Aquatic Ecosystems

Carnivorous Plants Glow to Attract Prey

There have been multiple carnivorous plants found in the world and they all have different tricks to lure insects and other animals into their clutches.  Several plants have been found to glow to attract their prey. For example, the pitfall traps Nepenthes khasiana and Sarracenia purpurea and the snap trap Dionaea muscipula glow a bright blue.  The flesh-eating flora has special cells that help them generate the ultraviolet hue.  The fluorescence is quite alluring to insects while it is actually invisible to the unaided human eye.  To an insect, the carnivorous plant’s glow probably looks like a bonfire at night. But to people looking at the plant under a black light, it probably looks something like a glow stick.  It has been found that the glow is actually a survival technique.  For example, carnivorous plants most often grow in nutrient-deficient soils and have to catch and kill bugs to supplement their poor diets. 

The plants have a chemical structure called conjugated double bond, and they have the ability to absorb light and re-emit it.  In the article they used the analogy that it is like moths to a flame. The plants’ light is emitted as an ultraviolet wavelength tailored to appeal to potential prey, including insects and other arthropods, the group that includes crustaceans, insects, and spiders. Insects often can see wavelengths that emphasize food sources.  The scientists who have found these plants said that they might even aid in future breakthroughs.  For example, fluorescent jellyfish proteins are attached to specific markers, allowing researchers to study, for example, how cancer cells spread. The carnivorous plant’s glowing cells could potentially provide a new tracking method.

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/25/carnivorous-plants-glow/?source=hp_dl1_news_carnivorous_plants_2130227

Renewable Resource

Biomass

Biomass is biology material from living, or recently living organisms, most often referring to plants or plant-derived materials. As a renewable energy source, biomass can either be used directly, or indirectly—once or converted into another type of energy product such as biofuel. Biomass can be converted to energy in three ways: thermal conversion, chemical conversion, and biochemical conversion.

Scientists have discovered that biomass can be used as a substitute for petroleum.  Using enzymes to break down solid biomass waste into a renewable form.  There is sufficient biomass waste available to supply all of the organic chemicals that are consumed annually in the United States and still have enough waste left over to convert to auto fuel.  There is a need for renewable resources and energy flow. Through plant material, we can develop alternatives to petroleum-based products because bio-based fuels are recyclable while fossil-based fuels are not.

            Even though biomass wastes is cheaper as a raw material than oil, there is a drawback.  The price of converting biomass raw material is the major limitation to commercialization.  The plant biomass is chemically diverse, and it must be separated then converted into desired products. The challenge is to develop industries proficient in using this raw material and to develop more cost-effective enzymatic and microbial processes that convert these materials into industrial chemicals and energy.

Biomass fuel occurs when the plant through its metabolism takes in carbon dioxide, and carbon enters plant cells where it is converted into cell walls. Just like photosynthesis.   Biomass is a sustainable and potentially environmentally sound resource.   Biomass is considered to be one of the key renewable resources of the future at both small- and large-scale levels. It already supplies 14% of the world’s primary energy consumption.  With increases in population and demand per capita, and depletion of fossil-fuel resources, the demand for biomass is expected to increase rapidly in developing countries.  Using biomass as a fuel means that carbon dioxide, which was absorbed from the air while the plant was growing, is released back into the air when the fuel is burned. The system is said to be carbon neutral.  The manufacturing of biomass is going to occur where biomass is found. Biomass is typically found in rural areas meaning more manufacturing jobs would be created in rural areas.

            The most common processes developed so far use combustion to release energy. Just like coal is burned to produce power, biomass can be burned too. For example, leftover cornstalks (corn stover) can be burned to heat water into steam. The steam turns a turbine that spins a generator to produce electricity. Another process, called gasification, superheats plant material into a gaseous state. The gas can then be used to turn a turbine to drive a generator, producing electricity.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000331084341.htm

Works Cited

"Biomass." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Feb. 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass>.

"Interesting Energy Facts." Biomass Energy Facts -. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2013. <http://interestingenergyfacts.blogspot.com/2008/04/biomass-energy-facts.html>.

Recycling

Recycling

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-04/national/36738686_1_materials-recovery-facility-recyclable-materials-polyethylene-terephthalate

As you throw a plastic bottle in a blue bin with arrow, you get a sense of happiness, as it feels good to recycle because you know you're helping the earth. Recycling one plastic bottle can save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours.  Recycling is very important but as the United States only recycles seven percent of all the plastic it consumes it does not seem as such an important thing to people. Everything that is plastic is technically recyclable, so that tiny number is pretty depressing to hear.  If it is said that recycling is easy then why is it so hard for us to do it?  Are Americans truly that lazy to maybe had to walk an extra step to put it in a blue or green bin with those three arrows on it? 

It is amazing to learn that if we were able to take every single pound of plastic used and turn it back into raw plastic for the next year, we would still need to produce another eleven million tons to suffice the worldwide demand.  It takes forty seven million barrels of oil to produce eleven million tons of plastic. That is a huge amount. To put things in perspective, imagine you are holding a water bottle in your hard.  In that water bottle, a quarter of the bottle is filled with oil.  That is how much oil it took to create that one water bottle. 

Unfortunately, for every six water bottles we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin. The rest are sent to landfills. Or, even worse, they end up as trash on the land and in rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Plastic bottles take many hundreds of years to disintegrate.  The smartest thing people could do would be to reuse bottles.

In the article, it talks about what happens to an empty ketchup bottle. It first goes through the materials recovery facility. There, robots distinguish and separate the different materials that come through.  The robots push waste into the appropriate containers.  When the bottle is put with the plastics, it goes down a conveyor belt as another machine separates different types of plastics.  The problem with these machines though is that they can make mistakes so humans have to check to make sure that the correct plastics are put in the correct areas.  Another issue that comes up quite frequently is if the bottle contains lubricants, colorants, fillers, antioxidants and other additives then there is no possible way for the plastic to be returned to its original quality.