World's Largest Organism - Humongous Mushroom

Very strange!

clipped from www.sciam.com The blue whale is big, but nowhere near as huge as a sprawling fungus in eastern Oregon HIDDEN GIANT:  A small outcropping of honey mushrooms on the surface hide the largest known organism on Earth, a fungus infesting the woods of eastern Oregon. occupies some 2,384 acres (965 hectares) of soil in Oregon's Blue Mountains. Put another way, this humongous fungus would encompass 1,665 football fields, or nearly four square miles (10 square kilometers) of turf. he fungus is estimated to be 2,400 years old but could be as ancient as 8,650 years, The team paired fungal samples in petri dishes to see if they fused (see photo below), a sign that they were from the same genetic individual, and used DNA fingerprinting to determine where one individual fungus ended. A. ostoyae, causes Armillaria root disease, which kills swaths of conifers in many parts of the U.S. and Canada An Armillaria individual consists of a network of hyphae

Richat Structure, Mauritania

Photo clipped from Live Science Image Collection: Earth as Art.

clipped from www.livescience.com LiveScience Image Gallery Richat Stucture, Mauritania Astronauts often note this prominent circular feature, known as the Richat Structure, in the Sahara desert of Mauritania because it forms a conspicuous 50-kilometer-wide (30-mile-wide) bull's-eye on the otherwise rather featureless expanse of the desert. Initially mistaken for a possible impact crater, it is now known to be an eroded circular anticline (structural dome) of layered sedimentary rocks. Extensive sand dunes occur in this region and the interaction of bedrock topography, wind, and moving sand is evident in this scene. Note especially how the dune field ends abruptly short of the cliffs at the far right as wind from the northeast (lower right) apparently funnels around the cliff point, sweeping clean areas near the base of the cliff.

Biofuel Production May Exacerbate Water Crisis

clipped from www.sciencedaily.com President Bush called for the production of 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017, which would equal about 15 percent of the U.S. liquid transportation fuels National Research Council committee was convened to look at how shifts in the nation's agriculture to include more energy crops, and potentially more crops overall, could affect water management and long-term sustainability of biofuel production gricultural shifts to growing corn and expanding biofuel crops into regions with little agriculture, especially dry areas, could change current irrigation practices and greatly increase pressure on water resources quality of groundwater, rivers, and coastal and offshore waters could be impacted by increased fertilizer and pesticide use for biofuels High levels of nitrogen in stream flows are a major cause of low-oxygen or "hypoxic" regions, commonly known as "dead zones," which are lethal for most living creatures