primary production is the synthesis of
organic compounds from atmospheric or aqueous carbon dioxide which in other
words is the conversion of energy available in the solar light or photons to
energy in the organic chemical bonds.
It is this primary production that is the
starting point and which eventually feeds almost all life on this planet.
This one single phenomenon explains your (and
mine) banal and insignificant existence on this remote average planet far more
parsimoniously than all the convoluted and mutually incompatible religions that
have ever been imagined by us average apes.
There is something magical about this
process of primary production; just imagine that these guys developed a
machinery to take in photons of the sun and some elements from atmosphere and
combine them with special organic bonds that acts as a battery of sorts for
both the plant eating and meat eating animals of this planet.
We humans have managed to ape this magic of
nature through photovoltaic system (thanks to the French physicist Edmond
Becquerel who at the tender age of 19 created the first voltaic cell and
thereby emulated these autotrophic planktons) but still not been able to exploit
it on a very large commercial scale.
Even today if you study the data of the electric
power generated by us apes and the sources from where it is generated a portion
as large as 67% comes from the fossil fuels.
Among the fossil fuels it is the coal which
forms the largest source of energy provider accounting for 41% of the total
source of energy generators.
In contrast to coal solar photovoltaics
contribute a meager 0.06%.
Having said this it must be told that there
is an extremely wide variation in the source of electrical power generated by
various countries.
For instance while the United States
produces 70% of its electricity through fossil fuels and China as much as 80%
(India should have similar figures give and take a few percentage points)
France on the other hand quite remarkably has lowered this figure to 10%!
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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