Bio-Based Ideas

This is still from the SD-CAP Symposium. Another talk I wanted to summarize was Professor Stephen Mayfield's talk titled "Where we are - where we are going" The presentation slides can be found at the following location for anyone interested: http://algae.ucsd.edu/documents/SD-CABsymposiumMayfield.pdf Professor Mayfield’s talk was more of an overview talk meant to introduce the audience to the topic of algal biofuels. It could be divided into 2 parts: the problem, and the solution. The Problem Professor Mayfield started by making the point that between 1900 and today energy has been a rapidly growing market reaching $5.8 trillion today from just $ 0.4 billion. The future energy market is predicted to double in value within just ten years. There is an interesting correlation between energy use and wealth of a nation. The United States according this chart is one of the wealthiest nations in the world while also using proportionally more resources. The future growt...

Today, I wanted to experiment with a more free-form way about little science factoids that may seem surprising. Today: Schematic of a cell membrane. Source: http://library.thinkquest.org/ Did/Do you know…what cell membranes are made off? If you go back to your high school or basic college biology class, you may recall a picture showing that cell membranes are made off phospholipids. All major examples taught in class – from animal, plants and microbial cell membranes to organelle membranes such as mitochondrial or ER membranes. The arrangement of phospholipid layers made complete sense: the lipid hydrophobic tails would be hidden within the bilayer of phospholipids while the polar hydrophilic heads would be facing the aqueous environment. For some reason, my brain made the connection: ALL membranes consist of phospholipids, but are they? Apparently, this is not so when it comes to membranes of photosynthetic membranes according to the article titled “What Can Plant Model...