Innovation/Links of note

Want Fatter Cows? Bring In a Zebra – ScienceNOW

Posted on by charlie

“”Natural selection has favored that mix,” says Johan du Toit, an ecologist at Utah State University in Logan. Natural selection, maybe, but not people. Convinced that other grass-chomping animals will drive their herds to starvation, ranchers in Kenya and elsewhere tend to keep their cattle separate from wildlife. But a new study suggests that thinking may be wrong. Wildlife, particularly zebras, can actually help a ranch thrive.”

Another strike against mono-cultures, in this case, cattle. I think this study is a good example of why folks need to take ecological views of plant and animal farming. For example, my son has been experimenting with the old Native American technique of growing corn (tall straight stalks), beans (that climb up the corn stalk), and squash or cucumbers (which spread low below these other two plants). True, our mechanized farming isn’t set up for mixed farming techniques, but the benefits might drive the financials and the change.

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Links of note/Science

Human Excrement to Blame for Coral Decline – ScienceNOW

Posted on by charlie

“Coral reef ecologists have laid a persistent and troubling puzzle to rest. The elkhorn coral, named for its resemblance to elk antlers and known for providing valuable marine habitat, was once the Caribbean’s most abundant reef builder. But the “redwood of the coral forest” has declined 90% over the past decade, in part due to highly contagious white pox disease, which causes large lesions that bare the coral’s white skeleton and kill its tissue. Now, after nearly a decade of data collection and analysis, researchers have fingered the cause of the affliction: human excrement. The finding represents the first example of human-to-invertebrate disease transmission and suggests a practical approach for halting the disease’s spread.”

Really cool detective work. The more I read about microbes and viruses, I see that we’re all really one mass of interconnected organisms, testing out adjacent possibles and inadvertently passing pathogens across species and kingdoms.

And apropos for the two SciFri videos I just posted.

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Innovation/Links of note

Science Friday Video: An Outhouse For The Sea

Posted on by charlie

“This toilet floats. It’s an outhouse and sewage-treatment plant in one, processing human waste through a “constructed wetlands.” Adam Katzman, the inventor and builder of the toilet-boat, says it’s meant to be more inspirational than practical. “Poop and Paddle” demonstrates how sewage and rainwater can be converted to cattails and clean water.”

This is so clever – constructed wetlands attached to a toilet and on a boat for a bit of flair.

An Outhouse For The Sea

Science Friday video

Innovation/Links of note

Science Friday Video: Growing A Wastewater Treatment Plant

Posted on by charlie

“New York is testing out a new water scrubber at one of its wastewater treatment plants in Queens. Meet the algal turf scrubber–two 350-foot slides covered in green algae. Water flows down the slides, algae grows naturally, and then helps clean water that is sent over it. John McLaughlin, Director of Ecological Services for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and Peter May, restoration ecologist for Biohabitats, explain how the scrubber works, and where the harvested algae goes.”

Great simple story – use algae to clean up the water then take the algae to make biofuel. Well, I’d use the algae for compost, if it were not too contaminated. And I’d use an ecosystem of microbes to clean up the water further (it’s chlorinated before being released – that’s cheating, I think).

But a good start.

Growing A Wastewater Treatment Plant

Science Friday video

Links of note/Science

Don’t Call It Viral Marketing: The Story Behind Contagion’s Microbial Billboard – ScienceInsider

Posted on by charlie

‘The jury is still out on whether the star-studded viral outbreak movie Contagion will be a Hollywood blockbuster, but don’t blame Patrick Hickey if it isn’t. The Scottish mycologist recently led a team that used living bacteria and fungi to create two sinister-looking billboards meant to lure, or scare, people into seeing the movie. The microbes, seeded on stenciled letters in a pair of giant acrylic dishes, gradually grew to form the movie’s title behind glass windows erected in an empty storefront in Toronto, where Contagion was premiering at a film festival.”

This is cool. One for @alexandradaisy and @jamesking!

Contagion’s microbial billboard

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Links of note/Science/The Narrative

Superbugs Predate Wonder Drugs – ScienceNOW

Posted on by charlie

“It’s a “carefully done study,” adds George Church, a geneticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “Non-scientists (and even scientists) forget how important it is to confirm ideas that are widely accepted,” he writes in an e-mail. Church’s only gripe is that the samples were 30,000 years old, even though antibiotic resistance genes have likely been around for a billion years. It’s “analogous to a super-elegant proof that humans have been using weapons for at least the past 30 years,” he writes.”

Ok, so for me, this is a given: antibiotic resistance has been around for a long time. I never thought that resistance was in response to modern chemicals. Nonetheless, these researchers did lots of work to isolate microbes from 30,000 years ago (Including spraying florescent E coli on the probe. That’s got to violate something.) And, leave it to the inimitable George Church to praise and poke in the same comment.

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Links of note/Science/The Narrative

Mind-Altering Bugs – ScienceNOW

Posted on by charlie

“Hundreds of species of bacteria call the human gut their home. This gut “microbiome” influences our physiology and health in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand. Now, a new study suggests that gut bacteria can even mess with the mind, altering brain chemistry and changing mood and behavior.”

The indications are mounting that, like other things we dump in our gut, bacteria can also affect our mind. The conclusive evidence here is that the effect seen on mice fed with a certain bacteria goes away if the vagus nerve (a nerve that transmits info from gut to brain) is severed prior to feeding the bacteria to the mice. Just wondering when the probiotic mood-altering pills and yogurts start coming out. Or better, LSD synthbio bugs escape and we all go for a trip!

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Links of note/Science/Strategy

Your Gut Bacteria Are What You Eat – ScienceNOW

Posted on by charlie

“A large European-Asian consortium brought some order to the chaos when it reported in a Nature paper in April that humanity can be roughly divided into three “enterotypes” depending on which genus of bacteria dominates in people’s gut: Bacteroides, Ruminococcus, or Prevotella. People’s enterotype appeared to be stable over time, but it remains unclear why your gut population might be so radically different from your neighbor’s.”

Yet another report on diet and gut microbiome. If I could start all over again in grad-school, I’d study this. Human microbiological ecology is going to be big in so many areas, helping us understand the effects that our microbiome has on our health. And of course, this will go hand-in-hand with practical use of naturally occurring microbes.

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Innovation/Links of note/Science/The Narrative

Lager Beer’s Mystery Yeast – ScienceNOW

Posted on by charlie

“Lager may have its roots in Bavaria, but a key ingredient arrived from halfway around the world. Scientists have discovered that the yeast used to brew this light-colored beer may hail from Argentina. Apparently, yeast cells growing in Patagonian trees made their way to Europe and into the barrels of brewers.”

Great story about genomics solving an interesting riddle in brewing.

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