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129-624: Feces ( or faeces ; sg. : faex ) are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine , and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine . Feces contain a relatively small amount of metabolic waste products such as bacterially altered bilirubin , and dead epithelial cells from the lining of the gut. Feces are discharged through the anus or cloaca during defecation . Feces can be used as fertilizer or soil conditioner in agriculture. They can also be burned as fuel or dried and used for construction . Some medicinal uses have been found. In

258-465: A cycle of matter , is the movement and transformation of chemical elements and compounds between living organisms, the atmosphere, and the Earth's crust. Major biogeochemical cycles include the carbon cycle , the nitrogen cycle and the water cycle . In each cycle, the chemical element or molecule is transformed and cycled by living organisms and through various geological forms and reservoirs, including

387-410: A build-up of gases inside the gut, prompting the sphincter to relieve the pressure and release the feces. After an animal has digested eaten material, the remains of that material are discharged from its body as waste. Although it is lower in energy than the food from which it is derived, feces may retain a large amount of energy, often 50% of that of the original food. This means that of all food eaten,

516-691: A consonant followed by an unstressed -re (pronounced /ə(r)/ ). In modern American English, most of these words have the ending -er . The difference is most common for words ending in -bre or -tre : British spellings calibre , centre , fibre , goitre , litre , lustre , manoeuvre , meagre , metre (length) , mitre , nitre , ochre , reconnoitre , sabre , saltpetre , sepulchre , sombre , spectre , theatre (see exceptions ) and titre all have -er in American spelling. In Britain, both -re and -er spellings were common before Johnson's 1755 dictionary

645-430: A deterrent for humans, as consuming or touching it may result in sickness or infection. Feces are discharged through the anus or cloaca during defecation . This process requires pressures that may reach 100 millimetres of mercury (3.9 inHg) (13.3 kPa) in humans and 450 millimetres of mercury (18 inHg) (60 kPa) in penguins. The forces required to expel the feces are generated through muscular contractions and

774-475: A distinctive set of Canadian English spellings is viewed by many Canadians as one of the unique aspects of Canadian culture (especially when compared to the United States). In Australia, -or endings enjoyed some use throughout the 19th century and in the early 20th century. Like Canada, though, most major Australian newspapers have switched from " -or " endings to " -our " endings. The " -our " spelling

903-495: A emium , and a enigma . In others, it is kept in all varieties: for example, phoenix , and usually subpoena , but Phenix in Virginia . This is especially true of names: Aegean (the sea), Caesar , Oedipus , Phoebe , etc., although "caesarean section" may be spelled as "cesarean section". There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g., larv ae ); nor where the digraph <ae>/<oe> does not result from

1032-466: A eon , an a emia , an a esthesia , c a ecum , c a esium , c o eliac , diarrh o ea , encyclop a edia , f a eces , f o etal , gyn a ecology , h a emoglobin , h a emophilia , leuk a emia , o esophagus , o estrogen , orthop a edic , pal a eontology , p a ediatric , p a edophile . Oenology is acceptable in American English but is deemed

1161-501: A minor fraction of the ocean in terms of surface area, yet have an enormous impact on global biogeochemical cycles carried out by microbial communities , which represent 90% of the ocean's biomass. Work in recent years has largely focused on cycling of carbon and macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and silicate: other important elements such as sulfur or trace elements have been less studied, reflecting associated technical and logistical issues. Increasingly, these marine areas, and

1290-532: A minor variant of enology , whereas although archeology and ameba exist in American English, the British versions amoeba and archaeology are more common. The chemical haem (named as a shortening of h a emoglobin ) is spelled heme in American English, to avoid confusion with hem . Canadian English mostly follows American English in this respect, although it is split on gynecology (e.g. Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada vs.

1419-569: A mistaken etymology. The etymologically correct original spelling fetus reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide; the Oxford English Dictionary notes that "In Latin manuscripts both fētus and foetus are used". The Ancient Greek diphthongs <αι> and <οι> were transliterated into Latin as <ae> and <oe>. The ligatures æ and œ were introduced when

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1548-557: A more complex model with many interacting boxes. Reservoir masses here represents carbon stocks , measured in Pg C. Carbon exchange fluxes, measured in Pg C yr , occur between the atmosphere and its two major sinks, the land and the ocean. The black numbers and arrows indicate the reservoir mass and exchange fluxes estimated for the year 1750, just before the Industrial Revolution . The red arrows (and associated numbers) indicate

1677-409: A plant in having fruit is that animals will eat the fruit and unknowingly disperse the seed in doing so. This mode of seed dispersal is highly successful, as seeds dispersed around the base of a plant are unlikely to succeed and often are subject to heavy predation . Provided the seed can withstand the pathway through the digestive system, it is not only likely to be far away from the parent plant, but

1806-476: A significant amount of energy remains for the decomposers of ecosystems. Many organisms feed on feces, from bacteria to fungi to insects such as dung beetles , who can sense odors from long distances. Some may specialize in feces, while others may eat other foods. Feces serve not only as a basic food, but also as a supplement to the usual diet of some animals. This process is known as coprophagia , and occurs in various animal species such as young elephants eating

1935-500: A small number of boxes with properties, such as volume, that do not change with time. The boxes are assumed to behave as if they were mixed homogeneously. These models are often used to derive analytical formulas describing the dynamics and steady-state abundance of the chemical species involved. The diagram at the right shows a basic one-box model. The reservoir contains the amount of material M under consideration, as defined by chemical, physical or biological properties. The source Q

2064-667: A suffix for agentive ( reader , user , winner ) and comparative ( louder , nicer ) forms. One outcome is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of length. However, while " poetic metre " is often spelled as -re , pentameter , hexameter , etc. are always -er . Many other words have -er in British English. These include Germanic words, such as anger , mother , timber and water , and such Romance-derived words as danger , quarter and river . The ending -cre , as in acre , lucre , massacre , and mediocre ,

2193-469: A valuable purpose in paleontology because they provide direct evidence of the predation and diet of extinct organisms. Coprolites may range in size from a few millimetres to more than 60 centimetres. Palaeofeces are ancient feces , often found as part of archaeological excavations or surveys. Intact paleofeces of ancient people may be found in caves in arid climates and in other locations with suitable preservation conditions. These are studied to determine

2322-432: Is - /s/ for the noun and - /z/ for the verb). For licence / license or practice / practise , British English also keeps the noun–verb distinction graphically (although phonetically the two words in each pair are homophones with - /s/ pronunciation). On the other hand, American English uses license and practice for both nouns and verbs (with - /s/ pronunciation in both cases too). American English has kept

2451-425: Is absorbed by plants through photosynthesis , which converts it into organic compounds that are used by organisms for energy and growth. Carbon is then released back into the atmosphere through respiration and decomposition . Additionally, carbon is stored in fossil fuels and is released into the atmosphere through human activities such as burning fossil fuels . In the nitrogen cycle, atmospheric nitrogen gas

2580-540: Is among the world's most expensive coffees. Paper is also made from elephant dung in Thailand. Haathi Chaap is a brand of paper made from elephant dung. Dog feces was used in the tanning process of leather during the Victorian era . Collected dog feces, known as "pure", "puer", or "pewer", were mixed with water to form a substance known as "bate", because proteolytic enzymes in the dog feces helped to relax

2709-472: Is an open system ; the Sun constantly gives the planet energy in the form of light while it is eventually used and lost in the form of heat throughout the trophic levels of a food web. Carbon is used to make carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, the major sources of food energy . These compounds are oxidized to release carbon dioxide, which can be captured by plants to make organic compounds. The chemical reaction

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2838-531: Is burned as fuel in many countries. Animals such as the giant panda and zebra possess gut bacteria capable of producing biofuel. The bacterium in question, Brocadia anammoxidans , can be used to synthesize the rocket fuel hydrazine . A coprolite is fossilized feces and is classified as a trace fossil . In paleontology they give evidence about the diet of an animal. They were first described by William Buckland in 1829. Prior to this, they were known as "fossil fir cones " and " bezoar stones". They serve

2967-491: Is called constipation . The appearance of human fecal matter varies according to diet and health. Normally it is semisolid, with a mucus coating. A combination of bile and bilirubin , which comes from dead red blood cells , gives feces the typical brown color. After the meconium , the first stool expelled, a newborn's feces contains only bile , which gives it a yellow-green color. Breast feeding babies expel soft, pale yellowish, and not quite malodorous matter; but once

3096-422: Is converted by plants into usable forms such as ammonia and nitrates through the process of nitrogen fixation . These compounds can be used by other organisms, and nitrogen is returned to the atmosphere through denitrification and other processes. In the water cycle, the universal solvent water evaporates from land and oceans to form clouds in the atmosphere, and then precipitates back to different parts of

3225-399: Is dropped for other derivations, for example, central , fibrous , spectral . However, the existence of related words without e before the r is not proof for the existence of an -re British spelling: for example, entry and entrance come from enter , which has not been spelled entre for centuries. The difference relates only to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as

3354-427: Is even provided with its own fertilizer. Organisms that subsist on dead organic matter or detritus are known as detritivores , and play an important role in ecosystems by recycling organic matter back into a simpler form that plants and other autotrophs may absorb once again. This cycling of matter is known as the biogeochemical cycle . To maintain nutrients in soil it is therefore important that feces returns to

3483-659: Is experienced primarily in relation to the sense of taste (either perceived or imagined) and, secondarily to anything that causes a similar feeling by sense of smell, touch, or vision. There is a Pile of Poo emoji represented in Unicode as U+1F4A9 💩 PILE OF POO , called unchi or unchi-kun in Japan. Poop is the center of toilet humor , and is commonly an interest of young children and teenagers. American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe A "British standard" began to emerge following

3612-477: Is found in all organic molecules, whereas nitrogen is an important component of nucleic acids and proteins . Phosphorus is used to make nucleic acids and the phospholipids that comprise biological membranes . Sulfur is critical to the three-dimensional shape of proteins. The cycling of these elements is interconnected. For example, the movement of water is critical for leaching sulfur and phosphorus into rivers which can then flow into oceans. Minerals cycle through

3741-502: Is generally preferred over oe and often over ae , but oe and ae are sometimes found in academic and scientific writing as well as government publications (for example, the fee schedule of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan ) and some words such as palaeontology or aeon . In Australia, it can go either way, depending on the word: for instance, medieval is spelled with the e rather than ae , following

3870-420: Is known about how organisms in subsurface ecosystems are metabolically interconnected. Some cultivation-based studies of syntrophic consortia and small-scale metagenomic analyses of natural communities suggest that organisms are linked via metabolic handoffs: the transfer of redox reaction products of one organism to another. However, no complex environments have been dissected completely enough to resolve

3999-601: Is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor . Proper names such as Pearl Harbor or Sydney Harbour are usually spelled according to their native-variety spelling vocabulary. The name of the herb savory is spelled thus everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry , like savo(u)r , has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above, as does

Feces - Misplaced Pages Continue

4128-533: Is no singular form, making the word a plurale tantum ; out of various major dictionaries, only one enters variation from plural agreement . "Feces" is used more in biology and medicine than in other fields (reflecting science 's tradition of classical Latin and Neo-Latin ) There are many synonyms in informal registers for feces, just like there are for urine . Many are euphemistic , colloquial , or both; some are profane (such as shit ), whereas most belong chiefly to child-directed speech (such as poo or

4257-441: Is powered by the light energy of sunshine. Sunlight is required to combine carbon with hydrogen and oxygen into an energy source, but ecosystems in the deep sea , where no sunlight can penetrate, obtain energy from sulfur. Hydrogen sulfide near hydrothermal vents can be utilized by organisms such as the giant tube worm . In the sulfur cycle , sulfur can be forever recycled as a source of energy. Energy can be released through

4386-469: Is relatively high in paleofeces, making it more reliable than skeletal DNA retrieval. The reason this analysis is possible at all is due to the digestive system not being entirely efficient, in the sense that not everything that passes through the digestive system is destroyed. Not all of the surviving material is recognizable, but some of it is. Generally, this material is the best indicator archaeologists can use to determine ancient diets, as no other part of

4515-613: Is sometimes used. The ratio between -ise and -ize stood at 3:2 in the British National Corpus up to 2002. The spelling -ise is more commonly used in UK mass media and newspapers, including The Times (which switched conventions in 1992), The Daily Telegraph , The Economist and the BBC . The Government of the United Kingdom additionally uses -ise , stating "do not use Americanisms" justifying that

4644-714: Is standard worldwide and complection is rare. However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes proscribed, is on equal ground in the U.S. with complexioned. It is not used in this way in the UK, although there exists a rare alternative meaning of complicated . In some cases, words with "old-fashioned" spellings are retained widely in the U.S. for historical reasons (cf. connexionalism ). Many words, especially medical words, that are written with ae/æ or oe/œ in British English are written with just an e in American English. The sounds in question are /iː/ or /ɛ/ (or, unstressed, /i/ , /ɪ/ or /ə/ ). Examples (with non-American letter in bold ):

4773-607: Is taught in schools nationwide as part of the Australian curriculum. The most notable countrywide use of the -or ending is for one of the country's major political parties, the Australian Labor Party , which was originally called "the Australian Labour Party" (name adopted in 1908), but was frequently referred to as both "Labour" and "Labor". The "Labor" was adopted from 1912 onward due to

4902-420: Is the flux of material into the reservoir, and the sink S is the flux of material out of the reservoir. The budget is the check and balance of the sources and sinks affecting material turnover in a reservoir. The reservoir is in a steady state if Q = S , that is, if the sources balance the sinks and there is no change over time. The residence or turnover time is the average time material spends resident in

5031-520: Is the scientific terminology, while the term stool is also commonly used in medical contexts. Outside of scientific contexts, these terms are less common, with the most common layman's term being poop or poo . The term shit is also in common use, although it is widely considered vulgar or offensive. There are many other terms, see below. The word faeces is the plural of the Latin word faex meaning "dregs". In most English-language usage , there

5160-549: Is the usual form of the male given name, as a surname both the spellings Peter and Petre (the latter notably borne by a British lord ) are found. For British accoutre , the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling, but The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language prefers the -er spelling. More recent French loanwords keep

5289-558: Is used as a cement to make adobe ( mudbrick ) huts, or even in throwing sports, especially with cow and camel dung. Kopi luwak , or civet coffee, is coffee made from coffee beans that have been eaten and excreted by Asian palm civets ( Paradoxurus hermaphroditus ). Giant pandas provide fertilizer for the world's most expensive green tea . In Malaysia , tea is made from the droppings of stick insects fed on guava leaves. In northern Thailand , elephants are used to digest coffee beans in order to make Black Ivory coffee , which

Feces - Misplaced Pages Continue

5418-484: Is used in both British and American English to show that the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/ . The spellings euchre and ogre are also the same in both British and American English. Fire and its associated adjective fiery are the same in both British and American English, although the noun was spelled fier in Old and Middle English. Theater is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both

5547-591: The -meter suffix (from Ancient Greek - μέτρον métron , via French -mètre ) normally had the -re spelling from earliest use in English but were superseded by -er . Examples include thermometer and barometer . The e preceding the r is kept in American-inflected forms of nouns and verbs, for example, fibers , reconnoitered , centering , which are fibres , reconnoitred , and centring respectively in British English. According to

5676-560: The -ise form as an alternative. Publications by Oxford University Press (OUP)—such as Henry Watson Fowler 's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage , Hart's Rules , and The Oxford Guide to English Usage —also recommend -ize . However, Robert Allan's Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage considers either spelling to be acceptable anywhere but the U.S. American spelling avoids -ise endings in words like organize , realize and recognize . British spelling mostly uses -ise ( organise , realise , recognise ), though -ize

5805-687: The -ise form is preferred in Australian English at a ratio of about 3:1 according to the Macquarie Dictionary . In Canada, the -ize ending is more common, although the Ontario Public School Spelling Book spelled most words in the -ize form, but allowed for duality with a page insert as late as the 1970s, noting that, although the -ize spelling was in fact the convention used in the OED ,

5934-439: The -ise variation, once more common amongst older Canadians, is employed less and less often in favour of the -ize spelling. (The alternate convention offered as a matter of choice may have been due to the fact that although there were an increasing number of American- and British-based dictionaries with Canadian Editions by the late 1970s, these were largely only supplemental in terms of vocabulary with subsequent definitions. It

6063-450: The -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used ( /rə/ rather than /ə(r)/ ), as with double entendre , genre and oeuvre . However, the unstressed /ə(r)/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more (or less) often with some words, including cadre , macabre , maître d' , Notre Dame , piastre , and timbre . The -re endings are mostly standard throughout

6192-495: The Canadian Medical Association 's Canadian specialty profile of Obstetrics/gynecology ). Pediatrician is preferred roughly 10 to 1 over paediatrician , while foetal and oestrogen are similarly uncommon. Words that can be spelled either way in American English include a esthetics and arch a eology (which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology ), as well as pal a estra , for which

6321-548: The OED , centring is a "word ... of 3 syllables (in careful pronunciation)" (i.e., /ˈsɛntərɪŋ/ ), yet there is no vowel in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable ( /ə/ ). The OED third edition (revised entry of June 2016) allows either two or three syllables. On the Oxford Dictionaries Online website, the three-syllable version is listed only as the American pronunciation of centering . The e

6450-714: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ). The European Union 's style guides require the usage of - ise . Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal of the European Union (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents. Biogeochemical cycle A biogeochemical cycle , or more generally

6579-557: The Simplified Spelling Board in the early 20th century, but most were not adopted. In Britain, the influence of those who preferred the Norman (or Anglo-French ) spellings of words proved to be decisive. Later spelling adjustments in the United Kingdom had little effect on today's American spellings and vice versa. For the most part, the spelling systems of most Commonwealth countries and Ireland closely resemble

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6708-441: The diet and health of the people who produced them through the analysis of seeds, small bones, and parasite eggs found inside. Feces may contain information about the person excreting the material as well as information about the material. They also may be analyzed chemically for more in-depth information on the individual who excreted them, using lipid analysis and ancient DNA analysis. The success rate of usable DNA extraction

6837-453: The oxidation and reduction of sulfur compounds (e.g., oxidizing elemental sulfur to sulfite and then to sulfate ). Although the Earth constantly receives energy from the Sun, its chemical composition is essentially fixed, as the additional matter is only occasionally added by meteorites. Because this chemical composition is not replenished like energy, all processes that depend on these chemicals must be recycled. These cycles include both

6966-501: The palindromic word poop ) or to crude humor (such as crap , dump , load and turd .). The feces of animals often have special names (some of them are slang), for example: In all human cultures, feces elicit varying degrees of disgust in adults. Children under two years typically have no disgust response to it, suggesting it is culturally derived. Disgust toward feces appears to be strongest in cultures where flush toilets make olfactory contact with human feces minimal. Disgust

7095-472: The rock cycle , and human-induced cycles for synthetic compounds such as for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). In some cycles there are geological reservoirs where substances can remain or be sequestered for long periods of time. Biogeochemical cycles involve the interaction of biological, geological, and chemical processes. Biological processes include the influence of microorganisms , which are critical drivers of biogeochemical cycling. Microorganisms have

7224-476: The subduction of the continental plates , all play a role in this recycling of materials. Because geology and chemistry have major roles in the study of this process, the recycling of inorganic matter between living organisms and their environment is called a biogeochemical cycle. The six aforementioned elements are used by organisms in a variety of ways. Hydrogen and oxygen are found in water and organic molecules , both of which are essential to life. Carbon

7353-543: The theatre spelling. (The word "theater" in American English is a place where both stage performances and screenings of films take place, but in British English a "theatre" is where stage performances take place but not film screenings – these take place in a cinema, or "picture theatre" in Australia.) In the United States, the spelling theatre is sometimes used when referring to the art form of theatre, while

7482-519: The u has since been dropped: ambassadour , emperour , errour , governour , horrour , inferiour , mirrour , perturbatour , superiour , tenour , terrour , tremour . Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but chose the spelling best derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources. He preferred French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us". English speakers who moved to

7611-435: The u : In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all cases (for example, favorite , savory etc.) since the u is absent to begin with. American usage, in most cases, keeps the u in the word glamour , which comes from Scots , not Latin or French. Glamor is sometimes used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or . Nevertheless,

7740-652: The ‑our/or group do not have a Latin counterpart that ends in ‑or ; for example, armo(u)r , behavio(u)r , harbo(u)r , neighbo(u)r ; also arbo(u)r , meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor , a false cognate of the other word. The word arbor would be more accurately spelled arber or arbre in the US and the UK, respectively, the latter of which is the French word for "tree". Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that ‑or be used for words from Latin (e.g., color ) and ‑our for French loans; however, in many cases,

7869-408: The 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson 's A Dictionary of the English Language , and an "American standard" started following the work of Noah Webster and, in particular, his An American Dictionary of the English Language , first published in 1828. Webster's efforts at spelling reform were effective in his native country, resulting in certain well-known patterns of spelling differences between

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7998-441: The 17th and 18th centuries, whereas there are thousands of examples of their -our counterparts. One notable exception is honor . Honor and honour were equally frequent in Britain until the 17th century; honor only exists in the UK now as the spelling of Honor Oak , a district of London, and of the occasional given name Honor . In derivatives and inflected forms of the -our/or words, British usage depends on

8127-615: The 1970s, but had by then been overtaken by connection in regular usage (for example, in more popular newspapers). Connexion (and its derivatives connexional and connexionalism ) is still in use by the Methodist Church of Great Britain to refer to the whole church as opposed to its constituent districts, circuits and local churches, whereas the US-majority United Methodist Church uses Connection . Complexion (which comes from complex )

8256-743: The American National Theatre was referred to by The New York Times as the "American National Theater ", but the organization uses "re" in the spelling of its name. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. has the more common American spelling theater in its references to the Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center. Some cinemas outside New York also use

8385-480: The American and British varieties of English. However, English-language spelling reform has rarely been adopted otherwise. As a result, modern English orthography varies only minimally between countries and is far from phonemic in any country. In the early 18th century, English spelling was inconsistent. These differences became noticeable after the publication of influential dictionaries . Today's British English spellings mostly follow Johnson's A Dictionary of

8514-413: The American usage along with numerous other words such as eon or fetus , while other words such as oestrogen or paediatrician are spelled the British way. The Macquarie Dictionary also notes a growing tendency towards replacing ae and oe with e worldwide and with the exception of manoeuvre, all British or American spellings are acceptable variants. Elsewhere, the British usage prevails, but

8643-587: The Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense , which are defence and offence in British English. Likewise, there are the American pretense and British pretence ; but derivatives such as defensive , offensive , and pretension are always thus spelled in both systems. Australian and Canadian usages generally follow British usage. The spelling connexion is now rare in everyday British usage, its use lessening as knowledge of Latin attenuates, and it has almost never been used in

8772-440: The British system. In Canada, the spelling system can be said to follow both British and American forms, and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign spellings when compared with other English-speaking nationalities. Australian English mostly follows British spelling norms but has strayed slightly, with some American spellings incorporated as standard. New Zealand English is almost identical to British spelling, except in

8901-668: The British usage of -our . This coincided with a renewed interest in Canadian English, and the release of the updated Gage Canadian Dictionary in 1997 and the first Canadian Oxford Dictionary in 1998. Historically, most libraries and educational institutions in Canada have supported the use of the Oxford English Dictionary rather than the American Webster's Dictionary . Today, the use of

9030-471: The Commonwealth. The -er spellings are recognized as minor variants in Canada, partly due to United States influence. They are sometimes used in proper names (such as Toronto's controversially named Centerpoint Mall ). For advice / advise and device / devise , American English and British English both keep the noun–verb distinction both graphically and phonetically (where the pronunciation

9159-400: The Earth's surface. There the rocks are weathered and carbon is returned to the atmosphere by degassing and to the ocean by rivers. Other geologic carbon returns to the ocean through the hydrothermal emission of calcium ions. In a given year between 10 and 100 million tonnes of carbon moves around this slow cycle. This includes volcanoes returning geologic carbon directly to the atmosphere in

9288-521: The English Language (1755), while many American English spellings follow Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language ("ADEL", "Webster's Dictionary", 1828). Webster was a proponent of English spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. In A Companion to the American Revolution (2008), John Algeo notes: "it is often assumed that characteristically American spellings were invented by Noah Webster. He

9417-488: The Greek-style ligature as, for example, in maelstrom or toe ; the same is true for the British form aeroplane (compare other aero- words such as aerosol ) . The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modelled after airship and aircraft . The word airplane dates from 1907, at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro- . In Canada, e

9546-518: The US: the more common connection has become the standard worldwide. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the original Latin word had -xio- . The American usage comes from Webster , who abandoned -xion and preferred -ction . Connexion was still the house style of The Times of London until the 1980s and was still used by Post Office Telecommunications for its telephone services in

9675-497: The United States took these preferences with them. In the early 20th century, H. L. Mencken notes that " honor appears in the 1776 Declaration of Independence , but it seems to have been put there rather by accident than by design". In Jefferson 's original draft it is spelled "honour". In Britain, examples of behavior , color , flavor , harbor , and neighbor rarely appear in Old Bailey court records from

9804-423: The United States use Centre in their names. Examples include the villages of Newton Centre and Rockville Centre , the city of Centreville , Centre County and Centre College . Sometimes, these places were named before spelling changes but more often the spelling serves as an affectation. Proper names are usually spelled according to their native-variety spelling vocabulary; so, for instance, although Peter

9933-460: The ability to carry out wide ranges of metabolic processes essential for the cycling of nutrients and chemicals throughout global ecosystems. Without microorganisms many of these processes would not occur, with significant impact on the functioning of land and ocean ecosystems and the planet's biogeochemical cycles as a whole. Changes to cycles can impact human health. The cycles are interconnected and play important roles regulating climate, supporting

10062-617: The adjective glamorous often drops the first "u". Saviour is a somewhat common variant of savior in the US. The British spelling is very common for honour (and favour ) in the formal language of wedding invitations in the US. The name of the Space Shuttle Endeavour has a u in it because the spacecraft was named after British Captain James Cook 's ship, HMS Endeavour . The (former) special car on Amtrak 's Coast Starlight train

10191-410: The air ( atmosphere ). The living factors of the planet can be referred to collectively as the biosphere . All the nutrients — such as carbon , nitrogen , oxygen , phosphorus , and sulfur — used in ecosystems by living organisms are a part of a closed system ; therefore, these chemicals are recycled instead of being lost and replenished constantly such as in an open system. The major parts of

10320-616: The air or surrounding medium. Generally, reservoirs are abiotic factors whereas exchange pools are biotic factors. Carbon is held for a relatively short time in plants and animals in comparison to coal deposits. The amount of time that a chemical is held in one place is called its residence time or turnover time (also called the renewal time or exit age). Box models are widely used to model biogeochemical systems. Box models are simplified versions of complex systems, reducing them to boxes (or storage reservoirs ) for chemical materials, linked by material fluxes (flows). Simple box models have

10449-605: The annual flux changes due to anthropogenic activities, averaged over the 2000–2009 time period. They represent how the carbon cycle has changed since 1750. Red numbers in the reservoirs represent the cumulative changes in anthropogenic carbon since the start of the Industrial Period, 1750–2011. There are fast and slow biogeochemical cycles. Fast cycle operate in the biosphere and slow cycles operate in rocks . Fast or biological cycles can complete within years, moving substances from atmosphere to biosphere, then back to

10578-466: The archaeological record is so direct an indicator. A process that preserves feces in a way that they may be analyzed later is the Maillard reaction . This reaction creates a casing of sugar that preserves the feces from the elements. To extract and analyze the information contained within, researchers generally have to freeze the feces and grind it up into powder for analysis. Animal dung occasionally

10707-423: The area from which they came, which is not always the case in human society where food may be transported from rural areas to urban populations and then feces disposed of into a river or sea. Depending on the individual and the circumstances, human beings may defecate several times a day, every day, or once every two or three days. Extensive hardening of the feces that interrupts this routine for several days or more

10836-413: The atmosphere and terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as soils and seafloor sediments . The fast cycle includes annual cycles involving photosynthesis and decadal cycles involving vegetative growth and decomposition. The reactions of the fast carbon cycle to human activities will determine many of the more immediate impacts of climate change. The slow cycle is illustrated in the diagram above on

10965-409: The atmosphere, the soil and the oceans. It can be thought of as the pathway by which a chemical substance cycles (is turned over or moves through) the biotic compartment and the abiotic compartments of Earth . The biotic compartment is the biosphere and the abiotic compartments are the atmosphere , lithosphere and hydrosphere . For example, in the carbon cycle, atmospheric carbon dioxide

11094-431: The atmosphere. Slow or geological cycles can take millions of years to complete, moving substances through the Earth's crust between rocks, soil, ocean and atmosphere. As an example, the fast carbon cycle is illustrated in the diagram below on the left. This cycle involves relatively short-term biogeochemical processes between the environment and living organisms in the biosphere. It includes movements of carbon between

11223-512: The baby begins to eat, and the body starts expelling bilirubin from dead red blood cells, its matter acquires the familiar brown color. At different times in their life, human beings will expel feces of different colors and textures. A stool that passes rapidly through the intestines will look greenish; lack of bilirubin will make the stool look like clay. The feces of animals, e.g. guano and manure , often are used as fertilizer . Dry animal dung , such as that of camel , bison and cattle ,

11352-443: The biosphere are connected by the flow of chemical elements and compounds in biogeochemical cycles. In many of these cycles, the biota plays an important role. Matter from the Earth's interior is released by volcanoes. The atmosphere exchanges some compounds and elements rapidly with the biota and oceans. Exchanges of materials between rocks, soils, and the oceans are generally slower by comparison. The flow of energy in an ecosystem

11481-528: The biosphere between the biotic and abiotic components and from one organism to another. Ecological systems ( ecosystems ) have many biogeochemical cycles operating as a part of the system, for example, the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, etc. All chemical elements occurring in organisms are part of biogeochemical cycles. In addition to being a part of living organisms, these chemical elements also cycle through abiotic factors of ecosystems such as water ( hydrosphere ), land ( lithosphere ), and/or

11610-518: The building itself, as noted above, generally is spelled theater . For example, the University of Wisconsin–Madison has a "Department of Theatre and Drama", which offers courses that lead to the "Bachelor of Arts in Theatre ", and whose professed aim is "to prepare our graduate students for successful 21st Century careers in the theatre both as practitioners and scholars". Some placenames in

11739-429: The case of human feces , fecal transplants or fecal bacteriotherapy are in use. Urine and feces together are called excreta . The distinctive odor of feces is due to skatole , and thiols ( sulfur -containing compounds), as well as amines and carboxylic acids. Skatole is produced from tryptophan via indoleacetic acid. Decarboxylation gives skatole. The perceived bad odor of feces has been hypothesized to be

11868-456: The choice to spell such words in the -ise form was a matter of personal preference ; however, a pupil having made the decision, one way or the other, thereafter ought to write uniformly not only for a given word, but to apply that same uniformity consistently for all words where the option is found. Just as with -yze spellings, however, in Canada the ize form remains the preferred or more common spelling, though both can still be found, yet

11997-426: The close historic, economic, and cultural relationship with the United States, -or endings are also sometimes used. Throughout the late 19th and early to mid-20th century, most Canadian newspapers chose to use the American usage of -or endings, originally to save time and money in the era of manual movable type . However, in the 1990s, the majority of Canadian newspapers officially updated their spelling policies to

12126-403: The dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e., " movie theaters "); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times would use theater in its entertainment section. However, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theatres on Broadway (cf. Broadway theatre) and elsewhere in the United States. In 2003,

12255-647: The earth system. The chemicals are sometimes held for long periods of time in one place. This place is called a reservoir , which, for example, includes such things as coal deposits that are storing carbon for a long period of time. When chemicals are held for only short periods of time, they are being held in exchange pools . Examples of exchange pools include plants and animals. Plants and animals utilize carbon to produce carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, which can then be used to build their internal structures or to obtain energy. Plants and animals temporarily use carbon in their systems and then release it back into

12384-715: The ending became ‑our to match the later Old French spelling. The ‑our ending was used not only in new English borrowings, but was also applied to the earlier borrowings that had used ‑or . However, ‑or was still sometimes found. The first three folios of Shakespeare 's plays used both spellings before they were standardised to ‑our in the Fourth Folio of 1685. After the Renaissance , new borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original ‑or ending, and many words once ending in ‑our (for example, chancellour and governour ) reverted to ‑or . A few words of

12513-406: The etymology was not clear, and therefore some scholars advocated ‑or only and others ‑our only. Webster's 1828 dictionary had only -or and is given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Johnson's 1755 (pre-U.S. independence and establishment) dictionary used -our for all words still so spelled in Britain (like colour ), but also for words where

12642-424: The feces of their mothers to gain essential gut flora , or by other animals such as dogs, rabbits, and monkeys. Feces and urine, which reflect ultraviolet light, are important to raptors such as kestrels , who can see the near ultraviolet and thus find their prey by their middens and territorial markers. Seeds also may be found in feces. Animals who eat fruit are known as frugivores . An advantage for

12771-475: The fibrous structure of the hide before the final stages of tanning. Dog feces collectors were known as pure finders . Elephants, hippos , koalas and pandas are born with sterile intestines, and require bacteria obtained from eating the feces of their mothers to digest vegetation. In India, cow dung and cow urine are major ingredients of the traditional Hindu drink Panchagavya . Politician Shankarbhai Vegad stated that they can cure cancer . Feces

12900-426: The form of carbon dioxide. However, this is less than one percent of the carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. The terrestrial subsurface is the largest reservoir of carbon on earth, containing 14–135 Pg of carbon and 2–19% of all biomass. Microorganisms drive organic and inorganic compound transformations in this environment and thereby control biogeochemical cycles. Current knowledge of

13029-437: The growth of plants , phytoplankton and other organisms, and maintaining the health of ecosystems generally. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels and using large amounts of fertilizer can disrupt cycles, contributing to climate change, pollution, and other environmental problems. Energy flows directionally through ecosystems, entering as sunlight (or inorganic molecules for chemoautotrophs ) and leaving as heat during

13158-685: The influence of the American labor movement and King O'Malley . On top of that, some place names in South Australia such as Victor Harbor , Franklin Harbor or Outer Harbor are usually spelled with the -or spellings. Aside from that, -our is now almost universal in Australia but the -or endings remain a minority variant. New Zealand English , while sharing some words and syntax with Australian English , follows British usage. In British English, some words from French, Latin or Greek end with

13287-461: The left shows a simplified budget of ocean carbon flows. It is composed of three simple interconnected box models, one for the euphotic zone , one for the ocean interior or dark ocean, and one for ocean sediments . In the euphotic zone, net phytoplankton production is about 50 Pg C each year. About 10 Pg is exported to the ocean interior while the other 40 Pg is respired. Organic carbon degradation occurs as particles ( marine snow ) settle through

13416-417: The living biosphere and the nonliving lithosphere , atmosphere , and hydrosphere . Biogeochemical cycles can be contrasted with geochemical cycles . The latter deals only with crustal and subcrustal reservoirs even though some process from both overlap. The global ocean covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface and is remarkably heterogeneous. Marine productive areas, and coastal ecosystems comprise

13545-457: The many transfers between trophic levels . However, the matter that makes up living organisms is conserved and recycled. The six most common elements associated with organic molecules — carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur — take a variety of chemical forms and may exist for long periods in the atmosphere, on land, in water, or beneath the Earth's surface. Geologic processes, such as weathering , erosion , water drainage , and

13674-427: The marine nekton , including reduced sulfur species such as H 2 S, have a negative impact for marine resources like fisheries and coastal aquaculture. While global change has accelerated, there has been a parallel increase in awareness of the complexity of marine ecosystems, and especially the fundamental role of microbes as drivers of ecosystem functioning. Microorganisms drive much of the biogeochemical cycling in

13803-479: The metabolic interaction networks that underpin them. This restricts the ability of biogeochemical models to capture key aspects of the carbon and other nutrient cycles. New approaches such as genome-resolved metagenomics, an approach that can yield a comprehensive set of draft and even complete genomes for organisms without the requirement for laboratory isolation have the potential to provide this critical level of understanding of biogeochemical processes. Some of

13932-405: The microbial ecology of the subsurface is primarily based on 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequences. Recent estimates show that <8% of 16S rRNA sequences in public databases derive from subsurface organisms and only a small fraction of those are represented by genomes or isolates. Thus, there is remarkably little reliable information about microbial metabolism in the subsurface. Further, little

14061-473: The more well-known biogeochemical cycles are shown below: Many biogeochemical cycles are currently being studied for the first time. Climate change and human impacts are drastically changing the speed, intensity, and balance of these relatively unknown cycles, which include: Biogeochemical cycles always involve active equilibrium states: a balance in the cycling of the element between compartments. However, overall balance may involve compartments distributed on

14190-414: The nature of the suffix used. The u is kept before English suffixes that are freely attachable to English words (for example in humourless , neighbourhood , and savoury ) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been adopted into English (for example in behaviourism , favourite , and honourable ). However, before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words,

14319-404: The ocean interior. Only 2 Pg eventually arrives at the seafloor, while the other 8 Pg is respired in the dark ocean. In sediments, the time scale available for degradation increases by orders of magnitude with the result that 90% of the organic carbon delivered is degraded and only 0.2 Pg C yr is eventually buried and transferred from the biosphere to the geosphere. The diagram on the right shows

14448-614: The planet. Precipitation can seep into the ground and become part of groundwater systems used by plants and other organisms, or can runoff the surface to form lakes and rivers. Subterranean water can then seep into the ocean along with river discharges , rich with dissolved and particulate organic matter and other nutrients. There are biogeochemical cycles for many other elements, such as for oxygen , hydrogen , phosphorus , calcium , iron , sulfur , mercury and selenium . There are also cycles for molecules, such as water and silica . In addition there are macroscopic cycles such as

14577-464: The production of key intermediary volatile products, some of which have marked greenhouse effects (e.g., N 2 O and CH 4 , reviewed by Breitburg in 2018, due to the increase in global temperature, ocean stratification and deoxygenation, driving as much as 25 to 50% of nitrogen loss from the ocean to the atmosphere in the so-called oxygen minimum zones or anoxic marine zones, driven by microbial processes. Other products, that are typically toxic for

14706-562: The reservoir. If the reservoir is in a steady state, this is the same as the time it takes to fill or drain the reservoir. Thus, if τ is the turnover time, then τ = M / S . The equation describing the rate of change of content in a reservoir is When two or more reservoirs are connected, the material can be regarded as cycling between the reservoirs, and there can be predictable patterns to the cyclic flow. More complex multibox models are usually solved using numerical techniques. Global biogeochemical box models usually measure: The diagram on

14835-485: The right. It involves medium to long-term geochemical processes belonging to the rock cycle . The exchange between the ocean and atmosphere can take centuries, and the weathering of rocks can take millions of years. Carbon in the ocean precipitates to the ocean floor where it can form sedimentary rock and be subducted into the Earth's mantle . Mountain building processes result in the return of this geologic carbon to

14964-618: The runoff of organic matter from the mainland to coastal ecosystems is just one of a series of pressing threats stressing microbial communities due to global change. Climate change has also resulted in changes in the cryosphere , as glaciers and permafrost melt, resulting in intensified marine stratification , while shifts of the redox-state in different biomes are rapidly reshaping microbial assemblages at an unprecedented rate. Global change is, therefore, affecting key processes including primary productivity , CO 2 and N 2 fixation, organic matter respiration/ remineralization , and

15093-475: The simplified form palestra is described by Merriam-Webster as "chiefly Brit[ish]." This is a reverse of the typical rule, where British spelling uses the ae / oe and American spelling simply uses e . Words that can be spelled either way in British English include cham a eleon , encyclop a edia , hom o eopathy , medi a eval (a minor variant in both AmE and BrE ), f o etid and f o etus . The spellings f o etus and f o etal are Britishisms based on

15222-422: The sinking and burial deposition of fixed CO 2 . In addition to this, oceans are experiencing an acidification process , with a change of ~0.1 pH units between the pre-industrial period and today, affecting carbonate / bicarbonate buffer chemistry. In turn, acidification has been reported to impact planktonic communities, principally through effects on calcifying taxa. There is also evidence for shifts in

15351-410: The sounds became monophthongs , and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example, cœli ) and French (for example, œuvre ). In English, which has adopted words from all three languages, it is now usual to replace Æ/æ with Ae/ae and Œ/œ with Oe/oe . In many words, the digraph has been reduced to a lone e in all varieties of English: for example, o economics , pr

15480-695: The spelling "is often seen as such". The -ize form is known as Oxford spelling and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary , and of other academic publishers such as Nature , the Biochemical Journal and The Times Literary Supplement . It can be identified using the IETF language tag en-GB-oxendict (or, historically, by en-GB-oed ). In Ireland, India, Australia, and New Zealand -ise spellings strongly prevail:

15609-608: The spellings with just e are increasingly used. Manoeuvre is the only spelling in Australia, and the most common one in Canada, where maneuver and manoeuver are also sometimes found. The -ize spelling is often incorrectly seen in Britain as an Americanism. It has been in use since the 15th century, predating the -ise spelling by over a century. The verb-forming suffix -ize comes directly from Ancient Greek -ίζειν ( -ízein ) or Late Latin -izāre , while -ise comes via French -iser . The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) recommends -ize and lists

15738-529: The taxa that form their ecosystems, are subject to significant anthropogenic pressure, impacting marine life and recycling of energy and nutrients. A key example is that of cultural eutrophication , where agricultural runoff leads to nitrogen and phosphorus enrichment of coastal ecosystems, greatly increasing productivity resulting in algal blooms , deoxygenation of the water column and seabed, and increased greenhouse gas emissions, with direct local and global impacts on nitrogen and carbon cycles . However,

15867-412: The vowel is unreduced in pronunciation (e.g., devour , contour , flour , hour , paramour , tour , troubadour , and velour ), the spelling is uniform everywhere. Most words of this kind came from Latin, where the ending was spelled ‑or . They were first adopted into English from early Old French , and the ending was spelled ‑our , ‑or or ‑ur . After the Norman conquest of England ,

15996-624: The word fiord (instead of fjord ) . There is an increasing use of macrons in words that originated in Māori and an unambiguous preference for -ise endings (see below). Most words ending in an unstressed ‑our in British English (e.g., behaviour , colour , favour , flavour , harbour , honour , humour , labour , neighbour , rumour , splendour ) end in ‑or in American English ( behavior , color , favor , flavor , harbor , honor , humor , labor , neighbor , rumor , splendor ). Wherever

16125-428: The word pallor . As a general noun, rigour / ˈ r ɪ ɡ ər / has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor (sometimes / ˈ r aɪ ɡ ər / ) does not, such as in rigor mortis , which is Latin. Derivations of rigour / rigor such as rigorous , however, are typically spelled without a u , even in the UK. Words with the ending -irior , -erior or similar are spelled thus everywhere. The word armour

16254-666: Was not until the mid-1990s that Canadian-based dictionaries became increasingly common.) Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as United Nations Organizations (such as the World Health Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization ) and the International Organization for Standardization (but not by

16383-428: Was once somewhat common in American usage but has disappeared except in some brand names such as Under Armour . The agent suffix -or ( separator , elevator , translator , animator , etc.) is spelled thus both in American and British English. Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. Canadian English most commonly uses the -our ending and -our- in derivatives and inflected forms. However, owing to

16512-929: Was published. Following this, -re became the most common usage in Britain. In the United States, following the publication of Webster's Dictionary in the early 19th century, American English became more standardized, exclusively using the -er spelling. In addition, spelling of some words have been changed from -re to -er in both varieties. These include September , October , November , December , amber, blister , cadaver , chamber , chapter , charter , cider , coffer , coriander , cover , cucumber , cylinder , diaper , disaster , enter , fever , filter , gender , leper , letter , lobster , master , member , meter (measuring instrument) , minister , monster , murder , number , offer , order , oyster , powder , proper , render , semester , sequester , sinister , sober , surrender , tender , and tiger . Words using

16641-437: Was very influential in popularizing certain spellings in the United States, but he did not originate them. Rather [...] he chose already existing options such as center, color and check for the simplicity, analogy or etymology". William Shakespeare 's first folios , for example, used spellings such as center and color as much as centre and colour . Webster did attempt to introduce some reformed spellings, as did

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