Global warming: preventing irreversibility

Lane, Jan‐Erik

doi:10.1590/0101-35172018-2860

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…If nothing is done in a timely manner to try to prevent the affixed complications of both food shortage caused by overpopulation and climate change consequences, these issues may be unavertable. As physicist Stephen Hawking recently remarked before his death in 2018, climate change is coming to a point where the issue will be irreversible if greenhouse gases cannot be drawn from the atmosphere, and overpopulation will eventually de-structure a starving society (Lane 2018). To possibly halt this inevitable danger and provide more food to an overpopulated world, the carbon fixation rates of a genetic modification to the biomass of plants must be tested at this current point in time to see if their mass seeding could be implemented in a more suitable time frame.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of a Biomass Increase on The Carbon Fixation Rates of A. Thaliana

Lewis¹,

Talarczyk

2020

J Stud Res

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Arabidopsis Thaliana, a model organism for genetic modification, was tested to discover whether or not a genetic increase in biomass affects the plant’s rate of carbon fixation. An experimental design was employed, involving the testing of the carbon fixation rates from 4 separate experimental groups, genetically modified and a control group, both sterilized and unsterilized. Sterile water and a 50% bleach solution were used for seed sterilization, and once complete, all types of seeds were given a week long cold treatment. After the cold treatment had concluded, these plants were grown on moist fertilized soil, and were watered using a glass tray. Water was added into the flat surface every 2 days, and this nourishment was absorbed by the soil through holes in 4.409 x 3.937 terracotta pots. This absorption allowed for dry soil to remoisten, ultimately providing hydration to A. Thaliana. Growth measurements of the observed largest leaf were taken each week for a 4 week growth period. Once fully grown, a procedure known as photosynthetic flotation was used to uncover carbon fixation rates between the experimental groups, involving 0.5 cm leaf disks rising in a bicarbonate solution as carbon dioxide was converted to oxygen. The faster the leaf disk rose, the more rapidly carbon dioxide was fixated. Overall, data gathered from this experiment showed little difference between carbon fixation rates of biomass genetic modification and a control group, causing for this genetic modification only being able to be used to combat overpopulation with larger food being produced, but not that of reversing climate change. However, there was a significant gap in terms of the time to rise of leaf disks between sterilized and unsterilized groups, revealing that a more specific study in regards to this variable must be conducted.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%