Bio-Based Ideas

I listened to an interesting podcast a few weeks ago and just wanted to share what I learned by listening to "Wissenschaft im Brennpunkt" which translates into "Science in Focus". Today's topic: What is forest agronomy? Following is a partial transcript and summary of this podcast.

I recently came across an interesting article posted at Discover which talked about a company by the name of Micropidas . It seeks to convert human effluent into a polyesterbelonging to polyhydroxyalkanoates or PHA family. Why is this important? Plastics often times are derived from oil. Using this bio-based approach cuts that out. In this case, there is an added benefit: they produce plastics while cleaning up the water. And lastly, Micropidas claims that the plastic produced is actually bio-degradable! I haven't had time to research this in more detail, but thought I would share this here.   To read the full, article please go here: http://news.discovery.com/tech/poop-plastic-puts-waste-to-work.html

What was done? I came across an interesting article yesterday titled “Biodegradation of Physicochemically Treated Polycarbonate by Fungi” published in Biomacromolecules. What this group essentially did was to isolate fungi from the environment by exposing them to conditions in which plastics were the only source of food. The group basically identified three fungi ( Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Engyodontium album  and Pencillium spp. ) , and characterized some of the parameters by asking basic questions about: Efficacy changes when fungal isolates were exposed to certain pre-treatments (either heat or UV light). Growth of biomass (how much the fungi grew during this time) How much extracellular protein was secreted and a crude determination of the class proteins released Loss of mass of the piece of plastic Changes in physical, chemical and surface properties. Why is this important? I asked myself the same question until I realized what plastic they were working with: Bi...

The fact that our overreliance on fossil fuels is quickly draining easily accessible resources is becoming more known in the public. Now there is talk on several scientific and environmental radio shows that warn of declining phosphorus reserves. The concern over a possible phosphorus shortage may seem contradictory to observations of increased algal blooms and eutrophication of inner water streams – a phenomenon where increased chemical nutrients in the environment lead to algal blooms and suffocation of aquatic life with detrimental  consequences to the environment – which at least in part are caused by increased bio-available phosphorus. All this lead me to the question: Is there really a phosphorus shortage? Phosphorus is the 15th element on our periodic table. In nature phosphorus never exists in its elementary form due to its reactivity [1]. Phosphorus is one of the essential elements of life because it is part of many structures in living cells from simple bacteria to c...

After spending the last few blog posts on different aspects of dissimilatory bacteria , I want to switch the focus to a different class of organisms I have been interested in for a long time now. These are the algae. Algae comprise a large diversity of "sea weeds" and an even larger variety of single-celled organisms that mostly are capable of doing photosynthesis. They include the ordinary sea-weed, and make up a portion of the green slime found around the edges and the bottom of a pond. More exotic types of algae can live symbiotically - that is together with another organism in a mutually beneficial way. Lichens are an example of symbiotic relationship between algae and fungi. More information about the evolution and lineage of algae can be found in this wiki article . Image via Wikipedia Typically, these organisms are either not mentioned at all or only in conjunction with toxic algal blooms. But lately, algae, of course, have been in the news recently because of the p...

Last time, we explored how dissimilatory bacteria can be used to generate electricity in devices called Microbial Fuel Cells. In part one, I mentioned that the dissimilatory properties of bacteria like Shewanella can potentially also be used for solving part of the problem of radioactive uranium contaminations. When I mentioned this idea to my friend who is a soil scientist, I realized that I did not know how these bacteria can be used to contain uranium contamination. Curious about how exactly this works, I found a review article titled “Uranium Reduction” in the Annual Review of Microbiology written by Judy D. Wall and Lee R. Krumholz (Vol. 60: 149-166, Oct 2006). Following is a summary of what I found. Uranium is a metal with the symbol U on the periodic table. It has the atomic number 92 which means that it has 92 protons and electrons. In nature, occurs in three different forms U-238 (~ 99.238 %), U-235 (0.711 %), and U-234 (0.0058%) where each number refers to the combined num...