The Homely Scientist

Recently scientists found bacteria preserved in an Antarctic glacier (talk about freeze drying!) and were able to get it growing in culture in the lab:

Paul Falkowski of Rutgers University, who led the study, describes the ancient bacteria as small round cells that had been in a “suspended state of animation for 8 million years”. He says the increasingly rapid flow of glaciers into the ocean as a result of global warming could release new organisms into the sea but he does not believe this is cause for concern because marine bacteria and viruses are typically far less harmful to human health than, for instance, those found on land Source: Boing Boing: Bacteria is eight-million-years-old, and still alive

Yeah, okay this is cool and all, but I’m not sure I agree with the assertion that there is nothing to fear.  See, what if some pathogen that old is re-released into the environment and the immunity to is long since gone?  What if this wipes out fish stocks?  Or worse plant or other smaller marine life that are the foundations of the food chain?

Let’s not even think about human pathogens that could be trapped in places.

Okay, okay … the risk isn’t huge … and no this isn’t something I’d lose sleep over, but when I read sections above I always feel like I’m in the opening scenes of some disaster movie…

Again, this is another potential off-shoot of global warming that I’m sure we’re not going to be too pleased about.

Share This

 Here’s a great example of science and engineering looking to nature for new and innovative ways to solve problems.  Look at that robot!  It’s tiny!  It hops!  It finds pollution!

Umberto Scarfogliero, one of the men behind the University of Lucca project, says that the team focused on fleas and frogs in particular when researching the ‘bot. “Robots like these are far more efficient than larger ones in scouring vast areas of land in a shorter time,” he explained. The little critters are now being equipped with sensors that will allow them to locate sources of mercury poisoning. Source: Leaping Lizards: Robot that Jumps Like a Flea Can Sniff out Pollution - Gizmodo

If there is one thing I’ve learned in my years of looking at the natural world, it’s that nature has some great ideas.  Lots of inspiration to be had.  Like … Velcro from burrs (the plant kind), the chain saw from beetle grubs (this is true).  Just sit, watch, and learn.  You never know what you might come up with.

Share This

The key to many hybrid cars is the battery technology.  Seems that an attempt by Toyota to switch to LiON batteries has caused some problems:

Bob Kanode, the CEO of Valence Technology, which makes lithium-ion batteries for vehicles, recently said one of the big issues for the electric car world was going to be cobalt versus phosphate. And he may be right. Source: Has Toyota delayed new Priuses? Is cobalt to blame? | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Right now the Prius uses the time-tested Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries, laptops and other power-hungry devices use LiON (Lithium ion).  Of course LiON batteries have been having a small safety issue of late.  Can you imagine a LiON battery catching on fire in a car?

Boom.

Not good for increasing adoption of hybrid or electric vehicles.  Solution?  Instead of cobalt, phosphate could be used…but the work isn’t complete.  They only thing that can be done now, is wait.

Share This

 Now this is what I’m talkin’ about!

Built on just 3 acres of land, (most single-story storage facilities need ten times that amount) Portland City Storage will be the largest solar facility in the Northwest. Excess power will be sold on to Portland General Electric, and there is a rainwater collection area on the roof. Source: Eco: Portland’s Solar-Powered, 22-Story Storage Facility - Gizmodo

Really what we have to do is build this kind of facility in order to satisfy our energy thirst.  Is it easy?  Of course not, but also fears that something like this has to be ugly…well just look at that picture!

Share This

What do you think of this?

This creature, apparently a half-squid, half-octopus, was found off Hawaii’s Big Island. Possibly a newly-discovered species, it was accidentally sucked up into a deep-sea water pipeline from a depth of 3,000 feet. Researchers at the Natural Energy Laboratory, where the pipeline leads, found the animal trapped in a filter. From the Honolulu Star Bulletin: Source: Boing Boing: Possible “octosquid” discovered

Unfortunately it turned out that it was just a rare squid short two tentacles

Share This

When I was studying human origins in college (my first Anthro class, btw) we were just beginning to understand the range and depth of our primate cousins.  This is new research sheds some light onto how we managed not to all be eaten by lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!):

A new study supports the theory that chimps can be altruistic just like people. Children as young as 18 months-old also seem to help adults, even strangers, without any immediate benefit to themselves. According to psychologist Felix Warneken of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, altruism goes back as far as 6 million years ago when to the common ancestor we share with chimps. Source: Boing Boing: Ape altruism

The idea that an individual would do something to benefit another is extremely important to the beginnings of “society” and social groups.  Sometimes you protect the young of another just because.  That’s something to sit back and think on.

Share This

Although this sounds like something out of Star Trek, or a bad horror movie, scientists in Israel have developed a robot small enough to travel through your bloodstream:

Two Israeli scientists may have created the catalyst for a medical revolution with their new project: a tiny, 1-millimeter-diameter robot which is capable of crawling through human veins and arteries. The bot can cling to vessel walls using small, powerful arms which protrude from a hub in its center. Manned control is accomplished by using a magnetic field outside of the body, and the robot is able to swim against the flow of blood, as well as squeeze through a variety of arterial openings. Source: Mini-robot swims through bloodstream - Engadget

Could this be good?  Sure!  Imagine these little buggers (pun intended) cleaning out your arteries, or blasting cancer cells with targeted radiation or chemotherapy drugs.  This could be a huge breakthrough.  I’m sure, however, that it could be decades before we see it being used for real.

Share This

Last week I talked about how we could be looking at a disaster of Biblical proportions (think Noah) if some of the major ice sheets melted, now comes word that the largest of the world’s ice sheets, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, is safe for the time being:

While studies of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets show they are both at risk from global warming, the East Antarctic ice sheet will “need quite a bit of warming” to be affected, Andrew Mackintosh, a senior lecturer at Victoria University, said Wednesday.

The air over the East Antarctic ice sheet, an ice mass more than 1,875 miles across and up to 2.5 miles thick centered on the South Pole, will remain cold enough to prevent significant melting in the near future, the New Zealand-led research shows.

But it eventually may become vulnerable to the effects of rising sea levels driven by the melting of other ice sheets, Mackintosh’s team found. Their research was published this week in the journal Geology. Source: Wired News - AP News

This news doesn’t get us off the hook, but at least a huge wave covering most of the coastal cities of the world isn’t looming on the near-term horizon.

Share This

Insulating buildings is one of the most important aspects of the building process.  Insulation not only has to, well, insulate, but it also has to not grow nasty things and last for a long time (who wanted to rip open all their outside walls every few years–if ever).  Insulation, which is typically fiberglass now, does take resources to make and isn’t recyclable (although it is made from recycled glass).  Now, what if you could grow insulation?  Yeah, grow.  Couple smart guys figured out how to make a growing medium for oyster mushroom spores that could become suitable insulation material:

Placed in a dark environment, the cells start to grow, digesting the starch as food and sprouting thousands of root-like cellular strands. A week to two weeks later, a 1-inch-thick panel of insulation is fully grown. It’s then dried to prevent fungal growth, making it unlikely to trigger mold and fungus allergies, according to Bayer. The finished product resembles a giant cracker in texture.

“It really allows for a myriad of uses,” said McIntyre. He said they’ve envisioned modifying the product to make structural panels that could be grown and assembled onsite to produce sustainable homes.

“Green building materials should be evaluated on the idea of cradle to cradle,” said Evelyne Michaut of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In the cradle-to-cradle industrial model, goods should either be fully biodegradable or reusable, limiting waste and pollution, according to Michaut, a sustainable city advocate from Santa Monica, Calif.

“That’s the ultimate environmental reference,” she said, adding that it seems like Greensulate is on its way to fulfilling that criteria.

For Bayer and McIntyre, their next step will be creating larger pieces of Greensulate to use in building a wall. From there, they’ll perform further testing to see how the product stands up to various elements, including saturation and humidity. McIntyre said they have one two-year-old sample that’s been exposed to the elements and shown no sign of degradation. Source: Mushrooms become source for eco-building - Yahoo! News

Cool stuff.  Of course, it’s a little ways from being a part of your next building project, but it shows the amazing untapped potential of natural materials.

Hat tip: Boing Boing

Share This

 When I’m ranting and raving about alternative energy and lauding companies like Google, I talk about being able to feed into the system and get credit for it.  Looks like the Province of Ontario is finally getting it:

One of the key elements in the incentive programs is a solar “feed-in” tariff that pays people and organizations with solar panels cash for any electricity they feed into the grid. In the United States, utilities offer credits for solar power; a homeowner or business can reduce their electricity bill with these credits, but at best end up owing nothing to the utility.

With feed-in tariffs, solar panels become profit centers. In Germany, the government gives panel owners around 45 cents for every kilowatt hour fed into the grid, which is more than a kilowatt hour costs.

“You can go to financial planning meetings and you’ll see people with spreadsheets calculating hours of sunlight and the potential revenue,” said Jeff Osborne, an analyst with CIBC World Market in a recent interview. “Half of the solar power in Germany comes from farmers.”

Ontario has adopted a feed-in tariff for solar that will provide 42 cents per kilowatt hour. The response so far has been positive. After the feed-in tariffs were unfurled, a North American company has said it will build solar power plants that will produce 60 megawatts of power, said the representative from the Ontario Power Authority. Source: Ontario: The new frontier for alternative energy | CNET News.com

Now if we can get more governments and utilities on board with this, we’d be getting much farther along in our global need to reduce emissions.

Share This