Environmental Research Advocates

ERAscience and California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA take great pride supporting the annual Nanovation Competition.

Top three finalists winners were announced May 18, 2024 and granted funds to support their schools’ classroom supplies.

Ten finalist teams comprising middle and high school students, each guided by a teacher leader and UCLA graduate student mentors, created pioneering design and technology business concept proposals from Nanoscience teacher workshops.  A jury of UCLA professors and Los Angeles business professionals, including ERAscience CEO and founder of the annual Nanovation Competition Denise Avchen, awarded science classroom supplies to the students’ affiliated schools.

The future of nanotechnology appears brighter than ever, thanks to the visionary strides made by these remarkable winners.

Denise Avchen (right), ERAscience CEO and founder of the annual Nanovation Competition, congratulates finalist winners at Nanovation 2024.

“So proud of all the finalist teams and winners at Nanovation 2024! The vision, creativity and dedication you displayed in developing your projects were phenomenal! It’s been an honor to have created and collaborated with the truly brilliant professors and educators at CNSI on this life changing program near a decade ago. Love you guys!!”   ~  Denise

ERAScience CEO / Co-Founder Denise Avchen gifted Nanovation Competition students tickets to attend the launching of Roots and Shoots Basecamp LA event featuring Jane Goodall at the Ebell Theater on Sunday 3/17 St Patrick’s Day. 

(Above: Denise Avchen backstage with Nanovation Competition students.)

In tandem with her work with the Youth Outreach Program, Denise offered the tickets to the current 2024 Nanovation Competition students.  Jane Goodall had personally gifted Denise 20 seats to her Roots and Shoots event to help inner city children have access to higher education and exploration in responsible environmental science.  The Nanovation Competition, founded by Denise Avchen, invites groups of Southern California high school students to dream up nanoscience-based technologies and pitch them as notional businesses.  The competition final for this year’s 2024 Nanovation Competition will be presented on May 17, 2024.

Roots and Shoots, a global project headed by the Jane Goodall Institute, is one of the largest global movements empowering young leaders to effect positive change in their community environments.

(Above video: Jane Goodall performing her famous chimpanzee greeting.)

Visit Roots and Shoots Website

Visit the Jane Goodall Institute

Ten teams of 4-5 middle and high school students with a teacher leader and UCLA graduate student mentors met at California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA for the annual Nanovation Competition March 8, 2024.  A panel of judges, including Nanovation Competition Founder, Denise Avchen, officially instructed the finalists of the competition parameters at this kick off event.

The top 3 winning teams will be awarded science classroom supplies, and will be selected by a jury of UCLA professors and Los Angeles business professionals.

Timeline of events

• Monday, December 18, 2023 – Call for submissions is officially open (online)
• Friday, January 26, 2024  – Submission deadline (online)
• Friday, February 9, 2024 – Finalists announced (online)
• Friday, March 8, 2024 – Kick-off meeting (CNSI auditorium and lobby)
• Friday, May 17, 2024 – Final presentation video submission deadline (CNSI auditorium and lobby)

———————————————————————————–

Erascience’s Co-Founder and CEO Denise Avchen Celebrates International Women’s Day at 2024 CNSI Nanovation Competition Kickoff Meeting at UCLA.

Read what Denise Avchen wrote on her Instagram post:

“This International Women’s Day was extra meaningful at Nanovation competition kickoff 2024 at CNSI UCLA.  Seeing this amazing team of high school girls make it to the top 10 was timely and cool. Now their work and lots of learning and fun begin. presentations and judging will be end of May. Future’s so bright, Honored to be part of this life changing program! I love my CNSI fam of educators and scientists! Icing on the cake was getting in some time with oh so brilliant beautiful Anne Andrews @serotoninscientist #nanovation #cnsi #ucla #erascience #soproud #changinglives #scienceisfun”

Crazy as it sounds, but all this freezing weather is the result of the North Pole losing pressure to keep its arctic weather belt intact… perhaps cinch up that belt tighter, North Pole.  The North Pole is approximately 36 degrees Fahrenheit warmer since 2016, compared to only being 5 degrees warmer recorded in 1979.  Sea levels have risen dramatically too.  Make note of the historic Fisherman’s Point shacks in South Portland, Maine yanked out to sea on January 14 of this year; truly historic and ironic.  I remember my 5th grade science teacher in 1977 speaking of catastrophes to come by year 2050…. boy was he off by a decade or two. Or was he?

All of what is happening are only samplings or precursors , if you will, of what is touted to come. Whether, no pun intended, to substantiate or dismiss the scientific guestimates of climate change patterns requires the same amount of work and years of studying environmental impacts and causes to stand on either side of that fence. I won’t bore you with scientific study analysis from our scientists because there has been plenty: scientific studies are referenced on the very city billboards that turn into flying debris from the record amount of hurricanes and tornados in recent years.  And this coastal flooding isn’t new, but what is new is the frequency and intensity.

In a previous blog post, I mentioned the Polar Vortex. This Arctic shift to the southern hemisphere is because the climate is a little broken, maybe a little more than a little, but not yet a lot.  We will get to that point later in this article.  The rise in sea levels are related to this Polar Vortex as well as most all recent unique weather conditions currently being experienced locally in the United States and internationally.  The U.S. Eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico are most affected, where the hightides and nuisance flooding had been predicted to rise four times a year and eightfold per year by year 2050 (1).  However, those occurrences are happening in more irregular frequencies as of to date. Florida is predicted to experience future catastrophic flooding, and today the state of Maine is experiencing flooding never before seen.

Now about fixing what is broken. Could there be a chance of a reprieve?  Understand the cogs of motion are already spinning and grinding against each other, damage has already been done and more is to come.  But climate and environmental scientists are currently developing processes to stop a complete environmental meltdown.  Safeguarding a certain degree of collateral damage, such as loss of human life, property damage, whole towns and cities decimated, is what is at stake for the future. There is no fixing of the environment, not in the immediate sense, but there is healing, which will take decades, if not centuries, to repair the damage from all that has affected our planet.

Perhaps many of you feel this climate change to be just a natural occurrence.  Sure, listen to the marketing mechanisms of oil and gas producers delivered as “education,”  keep driving that SUV, big luxury car or hot rod like so many mimicking the fantastical world of the Fast and Furious big screen series. There must be another way to look tough and act cool without that furiously fast car.  And what about your children’s futures?  What then, where to next, if weather is unpredictable, big coastal cities are unliveable, and certain industry jobs are no longer options?

Perhaps if we all had paid attention to our 5th grade science teacher back in the 70’s, we would have acted upon the climate change warnings.  And as you read this from your comfortable chair, consider that we as a species need to move forward quickly to mitigate the dangers of Climate Change, from demanding muscle cars be “muscled” out, scrutinize climate-change-denying politicians and educating our children about the importance of living with environmental decision-making at the forefront of every purchase. Our future is at stake!

(1) https://www.rff.org/publications/explainers/flooding-in-the-united-states-101-causes-trends-and-impacts/

Sources:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-arctic-is-warming-four-times-faster-than-the-rest-of-the-planet/

https://www.rff.org/publications/explainers/flooding-in-the-united-states-101-causes-trends-and-impacts/

https://www.neefusa.org/story/climate-change/increases-coastal-flooding

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44632

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4406948-what-is-the-polar-vortex/

Featured Image Source: Bradley Carroll, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sierra Club members from the Los Angeles Chapter joined with former mayor of Culver City, Meghan Sahli-Wells, also known as the “Biking Mayor,” whose only mode of transportation is a bicycle, and former Pro Cyclist Phil Gaimon, to tour Los Angeles’ toxic industrial and oil infrastructure sites within the city limits in a bike group ride.

Conversations on the bike tour address how black and brown communities are directly impacted by toxic sites and oil producing industries.  Meghan Sahli-Wells, who has championed environmental justice and building progressive power both locally and nationally, speaks of the perilous hazards of oil extraction within communities and usage of city resources such as the Fire Department to contend with disasters and overflowing crude oil from oil drilling extraction rigs into city street storm sewers draining into the oceans.

Visit Youtube Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXkrwcqpcYY

Featured image composed by WJ (courtesy of zumwinkle.com)

As CEO of ERAScience, I fervently advocate environmental causes like the renowned Jane Fonda initiative, intricately entwining such causes within the very essence of our overarching vision.

Jane Fonda champions fundraising to empower climate-focused candidates at lower political levels. Known for her unwavering dedication to pressing causes, Fonda’s zeal permeates all facets of her existence. Yet, beneath this public persona lies a down-to-earth and affectionate individual unafraid to personally engage in her mission to enhance our world. 

(ERAscience CEO Denise Avchen, second from right, with Jane Fonda and JanePac comittee members)

Being an integral member of the JanePac event committee, I actively contribute my efforts due to Jane’s profound impact as a catalyst for transformation. The undeniable truth resonates; our planet is bearing witness to the disruptive consequences of climate change.

Terry, my remarkable life partner, devoted his professional journey and essence to environmental causes. Leveraging his profound legal expertise, he engaged in battles aimed at rectifying and lessening environmental injustices in our midst.

Our joint venture, Environmental Research Advocates (ERAscience), germinated back in the year 2008. It symbolized our modest contribution towards safeguarding the well-being of our exquisite planet Earth.

Our vision transcends convention, aspiring to catalyze a paradigm shift in scientific engagement. Join us in this profound journey towards a brighter future, where innovation and empowerment converge harmoniously.

Denise Avchen
CEO / Co-Founder

Link to Jane Fonda Climate PAC: https://janepac.com/

The International Atomic Energy Agency has approved and is monitoring a slow discharge of radioactive cooling water in the Pacific Ocean from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.

Immediately following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake of a magnitude of 9.1mw, a 15-meter tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, causing three cores to melt completely.  The plant had been offline since the disaster but can no longer accomodate the resulting contaminated wastewater needed for cooling its fuel rods.  The Japanese nuclear agencies developed a plan to release filtered nuclear cooling water into the Pacific Ocean over a regulated time-table.  The contaminated water is processed to reduce concentrations of radionuclides except for one radioactive isotope of hydrogen called tritium that cannot be filtered out. “Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen, and hydrogen is part of the water itself (H20). So it is impossible to create a filter that could remove the tritium.”¹

According to Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), “annual radiation levels from the release of the tritium-tainted water are estimated at between 0.052 and 0.62 microsieverts if it were disposed of at sea and 1.3 microsieverts if it were released into the atmosphere, compared with the 2100 microsieverts (2.1 mSv) that humans are naturally exposed to annually.”²  The IAEA and the government of Japan have assessed the levels released to be safe enough for the environment however that assessment has not abated related political disagreements and cultural harrassments from neighboring countries.

Japan, trying to prevent another disaster of overflowing untreated contaminated material, is mitigating the risks involved to dispose treated water to make room for more unfiltered wasterwater. Considering their own economy and health are at risk, Japan took a decade to develop a technical process to disperse the water over decades so as not harm the environment.  The IAEA and other international nuclear agencies are providing oversight to monitor release of tritium into the ocean will have minimal impact to the ecosystem and consequently may impart diplomacy with environmental concerns from all countries.

Footnotes:

(1) https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-daiichi-accident.aspx

(2) https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-daiichi-accident.aspx

References:

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-daiichi-accident.aspx

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/24/1195419846/fukushima-radioactive-water-japan

Featured Image: Image composed by WJ (courtesy of zumwinkle.com)

Background image: Underwater photo of coral reef.jpg
Jerry Reid, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Japanese flag: War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army.svg
Thommy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Streamed live on May 19, 2023

Teams of high school students with a teacher leader and UCLA graduate student mentor are invited annually to create cutting-edge nanotechnology business proposals informed by their own research and by a series of workshops coordinated by the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI).  This contest, the 2023 CNSI Nanovation Competition at UCLA, was established by Environmental Research Advocates CEO Denise Avchen, and is still actively funded by ERA.  The teams are given the opportunity to apply their learning to create feasible technology designs, offering them valuable training and experience in the technology innovation process.  The top 3 winning teams of 2023 were selected by a jury of UCLA professors and LA business professionals, and were awarded science classroom supplies!

VIDEO CLIP – ERAScience CEO / Co-Founder Denise Avchen at Nanovation Competition 2023:

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competition Speaker Credits ERAScience's Denise Avchen:

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors Versi-Gripz group (Granada Hills Charter):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors XEF4 group (Los Osos High School):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors Pulsera group (Lassalette Middle School):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors The Cohesives group (Iovine and Young Center):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors Creative Carbon group (Los Osos High School):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors Gummy Bears group (South East High School):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors Get Sturdy group (Westminster High School):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors G.A.B.E. group (Lincoln Middle School):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors Nah-No Plastic group (Santa Monica High School):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competitors DuraEgg group (Hyde Middle School):

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competition Judges Pick 3rd Place Winners:

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competition Judges Pick Two 2rd Place Winners Part 1:

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competition Judges Pick Two 2rd Place Winners Part 2:

VIDEO CLIP – Nanovation Competition Judges Pick 1st Place Winners:

Watch the 2023 Nanovation Competition full video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHcQ5_LhW0A

30 years ago, a corporate entity by the name of CADIZ Inc. proposed a plan to pump out 16 billion gallons of water each year from the driest desert in North America, the famed Mojave Desert.  In year 2010, opposition from late activist Elden Hughs and other Sierra Club members were vigilant to keep CADIZ from realizing their plan.  Almost a decade later, CADIZ Inc. had finally been approved by the Trump-era U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Corporate entities with lobbying powers have the will to entice or pressure most anyone as was the case with Southern California Water district board member Bryan Urias, who had decided against purchasing any water from CADIZ Inc. As it appears, there are people with a conscience who can look beyond the horizon and people like Urias could see the ecological disaster from such a project to drain the Mojave Desert.  However, this article really isn't a case against CADIZ Inc, but as an example of the struggle between conservatorship and commercialism and all that entails.

The planet is dying, or the reality is the planet is becoming less inhabitable and it's life that is on a precarious edge of disaster.  The planet will survive and it will eliminate us humans in the interim to do so, but we humans are doing the act upon ourselves as we enjoy shooting ourselves in the foot and then again in the other foot.

Humans have vices, that is a given, though some humans have deeper, overwhelming obsessions with power and wealth and it is that dollar that will be used for such endeavors.  And there are voices who try to speak through those filters to reach an unassuming public whom are not aware, engaged nor empowered to contribute a voice to make logical and reasonable decisions.  It is a huge struggle to reach those ears, and organizations like the Sierra Club are not enough to fight the good fight.

Luckily, on September 14, 2022, a U.S. District federal judge vacated the Trump-era U.S. Bureau of Land Management decision that would have allowed Cadiz Inc. to repurpose a mothballed oil-and-gas pipeline to drain a large aquifer in the Mojave Desert. The current U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under President Biden had sent a motion to the court to dismiss the prior agency's approval of the pipeline that would had traversed Mojave Trails National Monument and other protected public land in southeastern California.

This is life mimicking the arts.  As the Death Star slowly comes around from out of the shadows to align it's target, a small force intervenes to save the day.  Message to you readers, don't let Planet Earth become that Death Star, it won't end well for all of us.

Sources:

https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/judge-vacates-approval-of-cadizs-california-desert-water-grab-2022-09-14/

https://socalwatersierraclub.org/campaigns/cadiz/

https://angeles.sierraclub.org/july_2019_issue

https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2018/03/22/california-water-district-rejects-companys-proposed-desert-water-project/448264002/

Photo by Thomas Farley, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

 A research team from the University of Cambridge, working with colleagues from  Austria, have discovered a potential new method for making high-performance rare-earth-element magnets, Tetrataenite, used in wind turbines and electric cars without the need for rare earth elements.

Tetrataenite, a ‘cosmic magnet’ that takes millions of years to develop naturally in meteorites, can be cheaply made in the laboratory without expensive techniques or any specialized treatment.   Tetrataenite, an iron-nickel alloy with a particular ordered atomic structure, had been artificially formed in the 1960s by bombarding iron-nickel alloys with neutrons (radiation), but could not be used in practical applications.  The Cambridge research team discovered small amounts of phosphate added to iron-nickel alloy could form tetrataenite in mere seconds in a mold.  Phosphate, added to molten iron-nickel, would form the crystalline structural dendrites found in tetrataenite, mimicking the same particular stacking sequence.

Permanent high-performance rare-earth-element magnets are a vital technology for building a zero-carbon economy.  Commercial applications of the artificial tetrataenite could potentially replace the need to import rare-earth elements used in wind-turbine magnets and electric vehciles.  "There is an issue with securing a reliable supply of rare earths, as China controls the majority of global production. It was reported that 81% of rare earths worldwide were sourced from China in 2017. There are other countries that mine REEs, such as Australia, but with increasing geopolitical tensions with China, the current rare earth supply could be at risk." ¹

With the need to reverse course on emissions, green technology industry leaders are developing alternatives in infrastructure uses on every level of human consumption from powering and heating homes to transportation.  With the innovation of electric powered machines and vehicles, the artifical tetrataenite manufacturing discovery may pave new approaches to development and manufacturing vitally important technologies on a global scale.

Sources:

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/new-approach-to-cosmic-magnet-manufacturing-could-reduce-reliance-on-rare-earths-in-low-carbon
https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/potential-rare-earth-magnet-replacement-discovered/26597/

1. Potential rare earth magnet replacement has been discovered – https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/potential-rare-earth-magnet-replacement-discovered/26597/

"Smelter Wallpaper" image courtesy of GoodFon.com

As long as fossil fuels are used in energy power plants, vehicles, heating and ac for buildings, sequestration efforts will never successfully reduce CO₂ emissions enough to reverse pollution health damage.

A study analysis by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA makes the case for complete replacement of all fossil fuel use is the only solution to both emssions reduction and substantial social cost.

Data from a coal plant with carbon capture and use (CCU) and synthetic direct air carbon capture and use (SDACCU) equipment netted 10.8% of the CCU plant’s CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) emissions and 10.5% of CO₂ removed from the air by the SCACCU plant over a period of 20 years.

The low capture rates are due to uncaptured combustion emissions from natural gas used to power the emissions reduction equipment, uncaptured upstream emissions and in the case of CCU, uncaptured coal combustion emissions.  Contrary to the efforts of using such emissions reduction equipment, both CCU and SDACCU plants increased air pollution and total social costs relative to no capture.

Using wind as an alternative to using natural gas to power the carbon capture equipment reduces CO₂e but still allowed air pollution emissions to continue and increased the total social cost relative to no carbon capture.

In terms of total social cost liabilities, no improvement in CCU or SCACCU equipment can change the conclusion of low reduction rates while fossil fuel emissions exist.  Conversely, wind power never incurs a carbon capture cost nor increases air pollution and fuel mining expenditures. Sequestration has proven to be more costly than actual replacement of the use of fossil fuels.

Sources:

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/ee/c9ee02709b

Carbon Capture

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-carbon-dioxide-can-united-states-store-geologic-sequestration

Featured Header Photo by Brendan O’Donnell / Unsplash

The 10 Nanovation Competition finalists teams from middle and high schools presented their technical projects in the final competition at California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA.

The final presentations culminate the teams' product development and marketing strategies whom are assisted by mentors from the UCLA graduate student program.

A jury of UCLA professors and Los Angeles business professionals will select the top 3 winning teams.
The winners will be awarded science classroom supplies in the following amounts:

• First place: $2000 in classroom supplies.
• Second place: $1000 in classroom supplies.
• Third place: $500 in classroom supplies.

The Nanovation Competition was live streamed and can be viewed here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9UjVIyuI2Q

This present year may prove to be the most defining year for Californians in terms of preparing for the worst ecosystem disaster to ever be recorded.  Meteorologists, climate researchers and scientists have been studying atmospheric modeling and abundant natural vegetation such as chamise to forecast a scenario most likely to materialize for most of California.

Chamise dominates the native chaparral ecosystem throughout the coastal state of California, including dense shrublands that are too arid for trees. Chamise, usually dismissed by many people as a weed, is classified as a shrub, but is intently studied by environmental researchers and climate scientists as an indicator of how dry whole swaths of the landscape are becoming much drier.

The chamise plant is well adapted to ride out droughts without a single drop of water.  Amazingly in the driest of climates, chamise sprouts small white flowers which attract insect pollinators which in turn attract birds resulting in a complex ecosystem from this single particular plant.  An intense fire will obliterate the chamise shrub, leaving charred stems behind. But the chamise shrub can regenerate from its base burl structure which is shielded from fire. These days, fire scientists are as much interested in the chamise's regenerative abilities  as they are in the chamise's current levels of dehydration, since that is an indicator of how dry the rest of the ecosystem's vegetation is. The levels are alarming.

For this year of 2022, scientists were shocked to discover chamise did not generate any new growth from the previous year in 2021.  Chamise, the hardiest of shrubs, which can regenerate from a fire, has not reproduced in the California landscape since the fire season of 2020.  To the layman, you and I, we wouldn't have noticed, but to researchers, it spells doom.  If the 2019 Kinkade Fire that burned 80K acres in Northern California and the hundreds of fires sparked by electrical storms in 2020 didn't shock you, then this year of 2022 may have you on the run.

As much as people are tired of hearing about climate change, let's put this drought and cascading fire season into perspective.  Before humans arrived en masse, the chaparral only burned periodically. If a lightning storm ignited the vegetation without rain to drench the ignition and subsequent burning, chamise still regenerated.  The difference now is that humans inhabit more of the landscape than the ecosystem can support.  Hence the non-regenerating chamise shrub is a tell-tale sign something or someone is out of balance with nature.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-humble-shrub-thats-predicting-a-terrible-fire-season/?bxid=5ee17516cb988a675a9ab182&bxid=5ee17516cb988a675a9ab182&cndid=29865279&cndid=29865279&esrc=&esrc=&hasha=0c41baccc043d54154f93f2fa4d1c7c6&hasha=0c41baccc043d54154f93f2fa4d1c7c6&hashb=82e6647e5b2c18fc07f41f755ce1e5c60b725f2d&hashb=82e6647e5b2c18fc07f41f755ce1e5c60b725f2d&source=EDT_WIR_NEWSLETTER_0_ENGAGEMENT_ZZ&source=EDT_WIR_NEWSLETTER_0_ENGAGEMENT_ZZ&utm_brand=wired&utm_brand=wired&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_content=WIR_PaywallSubs_042822_Classics&utm_content=WIR_PaywallSubs_042822_Classics&utm_mailing=WIR_PaywallSubs_042822_Classics&utm_mailing=WIR_PaywallSubs_042822_Classics&utm_medium=email&utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl&utm_source=nl&utm_term=WIR_PaywallSubs_Active_EXCLUDE_DailyTopClickers&utm_term=WIR_PaywallSubs_Active_EXCLUDE_DailyTopClickers

Photo by Anthony Valois (https://www.smmflowers.org), courtesy of the National Park Service.

Erascience Denise Ashven meets with fellow founders Drs Rita Blaik, Sarah Tolbert and Elaine Morita at UCLA to kickoff the Nanovation Competition for 2022.  The foundation has been promoting, encouraging and helping to fund young scientists develop innovative ideas in science.  The foundation’s principles are to help middle and high school students achieve avenues to education otherwise unavailable to them. CNSI March 7 Kickoff was the first public event held in public since the start of the pandemic with Denise and the fellow founders present.

The 10 finalist teams met with their mentors to develop their presentations for the May 27th competition at CNSI UCLA. The teams learn fundamentals to bridge concepts to commercialization.  The fundamental premise is to introduce students to apply science assignments to real-world problems in projects that are feasible both from a technological standpoint and a business standpoint.

The Nanovation Competition is exciting to watch as young scientist present new solutions to real world issues.  All young students are encouraged to apply, it will elevate your life.

Read more:

https://cnsi.ucla.edu/education/nanovation-competition

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/high-schoolers-learn-science-business-ucla-nanovation

Watch Video:

https://www.facebook.com/1007826151/videos/pcb.10224667156758823/513616160398620

YUCK! blurts out from your mouth; same thing most children blurt out when trying fish or onions for the very first time. But you know the adage "Don't knock it until you try it!" and I have news for you: kids are known to eat bugs. I certainly did, I'm sure you have too. Now on to the meat of the matter. 

Global warming, attributed to pollution from human consumption of all resources, will adversely affect all future crops and livestock cultivated for human consumption. Regardless of the demands and production of all consumable goods in the interim, the feedlots for raising any and all livestock are destined to dwindle in incremental percentages.  The reductions of herds translates to the reduction of cattle slaughter. In trying to maintain herd sizes, the expected heifer carcass weight will decline.  Starting with year 2022, Sterling Marketing projects a 3% reduction or 1 million less slaughter cattle for the market. The prosperity of investors will be for the short term as prices rise over 20%, but eventually the impact from climate change data will be fraught with a competition that will damage all expenditures and commerce moving forward.

How does the average person mitigate the empty wallet syndrome and substitute alternatives for expensive proteins? Welcome a superior sustainable crop not only rich in all nutritional categories but can potentially stave off the epidemic of the coming world hunger and malnutrition, edible insects.

According to a National Library of Medicine study by Miami University and University of Massachusetts scientists, 'edible insects may have superior health benefits due to their high levels of vitamin B12, iron, zinc, fiber, essential amino acids, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, and antioxidants.'  Further resulting health benefits from the nutrition of edible insects are 'improved prevention and management of chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, and enhanced immune function.' Agnieszka Orkusz, a Biotechnology and Food Analysis scientist at the Wroclaw University of Economics and Business in Warsaw Poland compiled data that found 100g of edible insects is roughly equivalent to 100g of meat in nutritional value.

Analysis of the world's growing population by Dr. Amrou Awaysheh, Business Sustainability Lab at Indiana University, and Dr. Christine J. Picard, IUPUI
School Of Science, states "by 2050, the earth will have nearly 10 billion people. The demand for protein will exceed our ability to procure it."  While animals require large carbon footprints to sustain production for consumption, edible insects by comparison require less land, less feed, less water, less transportation fuel, less machinery and less human labor.  Lowering the carbon footprint from all the processes to cultivate insect crops can only lower the impact to global warming.  One can surmise an insect rancher will feel much less impact of losing an insect from wandering aimlessly off, than from a cow disappearing into the distance.

I remember no ominously unhealthy reactions to picking up bugs when tasting them as a child. My curiosity is piqued. Perhaps a fried cricket kabob or a cockroach ice cream cone will be on order. Yum!

Sources:

https://www.agweb.com/news/livestock/beef/cattle-outlook-optimistic-2022

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33397123/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33917531/#affiliation-1

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/how-insects-positively-impact-climate-change/

Photo by Modern Entomophagy Group on Facebook.com.

Watch a live virtual conversation about Jane Goodall’s career and latest project, “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times.”  Jane Goodall, the world’s most famous living naturalist, will be conversing with Dorany Pineda from the Los Angeles Times Book Club on February 25, 2022.

The free live event will cover 60 years of Jane Goodall’s research and activism, mapping early scientific discoveries with renown paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey to urgent current environmental concerns and activism.

Jane Goodall, founder of Jane Goodall Institute and Roots & Shoots, a youth-oriented environmental organization she founded in 1991 which is active in 66 countries,  will address empowerment to engage global issues that impact the survival of the eco-system.

The free live event with Jane Goodall can be watched below on this page or on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter accounts of the LA Times Book Club, February 25, 2022 at 6pm PST.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6CW7dSXKWo

https://www.facebook.com/groups/latbookclub/

https://twitter.com/latimesbooks

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-02-09/jane-goodall-book-of-hope-becoming-jane

Featured image composed by WJ (courtesy of zumwinkle.com)

Chief Scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington DC and current Environmental Research Advocates Board Member Michael MacCracken's primary focus study to reduce precursors to tropospheric ozone will have an ancillary assist with the launch of MethaneSAT.   

MethaneSAT is an Earth observation satellite that will monitor and study global methane emissions primarily in order to combat climate change. MethaneSAT is the first satellite of its kind which will measure methane pollution from oil and gas facilities worldwide with broad scope and exacting precision. It will orbit the Earth at 200-plus kilometers to have a large view path to quantify known sources, but also to discover and quantify previously unknown sources. It can also measure surface-level methane emissions from other major sources of human-caused methane emissions.

MethaneSAT is a mission jointly funded and operated by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an American non-governmental organization, and the New Zealand Space Agency.  While most large-scale satellite projects from researchers and space-program organizations require multi-purpose platforms and private-sector ventures sell data to corporate and government agencies, MethaneSAT data will be available to everyone.  It should be noted, this satellite project will be New Zealand's first entry into a space program.

With so much importance and information placed on CO2 emissions, the need to address methane in the atmosphere is much more critical. Methane is 85 times more powerful than carbon dioxide when it comes to planet-warming properties.  Methane, being one of five man-made global greenhouse gasses, is an exceedingly effective greenhouse gas at trapping infrared radiation.  The atmospheric residence time of methane is approximately 10 years. However, over a span of 100 years from continuous emissions, methane will be 28 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat and cause global warming on a grander scale — it is considered the green house gas on steroids.

Reducing precursors to tropospheric ozone is now at a critical moment in history since global warming is identified as a direct reaction to active ozone formations in the atmosphere.  The majority of tropospheric ozone formation occurs when nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH4) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), react in the atmosphere in the presence of sunlight, specifically the UV spectrum.

MethaneSAT will provide data much quicker than prior technologies, to assist scientists, researchers and, hopefully, industrialists to reduce methane emissions to help slow the consequences of global warming.

Sources:

https://www.methanesat.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MethaneSAT

https://www.edf.org/climate/how-methanesat-is-different

https://climateaccountability.org/pdf/MacCracken%20Bio%20Jul13.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_level_ozone

Image courtesy of Environmental Defense Fund, edf.org.

Now that a huge crack has formed in Antarctica's massive Thwaites Glacier, life on earth may experience a little short on breath.

Glaciers are suspected to be reducing oxygen levels for approximately 1.5 million years.  "We know atmospheric oxygen levels began declining slightly in the late Pleistocene, and it looks like glaciers might have something to do with that," said Rice University's Yuzhen Yan, corresponding author of the geochemistry study published in Science Advances. "Glaciation became more expansive and more intense about the same time, and the simple fact that there is glacial grinding increases weathering."

Weathering referes to physio-chemical processes that break down rocks and minerals.  The observance of oxidation of metals is of the most important studies in relation to environmental changes.  The rusting of iron is an example; red iron oxide froms quickly on exposed surfaces to amtospheric oxygen, O₂.

According to Dr. Yan,  constant grinding movement of glaciers expose fresh crystalline surfaces from sedimnetary reservoirs to atmospheric oxygen, resulting in weathering that consumes oxygen.  Glaciers can also promote oxygen consumption by exposing organic carbon that had been buried for millions of years.

In 2016, Dr. Yan, Michael Bender and John Higgins, Princeton University, analyzed bubbles in ice cores revealing O2 increases after the length of Earth's glacial cycles more than doubled around 1 million years ago. 

Earth's current ice age began approximately 2.7 million years ago with dozens of glacial cycles following since it's beginning. Ice caps would engulf the earth and retreat to the poles.  Each cycle lasted around 40K years until about 1 million years ago.  Roughly at the same time frame that atmospheric oxygen began to decline, glacial cycles began lasting as long as 100,000 years.  The glacier formations causes an absorption of O2, creating a "sink", consuming atmospheric oxygen on a global scale. 

In recent studies of older ice cores, Dr. Yan, Higgins and colleagues from Oregon State University, the University of Maine and the University of California, San Diego, have discovered heavy declines of atmospheric oxygen levels in glacial cycles since 800,000 years ago. Dr. Yan and his associates made some calculations for an indication of how much oxygen was consumed and found only accounted for about a quarter of the observed decrease.  Determination of  the extent of Earth's ice coverage isn't precisely known, leaving a wide range of uncertainty about the magnitude of chemical weathering from glacial erosion.  Antarctica's massive Thwaites Glacier cracking and falling into the sea may reveal more details to oxygen level changes in our atmosphere.

Sources:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211220190643.htm
https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/48641/20211221/air-bubbles-preserved-in-antarctic-ice-highlights-the-possible-cause-of-low-oxygen-level.htm
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/glaciers-oxygen-ice-age-melting-b1980188.html
https://www.ecowatch.com/doomsday-glacier-antarctica-crack-2647666896.html
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/exclusive-first-pictures-of-iceberg-three-times-the-size-of-manhattan

Thwaites Glacier image courtesy of Jeremy Harbeck/OIB/NASA

Many credible environmentalists and scientists agree society needs to be less reliant on petroleum and the grid.  As a world consortium, we all realize the dependence the human population has on non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels that power 80% to 90% of all humankind's energy needs. Aside from inevitable depletion of natural non-renewable resources and the destruction to the planet's eco-system, current energy systems cannot sustain a growing population indefinitely. The solution is the human population itself; why not use the human body as that alternative renewable energy source we all will eventually need?

Enter TEG.  Thermoelectric generators (TEG) is a technology that converts heat into electrical current. Jianliang Xiao, an associate professor at the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering at CU Boulder, has developed a wearable mini TEG that can stretch from a ring to a bracelet converting low-grade heat emitted from the human body into renewable electricity.

Xiao's wearable mini-thermoelectric generator (TEG) can generate about 1 volt of energy for every square centimeter of skin space, powering small devices such as watches, Fitbits, LED lights and other low-capacity devices.  Modular stacking of TEG(s) can provide more voltages as needed.

The TEG is composed of modular thermoelectric chips, liquid metal as electrical wiring, and dynamic covalent thermoset polyimine as both the substrate and encapsulation for liquid-metal wiring. The stretchy polyimine has self-healing properties in case of tear damage. All parts of the TEG are recyclable, given that its development was engineered for environmental concerns as well. TEG technology may even cause the battery to become obsolete!

So much energy is wasted from the human body, in truth we are the most inefficient mammal on planet earth.  However harnessing our own body heat to generate power for devices we normally carry, such as mobile phones, watches, health monitoring devices, radios, pace-makers, and hearing aids, can help reduce human dependence on finite power sources.

Sources:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe0586

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/02/10/thermoelectric

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35533572/body-heat-battery/

Thermoelectric illustration courtesy of Popular Mechanics, illustrated by Alyse Markel using photo courtesy Xiao Lab.

"Let there be Lightbulb" image by Will J (courtesy of Zumwinkle.com).

Jane Goodall Lecture Highlights at New Roads School, Santa Monica, CA

From New Roads School: Yesterday’s conversation with legendary primatologist, conservationist, activist, humanitarian peacemaker, and founder of Roots & Shoots Dr. Jane Goodall was the first of a series of projects that New Roads will lead to foster peace in our world and support our community as messengers of peace. We salute and thank Class of 2011 alumni parent and Co-Founder and CEO of Environmental Research Advocates (ERA Science) Denise Avchen for her invaluable work in connecting New Roads with Dr. Goodall to launch these peace initiatives. We’ll be announcing more transformational peace projects in the coming days and weeks – stay tuned!

The discussion was incredible and made a huge impact on our students and teachers!

Inspired by our recent event with Dr. Jane Goodall, New Roads is proud to announce the creation of New Roads School Roots & Shoots, the Messengers of Peace initiative. All members of our community – students, teachers, staff and parents – are Messengers of Peace who can act upon and carry forward to other domains actions to foster peace led by elementary, middle and high school student Ambassadors of Peace.

Thank you for bringing Dr. Goodall to New Roads and for inspiring the transformational peace initiatives!

Denise Avchen and the ERAscience team is thrilled that Jane’s New Roads visit was so meaningful and also thrilled to have collaborated in the initial development of New Roads’ exciting peace initiatives in 2021.