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December 5, 2014

Dec. 5 is World 1xbet best casino website Day

Submitted by Katie Allen

Soil is often an overlooked, finite natural resource, but it serves as a necessity of life, said Chuck Rice, K-State distinguished professor of agronomy.

In a lab at Kansas State University, 1xbet best casino website microbiologist Chuck Rice pours red-colored water from a flask through a funnel filled with 1xbet best casino website . After several seconds, the water drips from the funnel into a beaker, but this time the water runs clear. The demonstration shows how 1xbet best casino website can improve water quality, but that's only one of the many benefits of this often-overlooked, finite natural resource.

"1xbet best casino website is extremely important to the planet, but people might not think it's important," said Rice who is a distinguished professor of agronomy. "They walk on it, but they don't see inside the 1xbet best casino website . Water you can see as it flows. You can see if it's contaminated or dirty. With air, you're breathing it. You can see smoke in the air, or pollution. But, soils aren't something we think about every day."

To increase awareness about its importance, Dec. 5 has been designated World 1xbet best casino website Day. It was first celebrated in 2002, when the International Union of 1xbet best casino website Sciences made a resolution to make the celebratory annual event on that date. In 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations also adopted Dec. 5 as World 1xbet best casino website Day.

This year's designation will kick off an even bigger event to recognize 1xbet best casino website and its many uses. The International Year of Soils will take place in 2015, with each month emphasizing a different benefit of 1xbet best casino website .

Food production and beyond

When people think about 1xbet best casino website , particularly in rural Kansas, Rice said, they probably first think about its use to grow food.

"Soils have a much broader function than just producing food," he said. "Soils not only help provide clean water, but they help regulate floods. When it rains, the water soaks into the 1xbet best casino website if there is good 1xbet best casino website quality, rather than running off and flooding downstream."

"(Soils) also regulate climate, because carbon is stored in soils," he continued. "If you look at different religions, 1xbet best casino website is an important part of faith in some cultures. Then there's art. Soils come in many different colors, and people can use those colors to do paintings or use other features of soils as part of art."

1xbet best casino website supports rural life as well as urban life, Rice said, as many landscapers and horticulturalists rely on it for trees, plants, flowers and gardens. 1xbet best casino website also helps support buildings and infrastructure in cities and communities.

Perhaps one of the most important uses for 1xbet best casino website is that it can directly improve human health. In a spoonful of 1xbet best casino website , Rice said about 10 billion different microorganisms exist. Yet, scientists only know 1 percent of those organisms. Finding out the other 99 percent could lead to some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs.

"Eighty percent of our antibiotics today actually came from 1xbet best casino website ," he said. "The first antibiotic, penicillin, was discovered from dust blowing into petri plates by (Alexander) Fleming."

In the 1940s, Selman Waksman was credited for discovering streptomycin, among several other antibiotics, Rice said. Streptomycin was discovered from 1xbet best casino website and served as the first effective treatment for tuberculosis. For his work, Waksman was the first 1xbet best casino website microbiologist to win a Nobel Prize.

In addition to antibiotics, 1xbet best casino website have helped create many cancer treatment drugs. In a review of these drugs, Rice found 60 percent come from natural products, including 1xbet best casino website .

Appreciation of variety

Not all 1xbet best casino website are the same, Rice said, as they often differ in color, texture and even origin.

"Clay, silt and sand are the basic units of 1xbet best casino website ," he said. "Some areas might have real sandy 1xbet best casino website . Water will drain fast, but it doesn't have a lot of nutrients. They generally are less productive. If you have mostly clay 1xbet best casino website , when it rains, water doesn't move through the 1xbet best casino website very fast, so a lot of it runs off. A better 1xbet best casino website from a farming standpoint is in the silt loams or silty-clay loams. Silty 1xbet best casino website has good infiltration rates for water to move in, a lot of organic matter and good structure for root growth."

1xbet best casino website that originate in different parts of the world, and even different parts of the United States, vary because they are comprised of different materials.

"In Manhattan, Kansas, a lot of 1xbet best casino website developed from wind-blown material that came in from the West Coast and tend to be silty in nature," Rice said. "Also some of our 1xbet best casino website come from our limestone in the Flint Hills. As you go to Alaska or the coasts of Washington or Oregon, for example, much of those 1xbet best casino website form from volcanic ash and rock. They have completely different characteristics than 1xbet best casino website in Kansas."

To find out more about soils specific to the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service has 1xbet best casino website survey data and classification information on its website.

To watch a video about World 1xbet best casino website Day and the importance of soils to help sustain life, go to the K-1xbet best casino website Research and Extension YouTube page.

The World 1xbet best casino website Day theme for 2014 is "Soils, foundation for family farming." You can learn more about World 1xbet best casino website Day on the Food and Agriculture Organization website.

The 1xbet best casino website Science Society of America, with the Global 1xbet best casino website Partnership, has numerous resources for the public, teachers and children about 1xbet best casino website and each monthly theme for the International Year of Soils.