Smart Economy

Hydrated Fullerenes and Carbon Nanotubes positively affect plant & animal growth

Researchers  at the Institute for Physiological Active Compounds in Kharkiv Ukraine have in the past two years shown that hydrated fullerenes (C60) HYFNs have a positive effect on both plant and animal growth. One day old chicks, who  are feed water with nano levels of fullerenes are healthier, weigh more and don't need antibiotics. (Hydrated Fullerenes have anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties)

Similarly wheat seedlings dipped in water laced with hydrated fullerenes, grow faster and produce healthier and more tolerant wheat plants.

Now we see similar results with carbon nanotubes. (BTW it may all come down to price--Fullerenes are less expensive to produce then CNT and safer and less expesive then antibiotics. A Fullerene Water Solution (FWS) drink is about to be launched in the Ukrainian market-a world first)

Scientists in Arkansas are reporting that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could have similar beneficial effects in agriculture. Their study, found that tomato seeds exposed to CNTs germinated faster and grew into larger, heavier seedlings than other seeds. That growth-enhancing effect could be a boon for biomass production for plant-based biofuels and other agricultural products, they suggest.

Mariya Khodakovskaya, Alexandru Biris, and colleagues note that considerable scientific research is underway to use nanoparticles — wisps 1/50,000th the width of a human hair — in agriculture. The goals of "nano-agriculture" include improving the productivity of plants for food, fuel, and other uses.

The scientists report the first evidence that CNTs penetrate the hard outer coating of seeds, and have beneficial effects. Nanotube-exposed seeds sprouted up to two times faster than control seeds and the seedlings weighed more than twice as much as the untreated plants. Those effects may occur because nanotubes penetrate the seed coat and boost water uptake, the researchers state. "This observed positive effect of CNTs on the seed germination could have significant economic importance for agriculture, horticulture, and the energy sector, such as for production of biofuels," they add.

Source: Carbon Nanotubes Are Able To Penetrate Plant Seed Coat and Dramatically Affect Seed Germination and Plant Growth"

DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE

Walter Derzko

Sibling Plants recognize each other and play nice

Plants may not have eyes and ears, but they can recognize their siblings, and researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered how.

The ID system lies in the roots and the chemical cues they secrete.

The finding not only sheds light on the intriguing sensing system in plants, but also may have implications for agriculture and even home gardening.

The study, which is reported in the scientific journal Communicative & Integrative Biology, was led by Harsh Bais, assistant professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware.

Canadian researchers published in 2007 that sea rocket, a common seashore plant, can recognize its siblings -- plants grown from seeds from the same mother.

Susan Dudley, an evolutionary plant ecologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and her colleagues observed that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil, they “play nice” and don't send out more roots to compete with one another.

However, the moment one of the plants is thrown in with strangers, it begins competing with them by rapidly growing more roots to take up the water and mineral nutrients in the soil.

[…]

Strangers planted next to each other are often shorter, Bais notes, because so much of their energy is directed at root growth.

Because siblings aren't competing against each other, their roots are often much shallower.

Bais says he and his colleagues also have noticed that as sibling plants grow next to each other, their leaves often will touch and intertwine compared to strangers that grow rigidly upright and avoid touching.

The study leaves a lot of unanswered questions that Bais hopes to explore further. How might sibling plants grown in large “monocultures,” such as corn or other major crop plants, be affected? Are they more susceptible to pathogens? And how do they survive without competing?

“It's possible that when kin are grown together, they may balance their nutrient uptake and not be greedy,” Bais speculates.

The research also may have implications for the home gardener.

“Often we'll put plants in the ground next to each other and when they don't do well, we blame the local garden center where we bought them or we attribute their failure to a pathogen,” Bais says. “But maybe there's more to it than that.”

What's the Opportunity Space here? Several-one is selling sibling plants in clusters at a premium price in the garden centre.

Full story here

Walter Derzko

Nowcasting (vs Forecasting); NASA uses satellite to unearth innovation in crop forecasting

Soil moisture is essential for seeds to germinate and for crops to grow. But record droughts and scorching temperatures in certain parts of the globe in recent years have caused soil to dry up, crippling crop production. The falling food supply in some regions has forced prices upward, pushing staple foods out of reach for millions of poor people.

NASA researchers are using satellite data to deliver a kind of space-based humanitarian assistance. They are cultivating the most accurate estimates of soil moisture – the main determinant of crop yield changes – and improving global forecasts of how well food will grow at a time when the world is confronting shortages.

 

During a presentation this week at the the Joint Assembly of the American Geophysical Union in Toronto, NASA scientist John Bolten described a new modeling product that uses data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite to improve the accuracy of West African soil moisture. The group produced assessments of current soil moisture conditions, or "nowcasts," and improved estimates by 5 percent over previous methods. Though seemingly small and incremental, the increase can make a big difference in the precision of crop forecasts, Bolten said.

The modeling innovation comes at a time when crop analysts at agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are working to meet the food shortage problem head on. They combine soil moisture estimates with weather trends to produce up-to-date forecasts of crop harvests. Those estimates help regional and national officials prepare for and prevent food crises.

 

"Many developing countries are relying on limited and highly variable water resources," said researchers. "And typically those same regions don't have adequate ground station data or crop-estimating agencies capable of making reliable production forecasts."

By definition, the severity of agricultural drought is determined by root-zone soil water content. So Bolten's satellite-driven boost to root-zone soil moisture prediction also directly improves drought monitoring. And Bolten says results from AMSR-E are just a precursor to dramatic new improvements in data and prediction accuracy researchers expect from the Soil Moisture Active and Passive satellite, slated to launch in 2013.

Food reserves are at their lowest level in 30 years, according to the United Nations World Food Program, putting the world's 1 billion poorest people most at risk. Prices for wheat, rice, and corn have more than doubled in the last 24 months, hitting countries like Haiti, Bangladesh, and Burkina Faso

the hardest. And the U.S.is not unaffected -- drought in 2008 led to an estimated $1.1 billion in crop losses in Texas alone.

"This advance is making it possible for us to do our job in a more precise way," said Curt Reynolds, a crop analyst for the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service in Washington. "We plan to make NASA's soil moisture information available to commodity markets, traders, agricultural producers, and policymakers through our Crop Explorer Web site."

 

 

Full story here >>

 

 

Walter Derzko,

Smart Economy,

Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-published book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression featuring 45 opportunity scenarios.

 

 

Tree power fuels remote, maintenance-free, meshed-network of sensors

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have been working on a system that uses energy from trees themselves to power a network of temperature and humidity sensors that act as remote weather stations to aid in fire detection and management. (other sensor applications are possible-see below)

From a recent Gizmag story

"While the odd phenomenon of "tree-power", or a sustained voltage difference between many plants and their surrounding soil has long been observed, the scientific basis for this effect has been the subject of debate. In a recently published paper on the subject, researchers from MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering  believe they have found the answer, postulating that the effect is mainly due to a difference in pH between parts of trees and the surrounding soil and ruling out other theories such as an electrochemical redox reaction (think 'potato batteries').

The practical application of this power source envisioned by researchers is to provide enough trickle-charge to self-sustaining temperature and humidity sensors in remote locations where replacement of batteries is costly and impractical. The energy produced would slowly charge an off-the-shelf battery within the sensors enable wireless transmission of signals four times a day. These signals would jump from one sensor to the next until they reached an existing weather station  linked by satellite to a forestry command center and would transmit data immediately in the event of a forest fire.

Voltree Power is in the final stages of prototyping such a system with trials set for the spring on a 10-acre plot of land provided by the US Forest Service. The company also sees applications beyond fire monitoring for its “bioenergy converter”, including remote environmental and agricultural sensing, climate science research and even Homeland Security and border protection, where trees could be fitted with sensors to detect potential threats like smuggled radioactive materials."

ETA: Spring 2009 for field prototype

Original Story > here

MIT press release> here

 

© 2005-2008

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

The next global crisis-Famine

The next global famine ?

Last month  Ukrainians around the world commemorated the tragic 75^th anniversary  the artificially-created famine genocide called the  Holodmorn(from the words famine and death),  that was overtly engineered by the Soviet government in the 1933 and which killed between 7-10 million people in Ukraine.

Is the world due for another artificially created famine?

I got an interesting email from Neal Rauhauser who writes:

Walter

      The fertilization effects in the story are regional but the famine effects are global. Wheat stocks per capita globally have been in the seventy pounds per person range for two generations  ... until three years ago when they plunged to about forty pounds. I detailed that a bit here:

  

Historically, a ton of ammonia equaled the cost of about eighty bushels of wheat, that is, $2.25 for a wheat bushel against $200 for a ton of ammonia. This ratio held for forty years. Two years ago that long standing relationship broke down. Today wheat is $4.50 and ammonia is $1,000 – over two hundred bushels of wheat are required to purchase a ton of ammonia.

The first effect of this has been a reduction in fertilization on wheat planted. Instead of 14% protein acreage, farmers will see crops with protein closer to the 8% range. Instead of the seventy bushels per acre achieved with full fertilization, farmer will see yields sliding off towards the twenty five bushels per acre unfertilized wheat yielded.

[..]

Looking at global wheat statistics reveals that the troubles have already begun. Wheat production per capita has been in excess of two hundred pounds for the last thirty years, this even as our global population doubled and “end of season” stocks had stabilized around seventy pounds per capita. Three years ago the “end of season” stock level plunged to around forty pounds per capita, a drawdown blamed on a sudden rush to biofuels. Consumers were substituting wheat for the corn that was being turned into ethanol. More acres were being turned to corn reducing wheat, soy, and other cereal crop production. Corn production does not have the range of options that wheat does; this crop always gets an ammonia based fertilizer and other crops have paid the price.

Food stress is beginning to destabilize countries. Haiti, Egypt, many locations in sub-Saharan Africa, and Bangladesh have all seen food riots. Most worrying of all is Pakistan, with food riots on top of a shaky government, a cold war on one side, and a hot war on the other.

In the final analysis, two producers that make up fifty percent of exports are cutting back due to the impact of the natural gas market on ammonia production and one of them is in dire straights due to global warming. Global stocks are the lowest they've been in a generation. This has already lead to food riots and governments falling among the developing nations. It is food for thought—as long as the food lasts.

Wheat production is not evenly distributed in the world. Wealthy western countries and the former Soviet Union produce the bulk of exports. Developing economies such as China and Indiaare relatively self sufficient but each are under water stress. Nations such as Haiti, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Pakistan bear the brunt of the suffering."

N.B The shortages  could be compounded by the UG-99 Ugandian wheat blight (which most monoculture wheat variaties are suseptable to and by the threats of droughts and falling water tables and aquafers around the world--Walter Derzko

Full blog post here

Human civilization has had to deal with prolonged drought before.  Scientists have discovered extraordinarily precise data on rainfall in the Mediterranean region from 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. which suggests that the fall of the Roman and Byzantine empires may have been partly caused by climate change (dropping rainfall and drought)

 

Source: Did Climate Change Kill the

Roman Empire

? Scientists Have New Tool to Reconstruct Ancient Climate, Season by Season .

IBM endorses smart technology and a smarter planet

A while back when I was at the Idea Lab at the Design Exchange, I remember sitting over a coffee and exploring a thought exercise with some clients.

The question under debate was: What are  the generic elements or activities that would accelerate any new technology platform, (such as smart technologies) and overcome the initial market interia. Simply put, Is there a generic technology evolution matrix?

We came up with over 25 items. (see related Post-Do you know how to spot opportunities?)

One was having cartoonists make fun of your technology ( No, smart technologies aren't on Dilbert's radar screen yet, but any day now I hope)  Another key event would be to have some influential CEO highlight the benefits of your technology in a milestone keynote speech (act as a complimentor-in business strategy terms. )

Well for smart technologies, that breakthrough event may have happened this month on November 6^th, when IBM’s CEO, Sam Palmisano, outlined a new agenda for building a smarter planet - during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relation. (hat tip to Adam Christensen at IBM HQ)

 

 

From IBM's blog:

"In the speech, he outlines a number of the challenges faced today by people, governments, businesses and organizations. A lack of clean water for a fifth of the world’s population. Energy systems that waste more energy than they produce. Traffic in our cities that clogs roads and chokes economic growth. 

Clearly there are no simple solutions for these problems.

Technology can play a big role in helping find answers to these problems. While the Internet currently connects more than a billion people, in just a few years, it will connect more than a trillion objects. Everything from cell phones, cars, roads, buildings, and even objects in nature itself, will have embedded technology and be connected to one another, enabling tremendous advances in how we understand how the world works and make smarter decisions to make it work better. 

But technology is just part of the solution. Without the people, policies and culture to inspire and execute the change, nothing ultimately gets done."

From Sam’s speech:

[...]   These collective realizations have reminded us that we are all now connected—economically, technically and socially. But we're also learning that being connected is not sufficient. Yes, the world continues to get "flatter." And yes, it continues to get smaller and more interconnected. But something is happening that holds even greater potential. In a word, our planet is becoming smarter.

This isn't just a metaphor.I mean infusing intelligence into the way the world literally works—the systems and processes that enable physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold… services to be delivered… everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move… and billions of people to work and live.

 What's making this possible?

• First, our world is becoming instrumented: The transistor, invented 60 years ago, is the basic building block of the digital age. Now, consider a world in which there are a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent. We'll have that by 2010. There will likely be 4 billion mobile phone subscribers by the end of this year… and 30 billion Radio Frequency Identification tags produced globally within two years. Sensors are being embedded across entire ecosystems—supply-chains, healthcare networks, cities… even natural systems like rivers.
• Second, our world is becoming interconnected: Very soon there will be 2 billion people on the Internet. But in an instrumented world, systems and objects can now "speak" to one another, too. Think about the prospect of a trillion connected and intelligent things—cars, appliances, cameras, roadways, pipelines… even pharmaceuticals and livestock. The amount of information produced by the interaction of all those things will be unprecedented.
• Third, all things are becoming intelligent: New computing models can handle the proliferation of end-user devices, sensors and actuators and connect them with back-end systems. Combined with advanced analytics, those supercomputers can turn mountains of data into intelligence that can be translated into action, making our systems, processes and infrastructures more efficient, more productive and responsive—in a word, smarter.

What this means is that the digital and physical infrastructures of the world are converging. Computational power is being put into things we wouldn't recognize as computers. Indeed, almost anything—any person, any object, any process or any service, for any organization, large or small—can become digitally aware and networked.

With so much technology and networking abundantly available at such low cost, what wouldn't you enhance? What service wouldn't you provide a customer, citizen, student or patient? What wouldn't you connect? What information wouldn't you mine for insight?

The answer is, you or your competitor—another company, or another city or nation—will do all of that. You will do it because you can—the technology is available and affordable.

But there is another reason we will make our companies, institutions and industries smarter. Because we must. Not just at moments of widespread shock, but integrated into our day-to-day operations. These mundane processes of business, government and life—which are ultimately the source of those "surprising" crises—are not smart enough to be sustainable.

[...]

Leaders will need to hone their collaboration skills, because we will need leadership that pulls across systems. We will need to bring together stakeholders and experts from across business, government and academia, and all of them will need to move outside their traditional comfort zones.

I’m struck by the questions this raises. What investments need to be made by both public and private institutions? What policy issues need to be debated and resolved? What role can individual citizens and employees play in helping bring about meaningful change?

I’m also struck by the potential opportunities inherent in finding solutions to these problems. 

see full text of Sam Palmisano's speech

Walter Derzko

 

From IBM's blog:

"In the speech, he outlines a number of the challenges faced today by people, governments, businesses and organizations. A lack of clean water for a fifth of the world’s population. Energy systems that waste more energy than they produce. Traffic in our cities that clogs roads and chokes economic growth. 

Clearly there are no simple solutions for these problems.

Technology can play a big role in helping find answers to these problems. While the Internet currently connects more than a billion people, in just a few years, it will connect more than a trillion objects. Everything from cell phones, cars, roads, buildings, and even objects in nature itself, will have embedded technology and be connected to one another, enabling tremendous advances in how we understand how the world works and make smarter decisions to make it work better. 

But technology is just part of the solution. Without the people, policies and culture to inspire and execute the change, nothing ultimately gets done."

From Sam’s speech:

[...]   These collective realizations have reminded us that we are all now connected—economically, technically and socially. But we're also learning that being connected is not sufficient. Yes, the world continues to get "flatter." And yes, it continues to get smaller and more interconnected. But something is happening that holds even greater potential. In a word, our planet is becoming smarter.

This isn't just a metaphor.I mean infusing intelligence into the way the world literally works—the systems and processes that enable physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold… services to be delivered… everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move… and billions of people to work and live.

 What's making this possible?

• First, our world is becoming instrumented: The transistor, invented 60 years ago, is the basic building block of the digital age. Now, consider a world in which there are a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent. We'll have that by 2010. There will likely be 4 billion mobile phone subscribers by the end of this year… and 30 billion Radio Frequency Identification tags produced globally within two years. Sensors are being embedded across entire ecosystems—supply-chains, healthcare networks, cities… even natural systems like rivers.
• Second, our world is becoming interconnected: Very soon there will be 2 billion people on the Internet. But in an instrumented world, systems and objects can now "speak" to one another, too. Think about the prospect of a trillion connected and intelligent things—cars, appliances, cameras, roadways, pipelines… even pharmaceuticals and livestock. The amount of information produced by the interaction of all those things will be unprecedented.
• Third, all things are becoming intelligent: New computing models can handle the proliferation of end-user devices, sensors and actuators and connect them with back-end systems. Combined with advanced analytics, those supercomputers can turn mountains of data into intelligence that can be translated into action, making our systems, processes and infrastructures more efficient, more productive and responsive—in a word, smarter.

What this means is that the digital and physical infrastructures of the world are converging. Computational power is being put into things we wouldn't recognize as computers. Indeed, almost anything—any person, any object, any process or any service, for any organization, large or small—can become digitally aware and networked.

With so much technology and networking abundantly available at such low cost, what wouldn't you enhance? What service wouldn't you provide a customer, citizen, student or patient? What wouldn't you connect? What information wouldn't you mine for insight?

The answer is, you or your competitor—another company, or another city or nation—will do all of that. You will do it because you can—the technology is available and affordable.

But there is another reason we will make our companies, institutions and industries smarter. Because we must. Not just at moments of widespread shock, but integrated into our day-to-day operations. These mundane processes of business, government and life—which are ultimately the source of those "surprising" crises—are not smart enough to be sustainable.

[...]

Leaders will need to hone their collaboration skills, because we will need leadership that pulls across systems. We will need to bring together stakeholders and experts from across business, government and academia, and all of them will need to move outside their traditional comfort zones.

I’m struck by the questions this raises. What investments need to be made by both public and private institutions? What policy issues need to be debated and resolved? What role can individual citizens and employees play in helping bring about meaningful change?

I’m also struck by the potential opportunities inherent in finding solutions to these problems. 

see full text of Sam Palmisano's speech

Walter Derzko

Why eating less can help the environment & cut 50% of the energy used in the production & supply of food

A new study finds that a healthier diet and a return to traditional farming can help reduce energy consumption in US food system by 50 percent

An estimated 19 percent of total energy used in the USA is taken up in the production and supply of food.  Currently, this mostly comes from non-renewable energy sources which are in short supply.  It is therefore of paramount importance that ways of reducing this significant fuel consumption in the US food system are found.  In a paper just published in the  journal Human Ecology, David Pimentel and his colleagues at Cornell University in New York set out a number of strategies which could potentially cut fossil energy fuel use in the food system by as much as 50 percent.

1. The first, and very astute suggestion they put forward is that individuals eat less, especially considering that the average American consumes an estimated 3,747 calories a day, a staggering 1200-1500 calories over recommendations.  Traditional American diets are high in animal products, and junk and processed foods in particular, which by their nature use more energy than that used to produce staple foods such as potatoes, rice, fruits and vegetables.  By just reducing junk food intake and converting to diets lower in meat, the average American could have a massive impact on fuel consumption as well as improving his or her health.
2. Further savings are possible in the food production industry.  The authors suggest that moving towards more traditional, organic farming methods would help because conventional meat and dairy production is extremely energy intensive.  Similarly, in crop production, reduced pesticide use, increased use of manure, cover crops and crop rotations improve energy efficiency.
3. Finally, changes to methods of food processing, packaging and distribution could also help to reduce fuel consumption.  Although well-established energy-saving considerations in lighting, heating and packaging materials all have their part to play, the authors again highlight individual responsibility as having the biggest impact.  They contend that the most dramatic reduction in energy used for food processing would come about if consumers reduced their demand for highly processed foods.  This would also help cut down food miles and its related fuel cost as US food travels an average of 2,400 km before it is consumed.

This study argues strongly that the consumer is in the strongest position to contribute to a reduction in energy use.  As individuals embrace a 'greener' lifestyle, an awareness of the influence their food choices have on energy resources might be added encouragement for them to buy good, local produce and avoid highly processed, heavily packaged and nutritionally inferior food.  As well as leading to a cleaner environment, this would also lead to better health.

See  Pimentel D, Williamson S, Alexander C E, Gonzelez-Pagan O, Kontak C and Mulkey SE (2008).  Reducing energy inputs in the US food system.  Human Ecology: DOI 10.1007/s10745-008-9184-3.

 

© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Lecturer on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

Large Scale Carbon Capture Farming

USGS, California and UC Davis begin large-scale Delta “carbon farm” Project will study best ways to capture atmospheric CO2, reverse island subsidence

Imagine a new kind of farming in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta – “carbon-capture” farming, which traps atmospheric carbon dioxide and rebuilds lost soils.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the University of California, Davis plan to make it happen.

DWR has awarded USGS and UC Davis a three-year, $12.3 million research grant to take the concept of carbon-capture farming to full-scale in a scientifically and environmentally sound way.

Long-standing farming practices in the Delta expose fragile peat soils to wind, rain and cultivation, emit carbon dioxide (CO2) and cause land subsidence.  To capture or contain the carbon, farmers would “grow” wetlands.  In doing so, they would begin to rebuild the Delta’s unique peat soils, take CO2 out of the atmosphere, ease pressure on the Delta’s aging levees and infuse the region with new economic potential.

Carbon-capture farming works as CO2 is taken out of the air by plants such as tules and cattails.  As the plants die and decompose, they create new peat soil, building the land surface over time.

The USGS and DWR have already partnered on a pilot project that shows the promise of carbon-capture farming.  On deeply subsided Twitchell Island in the western Delta, USGS scientists recorded elevation gains of more than 10 inches from 1997 to 2005 on two seven-acre test plots as cattails, tules and other plants grew, died and decomposed.  The process leaves behind roots and plant remnants that compact into a material similar to what formed the peat soils initially.

Construction on the new wetlands, covering up to 400 acres on Twitchell Island, is scheduled to start in the spring of 2009.

“This project is an investment in California’s future that could reap multiple benefits over several decades – for California, the nation and the world,” said Dr. Roger Fujii, the project director and Bay-Delta program chief for the USGS California Water Science Center.  “It will build on the results of the ongoing Twitchell Island Pilot Project and assess on a large scale the ability of re-established wetlands on Delta peat islands to sequester carbon, reverse subsidence and provide an economically sustainable land-use practice.”

“UC Davis scientists will play a major role in this project.  We’ll be providing the scientific expertise necessary to gain a better understanding of the factors controlling carbon capture in these re-established wetlands,” said Dr. William Horwath, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and the James G. Boswell Endowed Chair in Soil Sciences.

Added David Mraz, chief of DWR’s Delta-Suisun Marsh Office, “The developing carbon market holds great promise for regaining land elevation in the Delta.  It could provide sustainable farming opportunities for Delta farmers and an economic incentive to sustain the existing Delta levee system.”

Throughout the Delta, oxidation of the soils from farming practices has resulted in land-surface subsidence – a steady loss of elevation.  As a result, most of the farmed Delta islands are more than 20 feet below the surrounding waterways and are permanently protected by levees.

The falling land surface threatens the stability of the region’s levees, which in turn protect the Delta’s rich agricultural lands and the conveyance of much of California’s water supplies.  Water flowing through the Delta’s levee-protected farmland provides fresh water to more than 25 million Californians and millions of acres of farmland in the Central Valley.

The research will develop wetland management approaches that maximize carbon sequestration and subsidence reversal.  It will also evaluate and seek to minimize other potential environmental consequences, such as how to effectively manage any changes in mosquito populations.

© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Lecturer on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

Historic change in Agricultural feed responsible for skyrocketing heart disease and other inflammatory disorders? 08-035

Are seeds and seed oils responsible for the increased incidence of heart disease and other inflammatory disorders that we see in society today?

Yes, according to science writer Susan Allport in her new book: "The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s were removed from our diet and what we can do to replace them," due to be published in paperback in Feb 2008.

Allport concludes:

"Many of the foods we eat every day, including eggs and bacon, used to be full of Omega-3s and other essential nutrients -- when the animals they came from were eating grass, insects, and other green foods.  Now our livestock eat mostly seeds and grains.

Many of the foods we eat every day, including eggs and bacon, used to be full of these essential nutrients -- when the animals they came from were eating grass, insects, and other green foods.  Omega-3s originate in the green leaves of plants (not fish, as many people believe), and they accumulate in animals that eat those leaves, including fish.

Now that our livestock eat mostly seeds and grains, our foods are full of a second family of polyunsaturated fats, omega-6s which are much more prevalent in those parts of plants.  This second family of polyunsaturated fats is also essential for health, but it competes with omega-3s for positions in cell membranes and affects cells in different ways.  Fats in this family are not as dynamic, or speedy, as omega-3s.  They also produce cell messengers called prostaglandins that are far more inflammatory and far more likely to cause thrombosis or blood clotting.

As our reliance on seeds and seed oils has increased since the turn of the last century, so has the incidence of heart disease and other inflammatory disorders.

It may not be practical for us to eat only grass-fed meats and eggs.  But it's also not possible for us to catch, or raise, enough fish to correct this problem.  We can, however, increase our omega-3s by eating small amounts of fish and grass-fed animals and using vegetable oils with a healthier balance of omega-6s to omega-3s."

The Queen of Fats (University of California Press) tells the compelling history of the omega-3 research and is described as a "must read" by physicians and nutritionists.

iPlant Collaborative to Tackle Greater Science Questions > like a Google Nature Map? 08-033

How do you create a "big picture overview " from all the specialized, reductionist, research in any discipline?

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced a $50 million award to a University of Arizona-led team to create the first national cyberinfrastructure center to tackle global "grand challenge" plant biology questions that have great implications on larger questions regarding the environment, agriculture, energy and the very organisms that sustain our existence on earth.

Like no other single research entity, the iPlant Collaborative will provide the capacity to draw upon resources and talent in remote locations and enable plant scientists, computer scientists and information scientists from around the world for the first time ever to collaboratively address questions of global importance and advance all of these fields.  It will bring together and leverage the resources and information generated through the National Plant Genome Initiative, enabling more breadth and depth of research in every aspect of plant science.

"We are confident in the positive returns of this substantive investment in basic research," said NSF Director Arden L. Bement.  "The iPlant Collaborative will harness the best and the brightest scholars and research in plant biology in order to tackle some of the profound issues of our day and for our future.  Challenges that may need plants for solutions include addressing the impacts of climate change, dwindling oil supply, decreasing agricultural land area, increasing population and environmental degradation."

The iPlant center will be located in and administered by the University of Arizona's BIO5 Institute, which was founded to encourage collaboration across scientific disciplines, accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, and develop innovative solutions to society's most complex biological challenges.

"This global center is going to change the way we do science," says UA plant sciences professor and BIO5 member Richard Jorgensen, who is the lead investigator and director of the iPlant Collaborative.

"The iPlant team has a compelling vision for an organization by, for and of the community, that will bring to bear the power of cyberinfrastructure to enable scientists everywhere to take on some of the most important questions in plant science," said Joann Roskoski, executive officer of the NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences.

The cyberinfrastructure and the researchers will rely heavily on computational thinking, a form of problem-solving that assigns computers the jobs they're most efficient at, and in doing so frees up humans to spend more time on the creative tasks that humans do best.  The iPlant cyberinfrastructure will serve as a model for solving problems in fields outside of plant biology too.

"One feature of iPlant that will be developed is the ability to map the full expanse of plant biology research in much the way Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth or Mapquest utilizes mapping technology.  Like users of these applications, users of iPlant may one day be able to "zoom" in and out among various levels of plant biology, from the molecular to the organismic to the ecosystem level.  For example, a researcher might "zoom in" to analyze the carbon fixed, oxygen produced, and water utilized by individual leaves, then "zoom out" to analyze how all of these might effect large-scale changes in ecosystems and how that could in turn affect air quality and climate."

Because collaboration among disciplines is central to iPlant's mission, the cyberinfrastructure also will have a strong networking component to facilitate communication among researchers from different fields.  It will also conduct research on the effectiveness of social networking in iPlant and in the plant and computer and information sciences generally.

All iPlant projects will have K-12, undergraduate and graduate education components as well, which is co-funded by NSF, BIO5 and Science Foundation Arizona.  Students, teachers, and interested laypeople will all have access to iPlant's resources and data, as well as to educational tools designed to help them understand that data and develop inquiry-based learning modules for K through 12, undergraduate, and graduate science education.

The iPlant Collaborative is a five-year project that is potentially renewable for a second five years and a total of $100 million.  This award is greater than three times the size of any other NSF award received in Arizona to date.

Other institutions working with The University of Arizona (UA) include Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Arizona State University, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and Purdue University.  UA participants in the iPlant Collaborative include the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' Department of Plant Sciences, the College of Science's Departments of Computer Science, Mathematics and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, the Eller College of Management's Department of Management Information Systems, the College of Engineering's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Arizona Research Lab's Biocomputing Facility.  The project' board of directors will be chaired by Robert Last, PhD, a Michigan State University professor.

Related Websites iPlant Collaborative: http://iplantcollaborative.org/