Bio-Based Ideas

Recently, “Forschung Aktuell” , a science news radio show on Deutschland Radio, highlighted some interesting research by the German scientist Hauke Harms on his approach to affordable solutions to detect arsenic in drinking water which is a common problem in some parts of the world. I was interested to learn how arsenic is sometimes found in drinking water. According to the show, arsen naturally exists in the environment as arsenopyrite. Natural processes can erode these layers and transport them down the river. There, arsen can react with organic matter that is commonly dumped into the river in heavily populated areas without proper waste water treatment to form arsenic. These arsenite containing waters can sink all the way into the ground water. Arsenite is a big problem because it is a non-biodegradable toxin which can cause cancer and other serious diseases as it accumulates in our bodies. To address this problem, one needs to have means to measure the presence of arsenite. Usi...

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...

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...

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...