Nitro Cycle, or That’s Life
I have spent much of the first three hours of this New Year creating a new page. I wanted to celebrate the new year by doing a renewal-themed page. The ultimate celebration of renewal to my mind is a brass-tacks look at what actually happens to perpetuate Life. I had to leave out stuff like the exploding supernovae that make heavier elements occur in the first place, the absolutely essential floatiness of solid water, a.k.a. ice, and many other factors known and unknown. I stuck to the Nitrogen Cycle, and an obscenely simplified rendering at that, but I invite readers to do a web search on “nitrogen cycle” and find out what Life is REALLY all about, and why we would never exist without Lightning. Happy New Year, friends!
PS: “Theta-funk” is a horrible corruption of “Theta functions,” essential to the mathematics of string theory. Once William Buckley was asked why he used the word “irenic” instead of “peaceful.” He replied, “Madame, I desired the extra syllable.” Well, messieurs et mesdames, I desired Theta-funk. 🙂
One with Clay, Image and Text 
Do you think we could sneak this into Wikipedia instead of the rather horrible illustration on the nitrogen cycle they have there? Wonder how long it would last before it got edited out?
I knew about nitrogen fixing bacteria but had no idea lighting also played a part.
In case this was missing from your store of trivia, Hal Clement wrote a slightly soporific novel called the Nitrogen Fix. It postulates a world where nitrogen fixation has gone too far and humanity survives using bio engineered trees that grow oxygen masks… the rest of the story is fuzzy but that detail stuck in my memory, for some reason.
And since I’m feeling chatty, the CO2 cycle is also a good one, CO2 dissolving into the sea, precipitating into the sea bottom as calcium carbonates, being ground under the continents by continental drift and re emerging out of volcanoes… which raises the question what happens to the calcium? Probably another cycle…
I sure love the Hal Clement synopsis, Michel. I knew he was one of the most scientifically underpinned of the “hard science fiction” writers, and that he uses physical law as story springboards, but I’d never heard of that one. As for Calcium Carbonate, I’ve used it in ceramic glazing a time or two, doing my own bit for recycling… 🙂 GREAT comment, friend!