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Tools to illustrate your scientific works! (open source web-based) | by Dr. Veronica Es... - 0 views

  • 1.-ChemixChemisc is an educational app that lets you easily draw lab diagram setups and explain your experiments. It has a large library of highly customisable apparatus and various features to help you draw diagrams with ease [3].
  • 2.-SmartSince its launch in 2001, Servier Medical Art is a trusted and internationally recognized resource used in respected journals, textbooks, online resources, and more. [ In this website you will find 3000 Free medical images to illustrate your publications and Powerpoint presentations!
  • 3.-BioiconsBioicons is a free library of open source icons for scientific illustrations using vector graphics software
    • Sean Nash
       
      This one I already knew of and used. Several students made use of this resource last year.
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  • 4.-Health IconsHealth Icons is a volunteer effort to create a ‘global good’ for health projects all over the world. These icons are available in the public domain for use in any type of project.
  • 5.-SciDrawSciDraw is a free repository of high quality drawings of animals, scientific setups, and anything that might be useful for scientific presentations and posters [9].
  • 5.-Draw.ioDraw.io is a free, online diagramming tool that allows you to create flowcharts, diagrams, mind maps, organisation charts, and much more. A web-based application, Draw.io is fully integrated with Google Drive. This means that you can automatically save the results of your work in your Google Workspace or Gmail account [10].
  •  
    Save these for later this year. You will likely use resources like this to aid in your diagrams/models for your display.
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Airplane Noise Exposure May Increase Risk of Chronic Disease | SPH - 0 views

  • 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
  • self-reported body mass index (BMI)
  • 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
    • Sean Nash
       
      It would be interesting to see how these studied varied. I would bet that there are other, stronger factors overlying this effect, and it would be challenging to tease out this signal from other socioeconomic factors, but I very much like this concept.
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  • “Prior research has shown that aircraft noise can elevate stress responses and disturb sleep, but there has been mixed evidence of any links with body mass index,” says study lead and corresponding author Matthew Bozigar, assistant professor of epidemiology at OSU and a former postdoctoral associate at SPH. “We were surprised to see a fairly robust link between aircraft noise and higher body mass index among women across the US.”
  • These new findings underscore the role of the environment on one’s risk of chronic disease.
  • Junenette Peters, associate professor of environmental health, and colleagues examined airplane noise exposure and self-reported BMI and other individual characteristics among nearly 75,000 participants living around 90 of the major US airports
  • The team examined aircraft noise levels every five years from 1995 to 2010, using a day-night estimate (DNL) that captures the average noise level over a 24-hour period and applies a 10 dB adjustment for aircraft noise occurring at night, when background noise is low.
    • Sean Nash
       
      I'm sure there are low-powered data loggers that measure dB that we could plant in various places (varying distances from airports (or other things... even just distances from population centers in general). This would allow us to not only work with and search for correlations between data points already collected, but also to generate more specific data on our own. The human data might not necessarily have to be collected by us. The challenge might be just to find databases that have already been collected for various reasons. Much science is done in this way, where instead of generating a ton of data to analyze, the researcher used previously collected data to ask new and interesting questions of.
  • Although the team acknowledges that BMI is a suboptimal metric, the independent and strong association between more aircraft noise exposure and higher BMI that they observed is notable.
  • “We can only hypothesize about why we saw these regional variations, but one reason may relate to the era of regional development, building characteristics, and climate which may affect factors such as housing age, design, and level of insulation,” says Peters. “Regional differences in temperature and humidity may influence behaviors such as window opening, so perhaps study participants living in the West were more exposed to aircraft noise due to open windows or housing type, which allowed more noise to penetrate.”
    • Sean Nash
       
      The really interesting work here would be teasing interesting patterns out of really complex data sets. For example, people living near airports typically live in housing that is less expensive due to the lesser desirability of living in that area. That tends to correlate with lower socio-economic status found near airports. However, this is interesting because the major flightpaths to the KCI airport do not exactly line up in this way. For example, three of the school districts in Missouri that line up with KCI runways (Park Hill Schools - where we live, Platte County Schools, Kearney Schools, Smithville Schools, and the northern part of North Kansas City Schools) are all of a higher than average socioeconomic status than outlying areas closer to the city. This is unusual in major metropolitan areas.
  • Previous data suggest that Black, Hispanic, and low-income populations are disproportionately exposed to aircraft noise. The participants in the NHS study groups were primarily White and of mid-level socioeconomic status. 
    • Sean Nash
       
      Again, this is a bit different than around most airports. The area immediately surrounding KCI is rather white and mid-to-upper SES.
  • “We need to study the potential health impacts of environmental injustices in transportation noise exposures alongside other environmental drivers of poor health outcomes” Bozigar says. “There is a lot more to figure out, but this study adds evidence to a growing body of literature that noise negatively impacts health.”
    • Sean Nash
       
      What other environmental factors can be studied either by direct measurement, or by querying previously-collected data to ask/answer questions about environmental health?
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Ants perform life saving operations - the only animal other than humans known to do so ... - 0 views

  • In experiments, they observed that the ants treated their nest members' femur injuries by cleaning the wound with their mouths before amputating the leg by repeatedly biting it, while the tibia wounds were treated with just cleaning.
    • Kylie John
       
      I wonder how the ant functions after this. It mentions that later the survival rate goes up but is the ant still able to do everything it used to? Like how ants can carry a lot more than their body weight, does that change for the ant after it got amputated?
  • The scientists are now extending their research to other ant species that don't possess special antimicrobial glands to see if other ants have the ability to perform surgeries. 
    • Kylie John
       
      Research oppurtunity?
  •  
    This one has promise........
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Scientists develop visual tool to help people group foods based on their levels of proc... - 0 views

  • Scientists studying ultra-processed foods have created a new tool for assessing the rewarding and reinforcing properties of foods that make up 58 percent of calories consumed in the United States. The foods have been linked to a wide range of negative health outcomes.
    • Sean Nash
       
      I couldn't locate this imageset and associated tools online, but I am willing to bet they might make it available to us, and the generation of more future research in this area is a key purpose of this work.
  • provides a collection of carefully curated images of minimally processed and ultra-processed foods matched on 26 characteristics, including macronutrients, sodium, dietary fiber, calories, price, and visual characteristics such as a color and portion size
    • Sean Nash
       
      Perhaps we just need to get the full journal article to get the raw materials (images) created and used.
  • The scale has its detractors. "A major criticism of the NOVA scale is that it's difficult to use or that foods are classified differently by different people," said Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, corresponding author and assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. "We found that people with education in nutrition generally agreed on the food classifications, providing some data that it might not be a valid criticism."
    • Sean Nash
       
      See... this is the sort of thing I see as an opportunity. If the scale has detractors or isn't yet perfect, perhaps there is an opening here for a project. Perhaps there is even an opening to create something focused on teens (who I would argue are at most risk for the consumption of ultra-processed foods). This is an interesting area to me, not only behavioral science, but human diet in general.
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  • To develop the picture set, a team of psychologists, neuroscientists, and registered dietitians selected foods to represent either minimally processed or ultra-processed foods.
  • The foods were prepared in a lab, visually represented through professional photography, and controlled for consistency. Researchers also gathered price, food weights, and nutritional information -- calories, macronutrients, sodium, and dietary fiber -- for the food in each image.
  • researchers recruited 67 nutrition professionals and asked them to classify the foods as minimally or ultra-processed
  • "There is very little experimental research on ultra-processed foods, and part of what's been holding us back is better tools for measuring and assessing their effects,"
    • Sean Nash
       
      Another big GREEN flag that this is an area ripe for new and creative approaches!
  • The Virginia Tech team is making the pictures and associated data accessible through the Virginia Tech data Repository of the Virginia Tech University Libraries. This will allow scientists to test hypotheses in behavioral economic and neuroimaging studies.
    • Sean Nash
       
      This states that the images/research tools WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE (if not already). This is very cool. So, could the already-existing tool be leveraged in a novel way compared to what the researchers used it for, or does this provide somewhat of a template for someone to create a better or more-helpful tool perhaps for teens?
  • Story Source: Materials provided by Virginia Tech. Original written by Leigh Anne Kelley. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
  • Journal Reference: Zach Hutelin, Monica Ahrens, Mary Elizabeth Baugh, Mary E. Oster, Alexandra L. Hanlon, Alexandra G. DiFeliceantonio. Creation and validation of a NOVA scored picture set to evaluate ultra-processed foods.. Appetite, 2024; 198: 107358 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2024.107358
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Common plastics could passively cool and heat buildings with the seasons | ScienceDaily - 0 views

  • Researchers at Princeton and UCLA have developed a passive mechanism to cool buildings in the summer and warm them in the winter.
  • coatings engineered from common materials can achieve energy savings and thermal comfort that goes beyond what traditional building envelopes can achieve
  • "With the increase in global temperatures, maintaining habitable buildings has become a global challenge,"
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  • "In recent years there has been massive interest in cool roof coatings that reflect sunlight. But cooling walls and windows is a much more subtle and complex challenge."
  • "By coating walls and windows with materials that only radiate or absorb heat in the atmospheric window, we can reduce broadband heat gain from the ground in the summer, and loss in the winter, while maintaining the cooling effect of the sky. We believe that this idea is unprecedented, and beyond what traditional roof and wall envelopes can achieve."
  • The findings' impact is significant for two important reasons. First, the researchers show in the article that many common and low-cost building materials radiate heat in the narrowband and block broadband heat. Material such as polyvinyl fluoride, already used as siding material, could be adapted for the purpose, as could even more common plastics.
    • Sean Nash
       
      Smells like feasibility....
  • "We were really excited when we found that materials like Polypropylene, which we sourced from household plastics, selectively radiate or absorb heat in the atmospheric window." Raman noted. "These materials border on the mundane, but the same scalability that makes them common also means that we could see them thermoregulating buildings in the near future."
  • The second reason for optimism is that the potential energy impacts at the building scale are substantial. The researchers noted that seasonal energy savings with their mechanism are comparable to the benefits of painting dark roofs white. This could be useful as air conditioning cost and heat related casualties continue to soar worldwide. Mandal and Raman plan to continue this research further.
  • "The mechanism we proposed is completely passive, which makes it a sustainable way to cool and heat buildings with the seasons and yield untapped energy savings."
  • Journal Reference: Jyotirmoy Mandal, Jyothis Anand, Sagar Mandal, John Brewer, Arvind Ramachandran, Aaswath P. Raman. Radiative cooling and thermoregulation in the earth’s glow. Cell Reports Physical Science, 2024; 102065 DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2024.102065
  •  
    Don't know if you're following changes in climate, but... this might be an area for some engineering. What are the other problems involved with this field of study? Interesting to anyone?
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Stony coral tissue loss disease indirectly alters reef communities | Science Advances - 2 views

  • Butterflyfishes, which are facultative corallivores in this region, have even been found to prefer SCTLD-infected coral
    • Kylie John
       
      Some species like the infected coral Maybe it has different properties or something
  •  
    You know, there are repositories of publicly available image/video data from coral reef surveys.... somewhere online. They make them available for people to devise creative ways of pulling data out of such raw material. Might be something to look into.
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Dynamic microvilli sculpt bristles at nanometric scale | Nature Communications - 0 views

  • Scanning electron microscopy/SEM
    • Sean Nash
       
      They had to use scanning electron microscopy to figure this out, yes. BUT... in scaling something like this up, we would not need such a thing!
  • The refractive index tomograms of isolated bristles were obtained by Nanolive 3D Cell Explorer, and raw data were deposited at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10207240.
    • Sean Nash
       
      This might be the way to dial in the measurement ratios to mimick something like this on a larger scale for some purpose. How do the worms use them? If this doesn't get it, we can ALWAYS email the actual scientists to see if they can send us this data to do what we're trying to do. They are usually VERY helpful in such things for creative and hard-working students.
  •  
    I am often thinking about biomimicry. I wonder if something like this process could be 3D printed at a larger scale... for another valuable use of some sort. (?)
  •  
    This one is a LOT of chew through, but it is super interesting to figure out how living things bioengineer such structures over millions of years of evolution. Biomimicry is simply us studying (and then mimicking) the most interesting things in nature... to enhance something in the human world. This article is the original journal article linked to and highlighted by one of the ScienceDaily stories from today.
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Hearing is be-leafing: Students invent quieter leaf blower | Hub - 1 views

  •  
    OK- so THIS specific thing is done. I have not seen the data (decibels @ 50') but I do know this... there are many other challenges unsolved (and largely unaddressed) out there.
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Applied Sciences | Free Full-Text | Method for Prolonging the Shelf Life of Apples afte... - 1 views

  •  
    (A pretty fancy piece of equipment is needed here, but I like the concept of this sort of project. Rigorous life science concepts, ability to generate a ton of data, super applicable to real life immediately, etc.)
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Frequent mowing puts poisonous weed into survival mode | ScienceDaily - 0 views

  • The taproot went down further
  • More spikes popped out on the stem
  • The flowers became more toxic
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  • Although studies have often highlighted weed fitness and defense traits resulting from disturbances like mowing, most were limited to foliar, or leaf, defenses, Kariyat said. That changed when Vasquez and fellow master's biology students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley monitored fields of mowed, unmowed and frequently mowed silverleaf nightshade in and around Edinburg, Texas.
  • "Alejandro's question was, 'how do these flowers differ between mowed and unmowed plants?'"
  • "You are trying to mow these plants so that the plants are getting eliminated," Kariyat said. "But what you are actually doing here, you are making them much worse, much stronger."
  • The observations of mowed, unmowed and frequently mowed areas with silverleaf nightshade provide evidence that could prompt further studies by weed scientists on best management practices, Kariyat said.
    • Sean Nash
       
      Again... when you see a callout like this for more research in an area... especially one that might be feasible with some serious planning/organization... you might be on to something.
  • the study does provide more insight into the defensive capabilities of plants pitted against human disturbance
  • "Continuous mowing differentially affects floral defenses in the noxious and invasive weed Solanum elaeagnifolium in its native range."
  • Journal Reference: Alejandro Vasquez, Alexa Alaniz, Robert Dearth, Rupesh Kariyat. Continuous mowing differentially affects floral defenses in the noxious and invasive weed Solanum elaeagnifolium in its native range. Scientific Reports, 2024; 14 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-58672-w
  • Solanum ptychanthum or black nightshade, and Solanum carolinense, or Carolina horsenettle, also produce toxic berries and are native to Arkansas.
    • emmarrogers
       
      Could we possibly research different types of weeds similar to the silver Nightshade, like one of these plants?
  •  
    There is a TON of data that can be measured & analyzed in a study like this. Easier to do in a less time-dependent way in the lab, but easier and more realistic (in vivo) to do if you have access to similar fields that are mowed and unmowed to differing extents. So many variables to examine and consider here for how plants may change physiologically based upon how we interact with them. This goes beyond that analogy I always use for fast evolution in Honors Biology: how dandelion populations become shorter based upon frequent mowing. This gets into the physiological responses. Very cool methinks.
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Race car drivers tend to blink at the same places in each lap - 2 views

  • The world goes dark for about one-fifth of a second every time you blink, a fraction of an instant that’s hardly noticeable to most people. But for a Formula One race car driver traveling up to 354 kilometers per hour, that one-fifth means almost 20 meters of lost vision
  • People are often thought to blink at random intervals, but researchers found that wasn’t the case for three Formula drivers.
  • the drivers tended to blink at the same parts of the course during each lap, cognitive neuroscientist Ryota Nishizono and colleagues report in the May 19 iScience
    • Sean Nash
       
      Interesting. So, do we do the same thing while driving around town? Could you design a method to record eye blinks as people drive known routes around town? We could simultaneously use the Arduino Science Journal app on the iPhone to also correlate physical data in a moving car like acceleration/deceleration, motion in X, Y, Z directions, etc. I wonder if we could find a correlation in everyday driving that could help from a safety perspective?
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  • He was surprised to find almost no literature on blinking behavior in active humans even though under extreme conditions like motor racing or cycling
    • Sean Nash
       
      Ok.... this screams "potential research idea."
  • “We think of blinking as this nothing behavior,” he says, “but it’s not just wiping the eyes. Blinking is a part of our visual system.”
  • Where the drivers blinked was surprisingly predictable, the team found. The drivers had a shared pattern of blinking that had a strong connection with acceleration, such that drivers tended not to blink while changing speed or direction — like while on a curve in the track — but did blink while on relatively safer straightaways.
    • Sean Nash
       
      What sort of implications does this have for driving in key, known, busy interchanges in KC? Could we potentially provide data to show certain stretches of highway need more signage, etc? That could have civil engineering implications.
  • Nishizono and colleagues mounted eye trackers on the helmets of three drivers and had them drive three Formula circuits
  • Nishizono next wants to explore what processes in the brain allow or inhibit blinking in a given moment, he says, and is also interested in how blinking behavior varies among the general population.
    • Sean Nash
       
      While the "brain" part might move beyond our feasibility, the potential of finding real correlations to driving patterns or routes is a completely different spin-off and one that could have really practical suggestive applications for city planners, etc.
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Ignoring Noise Pollution Harms Public Health - 1 views

  •  
    I think this shows tons of promise for feasibility- especially since we have an international airport nearby, and measuring sound is straightforward. Acquiring the data acquisition probes to do this is certainly feasible. A lot of room for creativity here. If this is interesting, also dig into ARC-GIS as a tool to geographically map out the sound data generated.
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A teeny device can measure subtle shifts in Earth's gravitational field - 0 views

  • Called gravimeters, such devices can detect tectonic plates shifting, sense the movement of underground water, reveal hidden oil and gas reserves, and track magma within volcanoes to provide data for predicting eruptions, along with many other applications.
    • ethanlawr
       
      How is a Gravimeter able to detect the movement of tectonic plates shifting, does it detect sound waves or vibrations?
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Dams trigger exponential population declines of migratory fish | Science Advances - 0 views

  • When the GD, the first dam across the mainstream of the Yangtze River, was built in the 1970s, the Chinese government explicitly demanded that the dam consider the conservation of fish.
  • Dams can harm migratory fish by disrupting their life cycles and then causing population extinctions.
    • Kylie John
       
      Is it possible to give the fish a different area to migrate to and from?
  • We divide the species population into spawning stock (spawners), which are sexually mature adults participating in the current year’s breeding, and recruitment stock, which includes larvae, juveniles, and subadults that have not reached the reproductive age and sexually immature adults/post-spawners that do not participate in the current year’s breeding.
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  • The sixth misjudgment concerns the assertion that fishways are unnecessary in dams. The 1982 GD-FRP suggested that fishways were not needed for the Chinese sturgeon (14). The TGD, built in 1993, followed this idea and did not include fishways.
  • This study has certain limitations, such as the need for larger sample sizes of fish to improve the accuracy of the precision of fish life cycle models.
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Foraging ants navigate more efficiently when given energy-drink-like doses of caffeine ... - 0 views

  • Ants who receive a caffeine-laced sugary reward become more efficient at navigating back to the reward's location compared to ants that only receive sugar. Researchers report on May 23 in the journal iScience that caffeinated ants move toward the reward via a more direct path but do not increase their speed, suggesting that caffeine improved their ability to learn.
  • "The idea with this project was to find some cognitive way of getting the ants to consume more of the poisonous baits we put in the field,"
  • it pushes them into having straighter paths and being able to reach the reward faster
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  • Control efforts, which focus on using poisonous baits, have proven ineffective, likely due to low bait uptake and bait abandonment. The researchers wanted to test whether using caffeine, which has been shown to improve learning in honeybees and bumblebees, might improve the ants' ability to learn the bait location and guide their nestmates back there
  • The ants walked down a Lego drawbridge onto a testing platform -- an A4 sheet of paper overlaying an acrylic surface -- on which the researchers had placed a drop of sucrose solution laced with 0, 25 ppm, 250 ppm, or 2,000 ppm of caffeine
  • The lowest dose we used is what you find in natural plants, the intermediate dose is similar to what you would find in some energy drinks, and the highest amount is set to be the LD50 of bees -- where half the bees fed this dose die -- so it's likely to be quite toxic for them," says Galante.
  • Overall, they tested 142 ants, and each ant was tested four times
  • Foraging time dropped by 28% per visit for ants that received 25 ppm of caffeine and by 38% per visit for ants that received 250 ppm of caffeine, meaning that if an ant took 300 s in its first visit, by the final trial, it would be expected to take 113 s at the low caffeine dose and 54 s at the intermediate dose. This effect was not seen at the highest caffeine dose.
  • The researchers showed that caffeine lowered the ants' foraging times by making them more efficient, not by making them speedier. There was no effect of caffeine on the ants' pace at any dosage, but ants that received low to intermediate doses of caffeine trips traveled by less tortuous paths. "What we see is that they're not moving faster, they're just being more focused on where they're going," says Galante. "This suggests that they know where they want to go, therefore, they have learned the locations of the reward."
  • Henrique Galante, Massimo De Agrò, Alexandra Koch, Stefanie Kau, Tomer J. Czaczkes. Acute exposure to caffeine improves foraging in an invasive ant. iScience, 2024; 109935 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109935
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Study suggests 'biodegradable' teabags don't readily deteriorate in the environment and... - 0 views

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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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  • Researchers found that being exposed to three different concentrations of teabag discs -- equivalent to the mass of half, one and two teabags -- resulted in up to 15% greater mortality, while some concentrations of PLA had a detrimental effect on earthworm reproduction.
  • It used analytical techniques such as size exclusion chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance, and scanning electron microscopy allowing scientists to examine not just how the teabags had changed visibly but also structurally.
    • Sean Nash
       
      This sort of work could be done by visual analysis alone with a rubric of sorts, but once data is derived, reaching out to a local lab might provide access to some of these tools for a tighter analysis and an even more convincing project,
  • we've shown that when it is not properly disposed of, for example after seven months in the soil, its molecular structure remains intact
  • But it is with immense frustration that I see alternative and substitute materials entering the market without clear guidance on how their benefits might be realised. Even if consumers understand how to dispose of these products only around half of households in the UK currently have access to the necessary waste streams for the type of composting required.
  • It is essential we learn from the mistakes we made with plastic materials by testing and labelling these novel materials in relation to the prevailing waste management infrastructure.
    • Sean Nash
       
      Again, when you find a call for more research (aka: "learning" in this case) it is a good sign that you have found an area ripe for more work to be done.
  • "In this study PLA-based teabags did not fully deteriorate, and it seems that composting worms may be harmed by them. The lack of clear labelling can lead to consumers disposing of teabags in their compost, where any limit to complete degradation of the material raises the potential for plastics to enter the soil when compost is added to the garden, with potential impacts on garden wildlife and uptake by food plants."
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Traffic speeds decrease when bike lane is present | ScienceDaily - 0 views

  • 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.
  • "We are giving you more evidence that bike lanes save lives,"
  • 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.
    • Sean Nash
       
      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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  • They found that the presence of the delineated bike lane made a difference: a 28 percent reduction in average maximum speeds and a 21 percent decrease in average speeds for vehicles turning right.
  • In addition, drivers moving at a perpendicular angle to the bike lane did not slow down.
  • With pedestrian deaths rising nationally, a study such as this could contribute to the development of new traffic policies or the reversal of older ones, Younes said.
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Frontiers | Overview of Carbon Capture Technology: Microalgal Biorefinery Concept and S... - 1 views

  • 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.
    • Sean Nash
       
      OK: Is it an important field of study? Check. Is it timely? Check. Is it feasible? Let's see...
  • (iii) microalgae cultivation
    • Sean Nash
       
      You can instantly tell that there would be a strong math component to this work. You would need to show how your finding scale up to total carbon sequestered via whatever method? Biofuel production perhaps?
  • 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
    • Sean Nash
       
      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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  • The uncomplicated cellular structures and rapid growth of microalgae endow them with CO2 fixation efficiency as higher as 10–50 folds than terrestrial plants
  • Recently, many research studies have come up showing the positive impact of growing microalgae under high concentrations of Ci in the form of pure gaseous CO2, real or simulated flue gas, or soluble carbonate (bicarbonate), reporting increased carbon bio-fixation and biomass productivity
    • Sean Nash
       
      How does the carbon concentration of such things as flue gas (from industry) compare to the levels in a commercially-available CO2 canister? I'm assuming those are lower, but that's OK. You would just need to be able to do the math to compare the ratios. Also, there is nothing that says you couldn't perhaps use multiple canisters to boost the CO2 levels assuming they could survive in whatever concentration you're feeding them with. It does acidify water.
  • Despite such remarkable potential, the production of microalgae for low-value bulk products, such as proteins for food/feed applications, fatty acids for nutraceuticals or bulk products such as biofuels, is heretofore, not economically feasible
    • Sean Nash
       
      So... this asserts that biofuel production (which would already be better than using human food crops such as corn) is not economically feasible. Let's find out WHY it isn't. What do the numbers look like? What is missing? Is there a way to engineer a process that boosts economic feasibility through some innovation?
  • The microalgal biomass majorly constituted of lipids (7–23%), proteins (6–71%) and carbohydrates (5–64%), depending upon the microalgal specie and culture conditions
    • Sean Nash
       
      Start searching for data on the differences of these compounds in algal cultures of various species. Finding the right species in terms of the components produced (though perhaps your process will boost these numbers in some way- verified by testing at a local lab). I would query perplexity to find papers that outline what components are produced by what species.... then you can compare that to the ease of culture of different species.
  • Biofuels from microalgae, production system, conversion technologies, life cycle analyses have been extensively reviewed, hence detailed description is not presented in this review.
    • Sean Nash
       
      This clearly suggests that a TON of work has been done in these areas. The negative? -> Harder to find original work, the positive -> here is a TON of search terms to build up your background knowledge on primary research in these areas. The real creativity in science often stems from finding a unique wrinkle that is embedded in extensive work.
  • the lipid content of common microalgae such as Chlorella, Dunaliella, Isochrysis, Nannochloris, Nannochloropsis, Neochloris, Phaeodactylum, Porphyridium, and Schizochytrium, varies between 20 and 50% of cell dry weight
    • Sean Nash
       
      So, fat production is what is important in biodiesel. That is why a former student of mine utilized kitchen fry oil (used) for the production of biodiesel back in the 90s. Look up the lipid content of each of these species and check that against their toxicity and ease of growing/working with/etc.
  • can be augmented to higher levels by manipulating environmental and other growth factors, process optimization and genetic modifications of the production strain. Nitrogen starvation and salinity stress are known to induce an increase in TAG (triacylglycerol) accumulation and relative content of oleic acid in most of the microalgal species
    • Sean Nash
       
      So, this suggests already some ways in which the lipid content can be augmented via the manipulation of several variables in growth factors. There might ba an angle here.
  • C14:0, C16:0, C18:1, C18:2, and C18:3 fatty acids, yet the relative composition varies from species to species
    • Sean Nash
       
      I'm confident that we can find a local lab that can help us test the length of chain that indicates exactly which fatty acids are being produced and perhaps how that ratio changes based upon some variable in your process.
  • The lipids can be converted into FAMEs (fatty acid methyl esters) via transesterification for biodiesel production.
    • Sean Nash
       
      This is key.... can we convert algal lipids into FAMEs in the lab at school with the help of Harkleroad & Tabor? Find out what all chemical processes are involved. My initial gut feeling i that it isn't an terribly prohibitive process considering how simple biodiesel was to produce in the school lab previously.
  • Furthermore, the residual de-oiled microalgal biomass can be used for animal feed.
    • Sean Nash
       
      Also, a very cool side element to consider. This might help you decide upon an algal species considering the concentration of toxins in various species, etc.
  • The resistance of cell wall to enzyme hydrolysis is one of the prime bottleneck in the Anaerobic digestion (AD) process. The overall economic feasibility of the process depends on the factors affecting AD, microalgal strain, biomass pretreatment, and culture methods (Jankowska et al., 2017). Lately, to make the system economically viable and environmentally sustainable, a closed-loop production scheme is being adopted wherein AD effluents are recycled and used as an input in the first step of AD. Jankowska et al. (2017) have presented a detailed review microalgae’s cultivation, harvesting and pretreatment for AD for biogas production.
    • Sean Nash
       
      This is a fascinating element, and one I know less about. This might be significantly more sophisticated, but that in no way should scare you. Perhaps it isn't that difficult and it would be super fun and challenging to engineer a way to do (or improve) this. (?) However, my initial gut feeling is that working with biogas production would be more difficult than liquid forms.
  • Bioethanol The carbohydrate part (mainly glucose, starch, cellulose, and hemicellulose) of the microalgal dry biomass can be used for transforming into bioethanol via fermentation. Although, microalgae accumulate relatively low quantities of sugars, the absence of lignin from microalgal structure makes them advantageous over other feedstock such as corn, sugarcane, and lignocellulosic biomass (Odjadjare et al., 2015; Jambo et al., 2016). Isochrysis galbana, Porphyridium cruentum, Spirogyra sp., Nannochloropsis oculate, Chlorella sp., are mainly exploited microalgae for the production of carbohydrates
    • Sean Nash
       
      OK, now I'm starting to see where they're going with this specific paper.... they are asserting that you'd have to find a way to separate out all of the components of the produced algal mass to gain value for each component to make it economically feasible. Do you perhaps end up finding that one particular species has both a high lipid profile (for biodiesel) as well as a reasonable carbohydrate profile (for bioethanol)?
    • Sean Nash
       
      I know less about this... is more of a fermentation process and might be a bit more dangerous that biodiesel production. Not sure, just a gut feeling when keeping in mind the safety forms. Something to bookmark.
  • Despite having notable significance, limited number of studies have reported laboratory stage work on the fermentation of microalgae biomass to butanol (Cheng et al., 2015; Gao et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2016).
    • Sean Nash
       
      A huge flag that this is an area ripe for innovation. I don't know much about the feasibility of this.... but it's interesting for sure.
  • Value-Added Products In the context of biorefinery approach, intracellular compounds and metabolites have gained immense importance owing to their high monetary value. Microalgal pigments: chlorophyll a and b, lutein, astaxanthin, β-carotene, phycobilins, C- phycocyanin have found wide application in dyes, cosmetics, food and feed additives, nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals, as natural colors, bioactive components, anti-oxidants, nutritive and neuro-protective agents (Koller et al., 2014; Begum et al., 2016). Microalgae are also exploited as rich source of amino acids (leucine, asparagine, glutamine, cysteine, arginine, aspartate, alanine, glycine, lysine, and valine), Carbohydrates (β1–3- glucan, amylose, starch, cellulose, and alginates), Vitamins and minerals (vitamin B1, B2, B6, B12, C, and E; biotin, folic acid, magnesium, calcium, phosphate, iodine) that are widely used in Food additives, health supplements and medicine. Microalgae, such as Nannochloropsis, Tetraselmis, and Isochrysis are used for extraction of long chain fatty acids popularly known as the omega fatty acids such as DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid) and EPA (Eicosapentaenoic Acid), have lately gained prime attention as essential for human brain development and health. Other than these, microalgae are also used for production of Extracellular Polymeric Substances (EPSs) which have many industrial applications and Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). PHAs can be used for manufacturing bioplastics that are very sought after because of their biodegradability (Markou and Nerantzis, 2013; Koller et al., 2014).
    • Sean Nash
       
      This area is more novel.... and thus, I know the least about the feasibility of this, or our ability to measure the production of such compounds. I know the capability exists in the KC area, but you'd have to establish a relationship with someone who could help with this instrumental analysis.
  • Although many have reported successful utilization of microalgal biomass for the production of bioproducts within a biorefinery framework, the economic feasibility is unrealized and the microalgae biorefinery is way much expensive (’t Lam et al., 2017; Zhou et al., 2017). To attain feasibility and sustainability, both upstream processing (USP) and downstream processing (DSP) need to be efficiently simplified and integrated. The efficiency of the USP is determined by microalgal strain selection, nutrient supply (CO2, N, and P) and culture conditions (temperature, light intensity) (Vanthoor-Koopmans et al., 2013). Whereas, the constraints at the DSP level are mainly characterized by harvesting, cell disruption, and extraction methods. DSP, specifically harvesting accounts for 20–40% of the total production costs and for a multi-product biorefinery, the cost increases to 50–60% (’t Lam et al., 2017).
    • Sean Nash
       
      Managing what is done to the algae PRE growth and POST growth. So many variables here. This is a TON of figure out, but with more variables comes more opportunity if you're willing to learn a broad new area of science (to you).
  • Bioprospecting suitable microalgae is a crucial but time intensive step
  • high throughput screening techniques like 96-well microplate swivel system (M96SS) have made processing upto 768 microalgal samples at the same time, possible
    • Sean Nash
       
      This suggests to me that rather than go down this path of full discovery... can we learn from the extensive work that has already been done here? In other words, your innovation would be less about discovering the right species to use... and more about innovating around the process. (?)
  • mixed diverse community of microalgae, dominated by Desmodesmus spp., could be adapted over a time of many months to survive in 100% flue gas from an unfiltered coal-fired power plant containing 11% CO2
  • Besides stress manipulation and acclimatization, desirable traits of the microalgal strains can be effectively improved by genetic and metabolic engineering/synthetic biology. Lately, genome editing tools such as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats – CRISPR associated protein 9 (CRISPR-Cas9) and Transcription Activator-Like (TAL) Effector Nucleases (TALEN) are being used in microalgal gene alterations. Moreover, gene-interfering tools, such as CRISPR-dCas9, micro RNA (miRNA), and silence RNA (siRNA) are being explored to alter the gene expression unlike gene modification.
    • Sean Nash
       
      The least "immediately feasible" area of this paper.....
  • Large scale microalgal cultivation and nutrient supply pose huge economic burden. In this context emphasis is being laid on biofilm based attached cultivation rather than aqua-suspend methods that have massive water requirement, low biomass productivity, energy intensive and cannot be easily scaled up
    • Sean Nash
       
      So... the scale is the problem. Methods of growing suspended in water are all I have been thinking of.... even engineering some crazy method of networks of fine, clear tubes full of algae, etc... here they're saying this is a massive challenge and requires a big industrial output to make it economically feasible. The good and the bad? The bad is that you could do a ton fo work that in the end isn't economically feasible for real world use. The good is that optimizing some stage or element of the process could potentially change this calculaton.
  • Centrifugation is the most efficient (>95% efficiency) method for harvesting microalgae
    • Sean Nash
       
      We have a centrifuge. (about a $4000 one, in fact) but it is useful only for small amounts. That doesn't solve the "how do we centrifuge large amounts of algae/water mix to harvest it," but it does allow a scaled-down version for testing small amounts that could be mathematically scaled up.
  • Flocculation is a low-cost alternative. Cationic chemical flocculants and polymeric flocculants are generally used (Brennan and Owende, 2010), but can negatively affect the toxicity of the biomass and output water (Ryan, 2009). Zhou et al. (2012) reported a novel fungi assisted bioflocculation technique, in which a filamentous fungal spores were added to the algal culture under optimized conditions and the pellets were formed after 2 days that can be harvested by simple filtration. Attached culture can also make harvesting simple (Wang et al., 2017).
    • Sean Nash
       
      This whole topic you have stumbled upon (bioengineering of algae as ultimately a way to sequester carbon in an economically-feasible way) is massive in terms of complexity of the entire system. But, subsystems are less complex and more ripe for digging into. The key thing is that this has to be interesting enough to you.... that you are willing to understand ALL of the moving parts so that you would know how your component of the puzzle fits into the broader scope of the work. It is super interesting to me and I do think there are a million variables to choose form here.... once you decide IF this is worth pouring your heart into... it is time to read read read!
  • Microalgae based carbon capture technologies are certainly promising but their successful implementation is still to be realized.
  • But, the prospects of successful commercial deployment lie in unsophisticated innovations in DSP, particularly harvesting, cell disruption and extraction, which can actually cut down the costs at a biorefinery level, along with process integration.
    • Sean Nash
       
      THIS is the sort of thing that should be encouraging. When they say that success lies in "unsophisticated innovations," that should read like: this takes tons of hard work and perseverance, but technically it isn't all that fancy.... to you. This is a good thing.
  • on can
  • . Recent technoeconomic analyses and life-cycle assessments of microalgae-based production systems have suggested that the only possible way for scaling up the production is to completely use the biomass in an integrated biorefinery set-up wherein every valuable component is extracted, processed and valorized.
  • The temperature of the planet has risen by 0.85°C from 1880 to 2012 and it has been forecasted that by the end of this century
  • CCS operate over 3 major steps: CO2 capture, CO2 transportation and CO2 storage.
  • CO2 capture is done from large point sources such as power plants and cement manufacturing plants. The separation and capture of CO2 from other exhaust components is usually done via following methods: (i) chemical absorption; (ii) physical adsorption; (iii) membrane separation; and (iv) cryogenic distillation (Figueroa et al., 2008; Pires et al., 2011, 2012).
  • carbon capture and storage (CCS)
  •  
    I haven't fully finished reading it, but it does seem to be interesting. It may be a rabbit hole I wanna go down.
  •  
    Annotating thoughts for Katherine...
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