An aeration basin is a holding and/or treatment pond provided with artificial aeration to promote the biochemical oxidation of wastewaters. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

Algae comprise a diverse group of typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

We see the term ‘biodegradable’ on some products that we buy, such as washing powders and shampoo, but what does it actually mean? By The Science Learning Hub, a national project designed to support the effective teaching of science in New Zealand schools.

Bioremediation is one technique that may be useful to remove spilled oil under certain geographic and climatic conditions. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

Despite major challenges, we believe that cellulosic sugars in agricultural waste are the best sustainable source for biofuels to meet world wide energy needs. One key challenge involves dealing with diverse cellulosic sugars, many with high levels of lignin. Other tough challenges include converting both 5-and 6-carbon sugars efficiently into ethanol and recycling carbon dioxide from fermentations back into useful biomass. By Microbe Magazine, the monthly news magazine of the American Society for Microbiology.

Eutrophication is a syndrome of ecosystem responses to human activities that fertilize water bodies with nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), often leading to changes in animal and plant populations and degradation of water and habitat quality. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

An extremophile is an organism adapted to unusual limits of one or more abiotic factors in the environment. Some of the extreme conditions are temperature, pH, high salinity, high levels of radiation and high pressure. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

Living with each of us—on our skin, in our mucosa, and in our gastrointestinal (GI) tract—are microorganisms whose numbers dwarf the number of our own cells and genes. Although some of these microbes are pathogens, most are harmless or even beneficial. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

Marine microbes is a term that encompasses all microscopic organisms generally found in saltwater. Most micro-organisms are acellular and fall into the major categories of viruses, prokaryotes (bacteria), and protists, groups which differ considerably in biological characteristics. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

Nitrogen (N) is an essential macronutrient the non-availability of which in suitable form or concentration often limits biological production both in the terrestrial and marine environments. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

At any moment, an estimated 10^{^30} bacterial and archaeal genes are mediating essential ecological processes throughout the world. The new field of metatranscriptomics, using an approach that sequences microbial genes expressed within intact natural communities, allows us to understand microbial gene expression patterns. It is now feasible to deeply sequence the assortment of microbial community transcripts from a particular time and place, whether from bacteria, archaea, or small eukaryotes in the ocean, the soil, or the human gut. By Microbe Magazine, the monthly news magazine of the American Society for Microbiology.

By some estimates, a third of Earth's organisms live in our planet's rocks and sediments, yet their lives are almost a complete mystery. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the modern era of subsurface microbiology at its Savannah River Plant (SRP) in South Carolina in 1986. Those first efforts, involving three 200-m-deep wells along with procedures to monitor for drilling-related contaminants, uncovered abundant and diverse microbial communities in subsurface aquifers. By Microbe Magazine, the monthly news magazine of the American Society for Microbiology.

Nitrogen fertilization — if one includes CO2 released during the manufacture, distribution, and application of the fertilizer and N2O released during microbial transformation of fertilizer in soils (denitrification)—is responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

Sewage treatment is the reduction of contamination in a water pollution effluent, usually considered for the class of liquid wastes comprised by municipal sewage and sometimes admixed by urban stormwater runoff. By The Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE), an electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society.

About 200 miles from Yellowstone National Park, is a site not as scenic, yet proving nearly as exotic in terms of its rich diversity of extremophiles. By Microbe Magazine, the monthly news magazine of the American Society for Microbiology.