First Step Cockroach Cyborg, Next Step Iron Man

Ethanol, hydrogen, solar, wind, and.... cockroach?

That's right.  The coolest, creepiest source of green energy around is a biofuel cell made from a living insect.  A female false death's head cockroach, to be precise.

From: J. Am. Chem.Soc. 2012, 134, 1458−1460

The female roach has a large abdomen that's filled with blood, and her blood is filled with a naturally-occurring sugar called trehalose. This sugar powers the anode of the cell. Oxygen from the air powers the cathode. Because these fuels are renewable, power could be supplied indefinitely.

Scientists prepared the electrodes by coating them with enzymes to catalyze the electrical reaction. Then, the roach was sedated with carbon dioxide. Her legs were pinned with staples to prevent her from moving. Scientists inserted electrodes into the "blood sinus" in her belly without damaging any of her internal organs. The procedure was so gentle that when the experiment was over, the roach got up and walked away.

This living fuel cell generated about 0.2 volts. It would take 100 million cockroaches to power one 100-Watt lightbulb, but a lot of microdevices run on a lot less juice.  And roaches aren't the only species that are naturally electrifying - the experiment worked on shiitake mushrooms, too.

Military and intelligence applications are already being discussed (of course), but why stop there?

Image courtesy of Marvel

What if people could power their own pacemakers?  Or transmit real-time medical data to their doctors, without being chained to clunky monitoring equipment?  Or implant a tiny mp3 player, so they no longer lose it in the depths of their purse? Not that that's ever happened to me...

What toys would you run, if you were your own battery? Bonus points if you'd help save the world from the Chitauri!

What happens to creatures that live in the ocean if seawater becomes more acidic? This fun activity, excerpted from The Big Green Book of the Big Blue Sea (Kids Can Press), is an easy to do, seeing-is-believing demonstration.

Humpty Dumpty Coral

Excess carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, is gradually making the oceans more acidic. How might more acidic waters affect coral reefs? See for yourself.

You Will Need

an egg

500 ml (2 c.) white vinegar

a large glass container (to hold the vinegar)

plastic wrap

1.     Break the egg neatly in half. Reserve the egg white and yolk for another purpose (like breakfast!).

2.     Measure the vinegar into your container. Place the two halves of the eggshell in the vinegar. Cover the container with plastic wrap.

3.     Watch what happens when you place the shells in the vinegar. Do you see bubbles forming around the shells?

4.     Leave the container in an area where it won’t be disturbed. Then check on your eggshells three days later. Where did they go?

What’s Going On?

Eggshells are made out of calcium carbonate, the same mineral that coral polyps use to make their shells. Vinegar — an acid — reacts with the calcium carbonate, removing the carbon from the shell. The carbon combines with oxygen to make the gas carbon dioxide. Those are the bubbles you saw rising from the egg.

With no carbon left in the shell, the shell literally dissolves and disappears. What you see floating in the vinegar is just the soft membrane that lines the eggshell. It is similar to the soft bodies of the corals. Like the egg membranes, the coral bodies would float off without their calyces. They’d be totally vulnerable to predators.

What’s Happening Now?

Despite their tiny size, corals build structures that are so gigantic they can even be seen from space! To do so, they need just the right conditions. They need water that is the right temperature, clarity and acidity. They need to remain undisturbed. And they need the right kind of base to lay the foundation for the reef.

Today, reefs are at risk all over the world. Global warming, ocean acidification, pollution and habitat destruction are all taking their toll. So people are lending corals a helping hand. The Reef Ball Foundation, for example, is a non-profit organization dedicated to building artificial reefs.

The foundation makes ball-shaped, concrete structures. They lower them in waters where an existing reef has been damaged. Teams of scientists hand “plant” about 500 corals per day onto each structure. The scientists then monitor the growth and health of the corals until the reefs re-establish themselves. The process can take 3–5 years. Since their founding in 1993, the Reef Ball Foundation has helped rebuild coral reefs in more than 70 countries.

 

The Big Green Book of the Big Blue Sea has been longlisted for the Information Book Award from the Vancouver Children's Roundtable.

Massive open-house of thousands of laboratories across Canada coming May 11!

By Pippa Wysong

What has a million legs, a few thousand open doors and things that make you go ‘ooh!’ and ‘aww!’? If you said Science Rendezvous, you’re right! This is a nation-wide event that will take place Saturday May 11, and it’s for the whole family.

What is Science Rendezvous? Think of it as a massive open-house where thousands of laboratories across the country open their doors to the public. The whole family can visit labs at universities and other institutions and see where real research is done. You can meet scientists who will answer your questions, give tours of their labs, and do demos – many of which you can try out yourself.

Explosive fun from Science Rendezvous 2012.
For more blasts (and other stuff) from the past,
check out Science Rendezvous's video gallery.
Photo courtesy of Science Rendezvous.

I ventured into the Science Rendezvous festival the last two years, and found it an amazing experience. I got to talk to geologists, astronomers of various types, and even spoke to a researcher working with flat-worms who was trying to figure out what it is that makes these creatures grow new body parts and be basically immortal. (Read a previous blog I wrote about it.)

This year, I’ve gotten involved. In fact, I’ll be at this year’s event all day, hosting a vaccine education tent that will be on the University of Toronto campus on St. George Street. Look for the tent where people are handing out surgical masks and letting you visit our actors portraying people sick with diseases such as Spanish flu, polio and smallpox.

There will be things that appeal to all ages. Across Canada, there will be experiments and activities for the kids, lectures for the adults, and displays for people of all ages. And not everything is indoors. There will be tents erected on university grounds where various demos and exhibits will reside and contribute to a festival atmosphere.

There will be even be science activities at a shopping Mall! Cape Breton University is hosting the Mall of Science at the Mayflower Shopping Mall where there will be a variety of hands-on activities.

Toronto has 17 venues participating, including 4 universities, 2 hospitals, research centres, libraries, and the Ontario Science Centre.

This is the only science festival of its kind in Canada, and the biggest. What makes it different from other science outreach events is that it’s the only one where the public gets direct access to real-live researchers and their labs, and find out exactly what novel areas they are working on. Other science outreach groups mostly focus on doing hands-on experiments that demonstrate basic scientific principles.

To find out more, tune in to the Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet show. Each day for the week leading up to May 11, scientists participating in Science Rendezvous will be on the show describing and showing off a tiny sampling of the things you’ll experience.

Mark May 11, 2013, on your calendar now! Here are some highlights of things to come:

• Science on Stage at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square, Ontario. With Daily Planet’s Dan Riskin. Ryerson University hosts the Science on Stage event at Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto. See the ever-popular Sumo Robot Competition, a machine-vs-machine battle to the death, the Dance of Science featuring Ryerson’s renowned performing arts programs, and a spectacular fire show! Dan Riskin will host and do some amazing science himself!

• The Role of Gender in Science Communication, Vancouver. As a prelude to the main event happening on campus, University of British Columbia (UBC) will present a public lecture on the role of gender in science communication on May 10th, 2013 from 5:30-7:00pm. Open forum and panel discussions will be led by Dr. Jennifer Gardy from UBC. On May 11, UBC labs will open their doors.

• Science Jeopardy, Oshawa, Ontario. The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) presents flaming gummy bears, liquid nitrogen fun and Science Jeopardy. Examine forensic evidence to solve a crime scene, levitate a magnet, discover the sensational sliminess of creating polymers, create a Maggot Masterpiece, and isolate your own DNA.

And much, much more!
For more details: http://www.sciencerendezvous.ca/2013/

Help Save the Monarch Butterfly!

by Jan Thornhill

What’s not to like about monarchs? Their caterpillars are gorgeously striped. Their chrysalises are an otherworldly green bejeweled with glimmering gold. The adults weigh only half as much as a paperclip, yet can migrate thousands of kilometres—and if you’re lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time you can see congregations of thousands. Monarchs can also make blue jays throw up—a delightful tidbit I learned while researching my new book about migration, Is This Panama? (beautifully illustrated by Soyeon Kim!). Sadly, just as the book went to press, bad news arrived: the over-wintering monarch population in Mexico was the lowest ever recorded.

Roosting monarchs (Agunther)

Hundreds of millions of monarchs migrate each fall to warmer areas. Adults that originate in southern Canada can fly more than 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) to reach their hibernation grounds in Mexico. It’s a treacherous journey for a delicate butterfly and many die on the way, but every year millions arrive in a mountain forest near Mexico City. Because it would be too difficult to actually count such large numbers, scientists have been measuring the area of forest each year that the butterflies occupy. In 2011 monarchs covered the trees in 2.89 hectares of forest. This past winter they occupied only 1.19 hectares (5 sq. miles)—a drop of 59%!

Though adult monarchs sip nectar from a variety of flowers, their caterpillars are specialist herbivores, which means they depend on a single type of plant for food. In the monarch’s case, these plants all belong to the milkweed family.

Between hatching and forming a chrysalis, monarch caterpillars increase 3,000 times in size. These two caterpillars are in their second and third stages of growth, called instars. (Jan Thornhill)

Milkweeds have evolved elaborate defenses to prevent themselves from being eaten, including uncomfortably hairy leaves, sticky white latex that bleeds from injured tissues, and toxins called cardenolides. Because of the cardenolides, most insects, as well as vertebrates, avoid eating milkweed, but the monarch has evolved to not only tolerate the toxins, it also uses those very poisons to its own advantage by storing them in its own body, which makes even an adult butterfly just as toxic as the plant. The first time a bird, such as a blue jay, eats a monarch, it will vomit a short time later. Though this is of no benefit to the monarch that was eaten, the bird will remember its bad experience and will avoid eating black-and-orange butterflies from then on.

Meanwhile, milkweed plants are continuing to evolve in response to being eaten by caterpillars. Recent genetic research is showing that there is an evolutionary trend in milkweeds towards healing themselves faster than they can be eaten, instead of producing more toxins that might eventually deter caterpillars. 

Monarch caterpillar on milkweed flowers (Jan Thornhill)

Though milkweeds can get along perfectly well without monarchs, monarchs cannot survive without milkweeds. Unfortunately, milkweeds of all varieties are disappearing. Their grassland habitats have been steadily eroding for more than a century due to human development, and recent severe droughts in Texas and the American Southwest have also taken their toll. But another much greater threat has arrived: farmers across North America are now growing corn and soybeans that are genetically engineered to be herbicide resistant. When these “Roundup Ready” crops, developed by a company called Monsanto, are sprayed with glyphosate-based herbicide, almost any plant—other than the corn and soybeans—is killed. The plants that once grew alongside these crops include milkweed, which, until now, had always been plentiful, as well as a multitude of wildflowers that provide nectar for adult butterflies while they’re migrating. One study has shown that between 1999 and 2009 there has been a 90% loss of common milkweeds in the fields treated with these herbicides.* Soon there may be no milkweed in these croplands at all. And no monarchs.

So What Can We Do To Help?

Grow milkweed in your backyard or in your schoolyard:

http://monarchwatch.org/bring-back-the-monarchs/resources/plant-seed-suppliers

http://www.livemonarch.com/free-milkweed-seeds.htm

Grow a “butterfly garden” with plants that provide food for caterpillars and/or nectar for butterflies:

http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/jardin/en/info_verte/papillons/papillons.htm

 Learn more about monarchs and share what you learn: http://www.monarchwatch.org

Help monarch researchers: http://www.monarchwatch.org/class/studproj/index.htm

 

Lobby your political representatives to have products made with genetically modified (GM) crops labeled.

*Pleasants, J.M and Oberhauser, K.S.. 2012. Milkweed loss in agricultural fields due to herbicide use: Effect on the Monarch Butterfly population. Insect Conservation and Diversity (March 12, doi: 10.1111/j.1752-4598.2012.00196x)

 

Diving into an Alien World

By Claire Eamer

In a couple of months, I'll be touring schools and libraries in Ontario, talking about some of the marvellous and strange animals in my book, Lizards in the Sky: Animals Where You Least Expect Them. So I've been thinking about critters and presentations and cool pictures and things like that... and, well, one thing led to another, and I found a whole raft of new, cool, and utterly weird critters in one of my favourite habitats, the deep ocean.

The ROV Hercules operates deep in the Atlantic Ocean.
Photo credit: Mountains in the Sea Research Team;
the IFE Crew; and NOAA/OAR/OER

We're talking deep, here--really deep. So deep and so strange that exploring the deep ocean is like exploring an alien planet. In fact, you need the equivalent of a space ship to go to the deep ocean, something that can see in the absolute dark and survive pressures that would crush the toughest submarine.

But, oh, the wonders when you get there!

How about this? Five full kilometres below the sunny surface of the Caribbean Sea is the Cayman Trough. It's utterly dark and very cold down there, but not everywhere. Just last month, scientists released video taken by a remotely operated undersea vehicle. It shows mineral chimneys at tall as four-storey buildings, belching smoky black water as hot as 400 degrees Celsius, four times the boiling point of water.

Even more astounding were the creatures lurking around those vents: fireworms that look like woolly caterpillars and delicate, almost-colourless shrimp with special organs for detecting hot water.

Super-heated water and rocks billow up from an undersea
volcano in the Pacific Ocean near New Zealand.
Photo credit: Submarine ROF 2006, NOAA Vents Program.

Over in the Pacific Ocean, there's an even deeper spot--Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, on the west side of the Pacific. At about 12.5 kilometres, it's the deepest spot in all Earth's oceans. And even there, where the pressure is 1000 times the pressure we experience at Earth's surface--even there, you'll find life. A lot of it! Tiny life, to be sure--bacteria. But they swarm there far more densely than in the shallower water at the edge of the Trench.

You don't even have to go super-deep to find the super-weird. Over the last couple of years, scientists have been finding some spectacularly strange creatures in the ocean surrounding Antarctica. National Geographic compiled a list of the five weirdest Antarctic species, including a transparent fish and sea spiders that breathe through holes in their bodies.

This feather-pen-like coral lives almost 2.5 kilometres 

below the ocean surface at Davidson Seamount, California.

Photo credit: NOAA/Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Not to be outdone, the biologist who writes one of my favourite science blogs, The Echinoblog, compiled a list of the ten weirdest Antarctic invertebrates. His list includes a 30-centimetre worm with serious teeth!

Me, I'm waiting eagerly for the next list--maybe longer and even weirder.

In the meantime, I guess I had better get back to what started all this, preparing some presentations about my own favourite weird beasties. Seeya!

Blobs of Gum

We all do it every day. 
But who did it first? And when?

People worldwide have chewed gum for hundreds of years. Resin from certain types of trees, various sweet grasses, leaves, grains and waxes have evolved over many years into the flavored gums we know today.

The ancient Greeks chewed mastic gum for centuries. Formed from the resin found in the bark of the mastic tree in Greece and Turkey, Grecian women chewed it to clean their teeth and sweeten their breath.

The Indians of New England taught American colonists to quench their thirst by chewing the gum-like resin bleeding from spruce trees. In the early 1800s spruce gum blobs were sold in the eastern United States, making it America's first commercial chewing gum. Sweetened paraffin wax became an acceptable alternative around 1850 and eventually surpassed spruce gum in popularity.

Modern gum products evolved from a chicle-based gum brought to the United States in the early 1860s. Chicle is derived from the milky juice (latex) of the sapodilla tree that grows in tropical rain forests of Central America. This tree is found mainly in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.

Everyone liked chewing the gum so demand for chicle rose quickly. But, as suppliers soon realized, their supply was limited by the trees from which it was derived. The trees needed an average of four to eight years of rest between tappings. That’s when manufacturers turned to synthetic gum bases to continue their business. Paraffin, originally discovered in 1830, was an option as it is colorless, odorless, tasteless and plentiful, but others kept searching for a better material.

Today, gum base is made of man-made latex and divided into two major categories, chewing and bubble gum, with the latter having more elasticity. In recent years, nonstick gum bases for chewing and bubble gums have been formulated to satisfy the chewing needs of more consumers.

An important fact to remember, as you are chomping away, is that chewing gum is not biodegradable! As we just saw, the gum base we chew can be separated into different, but relatively similar categories. Essentially, it is either made up of plastic, rubber, or wax. Subsequently, chewing gum will not simply dissolve or disappear after a few weeks, or even years! Because of this, it is important not to throw your gum on the ground outside. Wait until you see a trash can, or swallow it so it can pass through you, undigested, and be disposed of that way.

Given that, among many others around the world, Americans alone chew, on average, 160 -180 pieces or about 1.8 lbs of gum per person, per year, the resulting waste is estimated to add up to more than 250,000 tons annually! Just think of all those blobs of gum we all see on sidewalks everywhere, every day.

Perhaps we should all consider what Singapore has done. Chewing gum is banned in Singapore under the "Regulation of Imports and Exports (Chewing Gum) Regulations." Except for chewing gum of therapeutic value, the "importing" of chewing gum into Singapore is banned. Gum can be bought from a doctor, but must be prescribed. The ban on chewing gum in Singapore can be considered an extension of the littering law. Therefore, the act of chewing gum in Singapore is associated with similar penalties to those imposed for littering. The littering law requires a fine of $500 to $1,000 US Dollars (USD) for first time offenders. Repeat offenders may be fined up to $2,000 USD and assigned a Corrective Work Order (CWO).  Beats getting buried under tons of gum!  

Over, Under, and On the Arctic Sea Ice

By Claire Eamer

The shrinking sea ice of the Arctic Ocean has been in the news a lot lately, along with photos of polar bears stranded on ice pans or wandering hungrily along bare shores. But what does the disappearing ice affect, apart from polar bears and some shipping companies that see a shorter sea route opening up?

Claire Eamer photo

Arctic sea ice supports a huge and complex ecosystem that ranges from polar bears, birds, and humans down to organisms too small to see without a microscope. Here are a few sites about that world - and a lot of gorgeous photographs!

The Census of Marine Life's Arctic Ocean Diversity website has great information and amazing images. Click on Species to see some of the creatures that make use of the Arctic Ocean and its ice, from top to the ocean bottom.

The US National Earth Science Teachers Association’s page on Arctic Marine Life gives a quick overview of Arctic Ocean biology, from algae to polar bears.

A young Russian scientist and photographer, Alexander Semenov, has been photographing Arctic sea life and sharing his photos with the world. There’s an article about him (with lots of lovely photos) and here's his own website and gallery.

How about the people who live with the ice all their lives? What can they tell us about it? The Inuit of northeastern Canada have been collecting traditional information about sea ice and sharing it at Inuit siku (sea ice) Atlas.

What does it really look like up there, around the Arctic Ocean, both above and below the ice? The photo galleries of Canada’s ArcticNet research program can give you a good idea.

And if you’re a student or a teacher and you want to see the Arctic for yourself, it just might be possible. Check out ArcticNet’s Schools on Board program.