{"71236":{"#nid":"71236","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Diatoms Discovered to Remove Phosphorus from Oceans","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EScientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a new way that phosphorus is naturally removed from the oceans - it\u0027s stored in diatoms. The discovery opens up a new realm of research into an element that\u0027s used for reproduction, energy storage and structural materials in every organism. Its understanding is vital to the continued quest to understand the growth of the oceans. The research appears in the May 2, 2008 edition of the journal Science. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EEllery Ingall, associate professor in Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, along with Ph.D. student Julia Diaz, collected organisms and sediments along an inlet near Vancouver Island in British Columbia. During their investigation on the boat, Diaz used a traditional optical microscope to discover that diatoms, microscopic organisms that live in oceans and damp surfaces, were storing blobs of very dense concentrations of phosphorus called polyphosphates. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022These polyphosphates have been missed in classic studies because they haven\u0027t been recovered by the typical measurement techniques,\u0022 said Ingall. \u0022No one measured or treated the samples because no one knew they were there - they didn\u0027t even think to look for it.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor a long time, scientists have been unable to account for the difference in the amount of phosphorus that\u0027s in the oceans and the amount that\u0027s washed in from rivers.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We\u0027re getting the initial clues as to how this phosphorus gets to the bottom of the oceans,\u0022 said Diaz. \u0022These diatoms are sinking from the top to the bottom of the ocean, and as they\u0027re sinking, they\u0027re transporting the phosphorus in the form of intracellular polyphosphate.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAfter making their initial discovery, the team made another. They went to Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago to delve deeper and found that some of the blobs were polyphosphate, some were a mineral known as apatite, and some were a transitional material between the two.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ENow that they\u0027ve proved a link between polyphosphate and apatite, they\u0027re next step is to try and capture the chemical transition between the two by running controlled experiments in the lab.\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a new way that phosphorus is naturally removed from the oceans - it\u0027s stored in diatoms. The discovery opens up a new realm of research into an element that\u0027s used for reproduction, energy storage and structural materials in every organism.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Team also discovers link between polyphosphate and apatite"}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2008-05-02 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:01:10","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2008-05-02T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2008-05-02T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"71237":{"id":"71237","type":"image","title":"Diatom","body":null,"created":"1449177358","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:15:58","changed":"1475894632","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:43:52"}},"media_ids":["71237"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/shadow.eas.gatech.edu\/~ingall\/","title":"Ellery Ingall"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"154","name":"Environment"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2112","name":"apatite"},{"id":"2110","name":"diatom"},{"id":"2114","name":"DIaz"},{"id":"2113","name":"Ingall"},{"id":"2111","name":"phosphorus"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}