Great study commissioned by the state of MA to find out what was ending up at some of the state's big recycling centers. Already the raw data are starting discussions into new policies and behavioral modification. For example, carpets and clothing showed up in significant enough amount to get the state to consider how to reduce the amount of textile in the waste stream.
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Presentations from the Organics Waste and Recycling event held at the end of March. It was great and I’ll link to some of the presentations.
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“Overuse of nitrogen fertilizer costs the European Union €70 billion – €320 billion per year, according to a landmark assessment of nitrogen flows across Europe, released today (11 April) at a workshop on nitrogen and global change in Edinburgh, UK.”
I can’t help but think there’s a practical microbial answer to this. The whole use of chemicals in farming is twisted. I think with all our science, we could do better.
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“Hearts still touched with fire – Stories of men who served in a Mass. regiment much-bloodied during the Civil War still resonate with relatives, 150 years later”
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“Researchers have identified a new ally in the war against tooth decay: an enzyme produced by a mouth bacterium that prevents plaque formation. The finding could eventually lead to the development of toothpaste that harnesses the body’s own plaque-fighting tools.”
These results contradict a bit some earlier studies that this enzyme, FruA, enhances cavities. But these guys have an idea why – high levels of sugar weaken the effect of the enzyme.
As a practical microbiologist, I wonder why we just don’t use S salivarius (the bug making the enzyme) in toothpaste.
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“A genomic survey of the microbial life in an Antarctic lake has revealed a new virophage — a virus that attacks viruses. The discovery suggests that these life forms are more common, and have a larger role in the environment, than was once thought.”
As usual, tickled pink when Nature finally reveals something that has been in our faces for so long. Always gets me wondering what else we’re missing.
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“The observation that the wasp relocates ants farther when the swarm is bigger is a “wonderful example of behavioral plasticity,” he adds. Grangier plans to investigate in the future whether wasps in their native habitat, North America, exhibit the same behavior or whether it is something new that the invasives in New Zealand have taught themselves out of necessity.”
Cool.
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“Should young, bright, and idealistic biotechnology students spend their summer coming up with technologies for oil companies to exploit so that they can more cleanly and efficiently pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or should they be trying to come up with new fuels, new processes, new systems, new industries that can some day actually be good? iGEM is an inspirational experience, where you can meet hundreds of amazing students doing hundreds of amazing and creative things. Let’s not stifle their creativity and potential for change by having them try to make a fundamentally flawed and dangerous system less bad.” [by @thisischristina]
Well stated. Building bugs to keep extracting oil or cleaning up something that shouldn’t be dirtied is a complication upon a complication. And having to do so to be able to learn synthbio and to get funding gets awkward. Awkward if you have ethics, that is.
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“Nowak is convinced that his critics haven’t really done inclusive fitness calculations or they would understand the theory’s limitations. … To him, the letters “are the reactions of people who are clinging to an obsolete theory.”
“Raghavendra Gadagkar, an evolutionary biologist at the Centre for Ecological Sciences of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, supports Nowak. “Much of what is in the paper is correct,” he says. His own response to Nature “was not published on the grounds that I did not sufficiently disagree with the authors,” he says. Instead, he has published a commentary in Current Science, saying, “for the healthy growth of science it is useful to periodically rock the boat and when a body of knowledge grows into a large ship we need giants like Wilson to rock it.””
Gotta love a good fight! This is what science is best at – open re-evaluation of what we hold to be true. discussion.
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We’re back in action and hopefully more robust.
Image from ChicagoGeek