Microbial ecology and nanotechnology expanded spatial horizons inward.

Evidence

Biologists began to understand the extraordinarily important role that microbes play as the planet’s ultimate recyclers. By breaking down complex chemical compounds over time, microbes supply many of the discrete chemical elements needed for sustaining life. As physicists further examined the workings of the atom through faster and more powerful “atom smashers,” new horizons were similarly revealed in the smallest of spaces. Nanotechnology—the manipulation of individual molecules to create useful materials and devices invisible to the naked eye—proliferated as engineers sought to develop practical applications of atomic forces. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 927

Categorization

• XREF: Frames inward spatial expansion (microbes as planetary recyclers) — links to the reader’s listening/observation-as-method thread about attention to the small. — connects to: Ecological injury’s spatial and temporal scales are ill-suited to how law is made. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 43; Microsocial interactions have risen to structural equivalence with macroscopic global phenomena. — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 18; A single new gap contains abutting, highly contrasting microenvironments. — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 424

Broader Connections

• Microsocial interactions have risen to structural equivalence with macroscopic global phenomena. #expands (0.80) — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 18