The unhealthy fruits

Fruity flavors in e-cigarettes become aldehydes after combustion. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b05145

Electronic cigarettes have become quite popular in recent years. It is said to a safe alternative to regular cigarette smoking. It has drawn the attention of many users, those attempting to quit smoking, and new users that are drawn by the wide variety of flavors that are carried by different brands. The common use of electronic cigarettes does carry awareness of health effects it may have on frequent users. It is unknown to how the flavoring compounds may have an effect on the chemical composition and toxicity, but several studies have shown the formation of toxic aldehydes in electronic cigarette vapors during vaping. Aldehyde formation has been attributed to thermal decomposition of the main components of e-cigarette e-liquids (propylene glycol and glycerol). During this study, several different toxic aldehydes produced by different brands of flavored and unflavored e-liquids were measured. The study showed thermal decomposition of flavoring compounds dominates the formation of aldehyde during vaping, which produce levels that exceed the occupational safety standards. The formation of aldehydes was found to be dependent on the concentration of each flavoring compound. These results can conclude that higher, more thorough research needs to be done on the effect of flavoring compounds on the toxicity of electronic cigarettes. 

Khlystov, A. and V. Samburova. 2016. Flavoring compounds dominate toxic aldehyde production during e-cigarette vaping. Environ. Sci. Technol 50:13080-13085.

The Power of Mechanical Energy!

By: Lesly Hernandez

The emissions of greenhouse gases and fossil fuels are increasing environmental problems. Research is being conducted on self-powered electronics with the use of mechanical energy. Mechanical energy is omnipresent and can be produced with simple movements such as typing, walking, and even rotating tires. Engineering researchers from Michigan State University created a new way to produce energy from human motion. The device is a flexible, foldable, biocompatible, highly efficient thin film ferroelectret nanogenerators (FENG). They used a silicon wafer and covered it with thin layers of substances that were environmentally friendly. Ions were added to the device and electrical energy is produced when the device is compressed. The nanogenerator can also be folded to a smaller size increasing its energy power. The scientists were able to operate a LCD touch screen and 20 LED lights. Their new invention has the potential to power various electronics without depleting our resources or polluting our environment. Many of the materials used were environmentally friendly which means they are being more efficient with their resource use. In addition, using mechanical energy will not harm the environment and it is a type of energy that will never be depleted.

Figure 1. Photograph of encapsulated FENG being bent by fingers (Li et al., 2016, http://www.sciencedirect.com.tamiu.idm.oclc.org/science/article/pii/S2211285516304244).

Reference

Li, W., D. Torres, T. Wang, C. Wang, and N. Sepúlveda. 2016. Flexible and biocompatible polypropylene ferroelectret nanogenerator (FENG): On the path toward wearable devices powered by human motion. Nano Energy. 30: 649-657.

Are you squidding me?

 

            Oceans are extremely important in many ways, and it holds over ninety percent of the planets water. All marine life starts from the ocean and the same cycle has been happening with the animals for millions of years and that’s what makes the ecosystem work. All the animals have certain tasks to do in the ocean, to keep it the way it is. The ocean is very big and absorbs most of the carbon dioxide, and takes in a big amount of oxygen. Even though the ocean is important and needs to be protected, five trillion of plastic pieces were found in the ocean in December of 2014. A researcher named Marcus Ericksen, took samples from the ocean with a mesh and went to twenty-four areas where plastic is most seen in currents where plastic is build up the most. A marine ecologist did the same thing and collected big pieces that they saw right away, where Ericksen collected small pieces with the mesh. A marine biologist mentions micro-plastic and how that it can be tricked by algae, or bacteria and falls to the bottom of the ocean and can be consumed by animals in the ocean. Plastic in our world today, can be renewable by recycling and turning that into paper, clothing, and other items. If everyone tried to recycle, that can help the environment by not getting trash accumulated in our living areas and won’t end up in the ocean. The marine life can die off or things can change due to plastic being in the ocean. There is always going to be plastic in the ocean, along with other things, but we can try to minimize that number. We can also try to not use as much plastic, because sometimes for food or something else, we only use it for so many seconds or minutes and then we throw it away. Minimizing the amount of plastic, we use and disposing of it properly can make a big difference to our environment.

                                  Figure 1-Plastic on or near ocean, due to not recycling.

References:

            Marris, E. 2014. Fate of ocean plastic remains a mystery. Nature. http://www.nature.com/news/fate-of-ocean-plastic-remains-a-mystery-1.16508

Who Likes Platinum?

      By Derek Foshee

      Us humans love metal, especially shiny metal that we can wear such as platinum, however that's not the only thing we do with platinum. One of the biggest industries in the world is the automobile industry and almost every single automobile uses platinum in its catalytic converter to convert environmentally unsafe gasses to more environmentally safe gasses(Hodnik, 2016). Platinum like all precious metals is extremely rare, so it is hard to come by especially as the demand for it increases. This study is looking into ways to extract platinum using ways that are more environmentally friendly.
      The current most common way is to use aqua regia (Hodnik, 2016). This however uses a lot of reagents and produces nauseous fumes that defeats the purpose of sustainability(Hodnik, 2016). The study uses the addition and subtraction of oxidative and reductive conditions in a mild acid called surface potential alteration to leach out platinum in a more environmentally friendly way(Hodnik, 2016).
      This opens up more possibilities in sustaining the current materials we have and can have and even more drastic effect if this can be used with other elements such as gold, silver, and copper. Perhaps one day we won't need catalytic converters on our cars because we switched to electric, but who knows, maybe the batteries powering those future automobiles contain the platinum that used to be on their predecessors.

Figure 1: Proposed oxidation and reduction model for platinum dissolution.

N. Hodnik, C. Baldizzone, G. Polymeros, S. Geiger, J.P. Grote, S. Cherevko, A. Mingers, A. Zeradjanin, K.J.J. Mayrhofer. 2016. Platinum recycling going green via induced surface potential alteration enabling fast and efficient dissolution. Nature Communications. doi:10.1038/ncomms13164

Good Riddance Eutrophication!

By: Myrna Castro

Eutrophication, the cause for a mysterious sudden bloom of algae that has been troubling freshwater ecosystems for decades may possibly come to an end. There has been a strong trend in the past few years that shows as human population and their overall impact increase; the sudden growth of algae is becoming more frequent. As the clusters of algae expand over freshwater systems, they shade underwater plants causing them to die. Without the plants, bacterial decomposition and respiration cause an overall depletion of oxygen in the water, thus resulting in the death of the ecosystem. The article described a collection of research that initially narrows down the possible limiting factors for the algae are Nitrogen (N), and Phosphorus (P).  They analyzed the different in results between a small scale bioassay experiment and a whole large lake scale experiment. It was shown that the smaller assays were found to be inaccurate due to the unknown curb of eutrophication. They continued with large-scale experiments on over thirty different lakes. Their evidence supported that with the removal of N had absolutely no reduction in algae and that the only limiting nutrient is Phosphorus.

                                      Figure 1: Limiting factor supporting phosphorus evidence vs. nitrogen evidence (Schindler 2016)

Reference

David W. Schindler, Stephen R. Carpenter, Steven C. Chapra, Robert E. Hecky, and Diane M. Orihel: 

Reducing Phosphorus to Curb Lake Eutrophication is a Success Environmental Science & Technology 2016 50 (17), 8923-8929 http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b02204

Young seeds

Josue Benavides

               Saving the environment isn’t only up to present generations, but also future generations. A study was conducted seeing if elementary school children are able to do their part in contributing to environmental research as citizen scientists. These young scientists were taught how to measure seed vegetation alongside scientists in their school yards. With the scientists these young children were able to do tasks such as estimating vegetation seed coverage, measuring heights of vegetation, and counting seeds during a removal of seeds experiment. Although the young children had similar results in data collected they did struggle in measuring height and collecting estimates was difficult for them as they had no prior experience. The children showed a significant difference of data in comparison to scientists in the part of the experiment that came to collecting T. pratense seeds in sequential groups. The counting of these seeds required for the children to pay close attention. As the children were not able to focus as the scientists did this led to under or over counting of the seeds. If future generations are able to learn about seed vegetation at an early age this will aid ordinary citizens doing their part to save the environment.

 

Figure 1( Garrison elementary planting)

References

Miczajka, L. V., Klein, M. A., and G. Pufal. 2015. Elementary School Children Contribute to Environmental Research as Citizen Scientists. PLOS ONE 10 (11).

Trees, C. (n.d.). School Planting: Garrison Elementary School. Retrieved October 29, 2016, from http://caseytrees.org/event/school-planting-garrison-elementary-school/ 

NO Emission

Nitrogen Oxides, better known as NO_x, are known as incredibly reactive gases that form when burned at high temperatures (Chen, 2016). So why should we be concerned about the emission of these gases? It turns out that forms of diesel and non-diesel transportation emit NO_x. Studies support that the older the vehicle is, the more _Nix will be released (Chen, 2016). This is due to the vehicle’s engine deterioration (Chen, 2016). In other words, these gases are pollutants and we all know how frowned upon that is now a day.

                              Figure 1: NO_x  produced over 1000 km traveled.

A study conducted in Switzerland over the course of 15 years set out to monitor the emission of NO_x in diesel vehicles (Chen, 2016). Through this study, the researchers took a look at whether or not diesel vehicles were mainlining a stable emission of NO_x through the vehicle’s “lifetime” (Chen, 2016). What they observed was actually a steady emission in two different diesel technologies, and a decrease in emission from two separate diesel technologies (Chen, 2016).

Although the study showed no signs of a raise in NO_x emissions, it should still be of concern to the general public. A steady or decrease in emission is still harmful to the environment because they affect things like the ozone and our food sources.

Chen, Y., and Borken-Kleefeld, J. 2016. NO_x emissions from diesel passenger cars worsen with age. Environ. Sci. & Technology. 50: 3327-3332.

Climate Change Scenarios in Germany

A constantly changing climate connects to a changing hydro logical cycle. These changes imply extreme flood and drought that occur in areas suffering from dry spells. With the majority of destructive events being located in central Europe, they've lost billions of dollars worth of damages. In order to prepare for the next disaster to come, Europeans investigated the past 50 years of floods in the five different river basins using simulations. They decided to use the basins because each one had different hydrological and climatic regimes. Results from this test explains that drought will increase in severity for three of the five basins but all basins will gradually have increasingly worse droughts as the years past. These tests and results advance environmental sustainability by being able to show past experiences and what had to happen to cause these floods and droughts to help Europeans prepare for the future. With that being said, being prepared for these disasters will help Europeans with not loosing as much money in damages.  Its interesting how they used many different simulations and all five basins to collect these results.

Huang, Shaochun, Fred F. Hattermann, Valentina Krysanova, and Axel Bronstert. "Projections of Climate Change Impacts on River Flood Conditions in Germany by Combining Three Different RCMs with a Regional Eco-hydrological Model." Climatic Change 116.3-4 (2012): 631-63. Web.

Mosquitos To The Rescue

Recently due to Zika Virus outbreak, scientist have been trying to work hand in hand with areas such as Brazil and Columbia, where they encounter this virus more frequently. The plan is for mosquitos to be infected with a bug,  Wolbachia (This reduces the mosquitos ability to spread virus) . Wolbachia is a bacterium that is unharmful to humans, but infects 60% of insects. The mosquito that is mostly transmitting the Zika Virus is the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Scientists have been researching to figure out how to inject the bug into these mosquitos. According to studies, Wolbachia will compete with the virus itself to get their resources off the mosquito host, eventually leading the virus to lose out and not have the ability to replicate successfully. Thus making it more difficult for the virus to be passed on from mosquito to human. Scientists have said that small scale observational trials in problem countries such as Brazil, Columbia, and Indonesia can help reduce the spread of this virus in humans. They view the Wolbachia bacteria as a new protection against mosquito caused diseases. Its seen as something dependable, affordable, and versatile, not only preventing Zika virus spread, but also other viruses such as dengue and chikungunya viruses. Scientists plan is to release the modified mosquitos and allow them to breed with other mosquitos therefore transmitting the bug to generations to come. Monitoring of these mosquito borne viruses will be going on for the next three years.

Mundasad, Smitha. 2016. Mosquito army released in zika fight in brazil and Columbia. BBC News