Competing populations in shared spaces with nonrenewable resources do not necessarily wage a battle for dominance at the cost of extinction of the less-fit strain if there are fitness advantages to the presence of the other strain. We report on the use of nanofabricated habitat landscapes to study the population dynamics of competing wild type and a growth advantage in stationary phase (GASP) m...

This paper considers the relationship between the extraction rates and remaining reserves of a nonrenewable resource. Under general conditions the derived extraction rule is firstly linear, and secondly exhibits a slope term common to all extractors regardless of pricing behaviour and costs whilst differences are captured by the intercept. Data from the world oil industry supports the hypothesi...

Population growth has created an expanding gap between the supply and demand of both energy and chemicals. Nonrenewable fossil sources, such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum, are the source of nearly 86% of the world’s energy and 96% of its organic chemicals. Diminishing reserves of these sources, rising atmospheric CO2 levels, and socioeconomic concerns require a reduction of our dependence...

Biocomposites is a field that has gained much scientific attention due to the current substantial consumption of nonrenewable resources and the environmentally harmful disposal methods required for traditional polymer composites. Research on natural fiber reinforced polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) has gained considerable momentum over the past decade. There is little work on PHAs reinforced with u...

Over the last 20 years, China has successfully established a modern biotechnology industry from almost nothing. Presently, China is a major producer of a vast array of products involving bioprocesses, for some China is even the world's top producer. The ever-increasing list of products includes organic acids, amino acids, antibiotics, solvents, chiral chemicals, biopesticides, and biopolymers. ...

Nitrogen is an essential plant nutrient. It is the nutrient that is most commonly deficient in soils, contributing to reduced agricultural yields throughout the world. Nitrogen can be supplied to crops by biological nitrogen fixation (BNF), a process which is becoming more important for not only reducing energy costs, but also in seeking more sustainable agricultural production. Nitrogen fixing...

Some studies of renewable portfolio standards find that regulations increase generation costs; others find that reduced demand for nonrenewable energy sources lowers natural gas prices and that electricity prices follow. This paper presents reasoning for why these predictions can vary in the direction as well as in the magnitude of their effects. The driving factors are the relative elasticitie...

Optical polarization of 3He generates large nuclear spin magnetizations, allowing MR imaging of the gas spaces of human and animal lungs despite the low number density of spins in the gas. The atomic physics of optical pumping and spin exchange is explained; the hardware for polarizing, transporting, and imaging is detailed. Pulse sequences for optimum use of the nonrenewable magnetization requ...

There is a curious phenomenon that social scientists call the " resource curse " (Auty 1993). Countries with large endowments of natural resources, such as oil and gas, often perform worse in terms of economic development and good governance than do countries with fewer resources. Paradoxically , despite the prospects of wealth and opportunity that accompany the discovery and extraction of oil ...