Make a NEW mountain by Steve Fly

sweet mountain
sprawling giant
big enough to move

 hearts to
top to peak the top story
elegant

mountain top
from which views to the
four corners are processed
clear sight
for every
eye

brave bulge
of sheer rock
spurting out from

the ground
towards the sun
upwards, higher
reaching outword
released spells

snow capped
cloud
banked
 hugged
mount' of marvelous
awesomeness

the world hq
of snowdon
national

parks
open source
whistle-blowing
activity weekend
family research centre

mount Snowdon
is our vision
our headquarters
shamanic entities gather
about these rocks and trees

we rain psychic acid on
the
NSAGCHQ
curse to cripple
our ecosystem

snow what
everything comes out
NOW

we make it NEW
you cling to the
OLD

we make it NEW.
you cling to the OLD

we
make it
NEW

--Steve Fly

Microbiome of the upper troposphere: Species composition and prevalence, effects of tropical storms, and atmospheric implications.

Abstract

The composition and prevalence of microorganisms in the middle-to-upper troposphere (8–15 km altitude) and their role in aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions represent important, unresolved questions for biological and atmospheric science. In particular, airborne microorganisms above the oceans remain essentially uncharacterized, as most work to date is restricted to samples taken near the Earth’s surface. Here we report on the microbiome of low- and high-altitude air masses sampled onboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration DC-8 platform during the 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes campaign in the Caribbean Sea. The samples were collected in cloudy and cloud-free air masses before, during, and after two major tropical hurricanes, Earl and Karl. Quantitative PCR and microscopy revealed that viable bacterial cells represented on average around 20% of the total particles in the 0.25- to 1-μm diameter range and were at least an order of magnitude more abundant than fungal cells, suggesting that bacteria represent an important and underestimated fraction of micrometer-sized atmospheric aerosols. The samples from the two hurricanes were characterized by significantly different bacterial communities, revealing that hurricanes aerosolize a large amount of new cells. Nonetheless, 17 bacterial taxa, including taxa that are known to use C1–C4 carbon compounds present in the atmosphere, were found in all samples, indicating that these organisms possess traits that allow survival in the troposphere. The findings presented here suggest that the microbiome is a dynamic and underappreciated aspect of the upper troposphere with potentially important impacts on the hydrological cycle, clouds, and climate.