Nutrient

At first glance the sand seems barren and unproductive. After a while, if you are careful not to kick up sand, you might see tiny benthic communities of tube-building worms come alive as they sweep the passing nutrient rich waters with tentacles to capture food.

Sixty-five percent of U.S. estuaries and coastal water bodies are moderately to severely degraded by excessive nutrient inputs, which lead to algal blooms and low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters that can kill fish and seagrass and reduce essential fish habitats.

Plants' source of nutrients is the soil, and the most nutrient rich soil is detritus, a stew of decaying organic matter from a variety of sources.

The umbilical cord develops by the fifth week of embryonic development, replacing the yolk sac as the embryo's nutrient source.

What is nutrient absorption?

Ziri wrote his thesis about nutrient absorption.

And that chemical, he explains, triggers a process that inhibits the transformation of nitrogen in the soil into a powerful greenhouse gas. Most commercial fertilizers used in agriculture worldwide use nitrogen as the main nutrient.

An abundance of other crops, including tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and other vegetables are flourishing in the New York Sun Works greenhouses. They're grown using hydroponics technology where the roots are immersed in trays of nutrient rich water, not soil.

Even second-generation biofuels, made from crop wastes or wood, are an environmental disaster, either extending the cultivated area or removing the straw and stovers which protect the soil from erosion and keep carbon and nutrients in the ground.