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Fool's gold may prove an unlikely alternative to overexploited catalytic materials

Catalytic materials, which lower the energy barriers for chemical reactions, are used in everything from the commercial production of chemicals to catalytic converters in car engines. However, with current catalytic materials ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Feb 10, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (8) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Great Barrier Reef hopes on ice in Aussie Outback

The arid plains fringing Australia's desert centre are more suited to camels than blooms of coral but here, hundreds of miles from the coast, a piece of the Great Barrier Reef has been put on ice.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 25, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

New study sheds light on evolutionary origin of oxygen-based cellular respiration

Researchers at the RIKEN SPring-8 Center in Harima, Japan, have clarified the crystal structure of quinol dependent nitric oxide reductase (qNOR), a bacterial enzyme that offers clues on the origins of our ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Jan 22, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Findings prove Miscanthus x giganteus has great potential as an alternative energy source

Concerns about the worldwide energy supply and national, environmental and economic security have resulted in a search for alternative energy sources. A new University of Illinois study shows Miscanthus x ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jan 19, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 3

Hong Kong clean air targets fail to impress

Environmentalists on Wednesday expressed disappointment at new clean-air targets for Hong Kong, as research showed pollution-related illnesses killed more than 3,000 residents a year.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 18, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Solutions for a nitrogen-soaked world

Nitrogen is both an essential nutrient and a pollutant, a byproduct of fossil fuel combustion and a fertilizer that feeds billions, a benefit and a hazard, depending on form, location, and quantity. Agriculture, industry ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 17, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Acid rain poses a previously unrecognized threat to Great Lakes sugar maples

(PhysOrg.com) -- The number of sugar maples in Upper Great Lakes forests is likely to decline in coming decades, according to University of Michigan ecologists and their colleagues, due to a previously unrecognized ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jan 16, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Team finds natural reasons behind nitrogen-rich forests

(PhysOrg.com) -- Many tropical forests are extremely rich in nitrogen even when there are no farms or industries nearby, says Montana State University researcher Jack Brookshire.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jan 16, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Researchers discover particle which could 'cool the planet'

In a breakthrough paper published in Science, researchers from The University of Manchester, The University of Bristol and Sandia National Laboratories report the potentially revolutionary effects of Criegee biradicals.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jan 12, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (19) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

New chemical reaction holds promise for drug development

A team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has devised a new method for making complex molecules. The reaction they have come up with should enable chemists to synthesize new ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Jan 12, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Soil microbiologists discover Aberdeen microbe of global agricultural significance

(PhysOrg.com) -- Organisms that oxidise ammonia were first discovered in 1890. Although a natural process, a major consequence of the activities of such organisms in soil is the transformation and loss of ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jan 10, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

'Poop to power' program turns pig manure into sustainable energy

The nearly 9,000 hogs at Loyd Ray Farms in Yadkin County, N.C., produce 400,000 gallons of manure every week. Since the waste had too high a nitrogen content to be used as fertilizer, owner Loyd Bryant used to pump that waste ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created Jan 09, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (6) | comments 3

Out of Africa and Into the American Midwest

Grasses bend in the wind, their golden tips tracing arcs across fields that stretch toward the horizon. Sunwashed by a fading evening light, these reedy ballet dancers are central figures in savanna, an ecosystem ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jan 09, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Mock atoms prove attractive: Researchers added first pseudo atoms to electronegativity scale

(PhysOrg.com) -- When studying an atom's ability to attract nearby electrons, scientists rely on electronegativity scales, which describe each atom's ability to pull in these negatively charged particles. ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Jan 06, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (9) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Study finds air pollution linked to diabetes and hypertension in African-American women

(Boston) -The incidence of type 2 diabetes and hypertension increases with cumulative levels of exposure to nitrogen oxides, according to a new study led by researchers from the Slone Epidemiology Center (SEC) at Boston University. ...

Medicine & Health / Cardiology

created Jan 05, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

Nitrogen

Nitrogen (pronounced /ˈnaɪtrədʒɨn/) is a chemical element that has the symbol N and atomic number 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78% by volume of Earth's atmosphere.

Many industrially important compounds, such as ammonia, nitric acid, organic nitrates (propellants and explosives), and cyanides, contain nitrogen. The extremely strong bond in elemental nitrogen dominates nitrogen chemistry, causing difficulty for both organisms and industry in converting the N2 into useful compounds, and releasing large amounts of energy when these compounds burn or decay back into nitrogen gas.

The element nitrogen was discovered by Daniel Rutherford, a Scottish physician, in 1772. Nitrogen occurs in all living organisms. It is a constituent element of amino acids and thus of proteins, and of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). It resides in the chemical structure of almost all neurotransmitters, and is a defining component of alkaloids, biological molecules produced by many organisms.

For more information about Nitrogen, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

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