Study suggests 'biodegradable' teabags don't readily deteriorate in the environment and... - 0 views
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The research looked at commonly available teabags made using three different compositions of polylactic acid (PLA), which is derived from sources such as corn starch or sugar cane.
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The teabags were buried in soil for seven months, and a range of techniques were then used to assess whether -- and to what extent -- they had deteriorated.
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The study also examined the impacts of the discs cut from the teabags on a species of earthworm, Eisenia fetida, which has a critical role in soil nutrient turnover as it consumes organic matter.
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A Surprise find: Soybean waste can be fish feed - 0 views
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fish feed. The wastewater from soybean
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processing can be converted into a nourishing, protein-rich food for farmed Asian sea bass, a team of scientists has discovered.
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They worked with a local food processing company to rescue hundreds of liters of soybean wastewater, which they discovered was rich in two types of protein-accumulating microbes in particular, known as Acidipropionibacterium and Propioniciclava.
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Study traces an infectious language epidemic | ScienceDaily - 0 views
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Rho's work is grounded in a social science framework called Fuzzy Trace Theory that was pioneered by Valerie Reyna, a Cornell University professor of psychology and a collaborator on this Virginia Tech project. Reyna has shown that individuals learn and recall information better when it is expressed in a cause and effect relationship, and not just as rote information. This holds true even if the information is inaccurate or the implied connection is weak. Reyna calls this cause-and-effect construction a "gist."
Add to the many afterlives of coffee grounds: Toxic cleanup - 0 views
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The experts selected onion plants to test out this idea, known for their high sensitivity to toxins in the environment. In beakers of water containing bentazone, they grew onion root tissue, called meristems, measuring its cell division and root growth as a sign of health.
Analysis of pesticides in surface water, stemflow, and throughfall in an agricultural a... - 0 views
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The highest pesticide concentration observed was 10.50 μg/L of metolachlor
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sticide in surface water and stemflow samples was metolachlor (0.09–10.5 μg/L), h
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he most commonly detected pesticide in throughfall samples was biphenyl (0.02–0.07 μg/L).
Frontiers | Overview of Carbon Capture Technology: Microalgal Biorefinery Concept and S... - 2 views
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The impending danger of climate change and pollution can now be seen on the world panorama. The concentration of CO2, the most important Green House Gas (GHG), has reached to formidable levels.
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(iii) microalgae cultivation
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Furthermore, microalgae can be fed with notorious waste gasses such as CO2 and NOx, SOx from flue gas, inorganic and organic carbon, N, P and other pollutants from agricultural, industrial and sewage wastewater sources so as to provide us with opportunities to transform them into bioenergy, valuable products and forms that cause least harm to the environment
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OK, so... you could likely create a biofuel from algae produced via the insertion of CO2 into a bioreactor system (perhaps even test the one you have vs. a creation fo your own to maximize growth with a more powerful set of lights and extensive tubing). Right off the top of my head, I know we can easily access commercial CO2 canisters that are used in aquarium setups to boost plant growth. Fluval makes such canisters. You would have to find out the volume/mass of CO2 contained in one. You'd have to be less concerned with toxins of you are able to choose a different algae for this capture vs. the rather toxic species you worked with last year.
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Airplane Noise Exposure May Increase Risk of Chronic Disease | SPH - 0 views
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people who were exposed to higher levels of noise from aircraft were more likely to have a higher body mass index, an indicator for obesity that can lead to stroke or hypertension. The findings highlight how the environment—and environmental injustices—can shape health outcomes
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self-reported body mass index (BMI)
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The study is the first to explore a connection between aircraft noise exposure and obesity nationwide in the United States; past studies on this subject have focused on European populations, and results have varied
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New fabric cools people in sweltering cities - 0 views
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researchers have designed a new wearable fabric to help people beat the heat in urban settings. The material, reported in the journal Science, could find use in clothing, cooling facades for buildings and cars, and for food storage and transport.
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Existing cooling fabrics reflect sunlight and also wick away sweat to cool a person via evaporation. More recently, researchers have designed cooling fabrics that rely on the principle of radiative cooling: the natural phenomenon in which objects radiate heat through the atmosphere straight into outer space.
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But radiative cooling fabrics made so far are designed to work when laid horizontally as opposed to vertically, as they would be when worn.
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Mysterious Underwater Acoustic World of British Ponds Revealed in New Study | Current S... - 1 views
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The previously hidden and diverse underwater acoustic world in British ponds has been revealed by a team of researchers at the University of Bristol.
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Acoustic monitoring has been shown to effectively survey birds and monkeys in rainforests, and marine mammals in the oceans. However, freshwater environments have remained largely unexplored despite their diverse soundscapes.
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analysis of the audio files revealed clear daily acoustic activity cycles in each pond
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Aside from the exploratory surveys you would do just to see "what's out there" and assess what we CAN learn from listening to a pond, you could make it experimental by comparing ponds you've assessed the health of by other means. In other words, do acoustic comparisons between two ponds correlate with what you find by doing a macroinvertebrate sampling? I really LIKE the possibilities in this one!
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Traffic speeds decrease when bike lane is present | ScienceDaily - 0 views
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Researchers conducting a study at a high-traffic intersection in a Jersey Shore town have found that the installation of a bike lane along the road approaching the convergence reduced driving speeds.
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"We are giving you more evidence that bike lanes save lives,"
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The research team started by creating a temporary bike lane on Cookman and Asbury Avenues on the side of the road heading toward the beach, delineating it with orange road cones.
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Though you COULD NOT do something this manipulative, you COULD contact municipalities nearby and inquire about current and near-future efforts to install bike lanes... and THEN collect pre-and most traffic data in real-time. This would be quite feasible and super interesting. It would be all about doing the legwork to find where these design changes are being made, and of course the timing of it all.
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Biodegradation of polyethylene by the marine fungus Parengyodontium album - ScienceDirect - 1 views
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UV light
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Graphical abstract
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degradation
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Strange.... when I go to this article, I can see your highlights, but I cannot see your comments. Usually, when I can see those, I can comment back right there as opposed to saving it myself. Grrrr...
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Super interesting topic (I saw this one last week). The work with isotopes they did here is well beyond feasibility for us, but that doesn't mean there isn't something here that could be done. You'd have to work through the set up of marine environments (tanks) and acquisition of these fungal strains. I'm betting the one they recently recovered from biofilm on plastic trash in the ocean would be super difficult to get our hands on, but they do mention several others that have previously been found to degrade plastics. perhaps those are more easily obtained. (?) Degredation fo plastic by microbes is EXACTLY what the cheater-guy did in lasy year's winning ISEF project, but like this article says, most of this work has been done with bacteria, not eukaryotic organisms like fungi. I also thing the area of biofilms is super interesting. The analysis (beyond weighing the plastic pre/post) is rather instrumental and that might be difficult depending upon our ability to find someone to help us analyze instrumentally. I like the idea, but feasibility is unknown at the moment. You might want to keep reading down this area. It is certainly interesting and important. Keep an eye on feasibility as you go forward.