Category Archives: agriculture

FrogHeart’s 2024 comes to an end as 2025 comes into view

Leave a reply

First, thank you to anyone who’s dropped by to read any of my posts. Second, I didn’t quite catch up on my backlog in what was then the new year (2024) despite my promises. (sigh) I will try to publish my drafts in a more timely fashion but I start this coming year as I did 2024 with a backlog of two to three months. This may be my new normal.

As for now, here’s an overview of FrogHeart’s 2024. The posts that follow are loosely organized under a heading but many of them could fit under other headings as well. After my informal review, there’s some material on foretelling the future as depicted in an exhibition, “Oracles, Omens and Answers,” at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.

Human enhancement: prosthetics, robotics, and more

Within a year or two of starting this blog I created a tag ‘machine/flesh’ to organize information about a number of converging technologies such as robotics, brain implants, and prosthetics that could alter our concepts of what it means to be human. The larger category of human enhancement functions in much the same way also allowing a greater range of topics to be covered.

Here are some of the 2024 human enhancement and/or machine/flesh stories on this blog,

Other species are also being rendered ‘machine/flesh’,

The year of the hydrogel?

It was the year of the hydrogel for me (btw, hydrogels are squishy materials; I have more of a description after this list),

As for anyone who’s curious about hydrogels, there’s this from an October 20, 2016 article by D.C.Demetre for ScienceBeta, Note: A link has been removed,

Hydrogels, materials that can absorb and retain large quantities of water, could revolutionise medicine. Our bodies contain up to 60% water, but hydrogels can hold up to 90%.

It is this similarity to human tissue that has led researchers to examine if these materials could be used to improve the treatment of a range of medical conditions including heart disease and cancer.

These days hydrogels can be found in many everyday products, from disposable nappies and soft contact lenses to plant-water crystals. But the history of hydrogels for medical applications started in the 1960s.

Scientists developed artificial materials with the ambitious goal of using them in permanent contact applications , ones that are implanted in the body permanently.

For anyone who wants a more technical explanation, there’s the Hydrogel entry on Wikipedia.

Science education and citizen science

Where science education is concerned I’m seeing some innovative approaches to teaching science, which can include citizen science. As for citizen science (also known as, participatory science) I’ve been noticing heightened interest at all age levels.

Artificial intelligence

It’s been another year where artificial intelligence (AI) has absorbed a lot of energy from nearly everyone. I’m highlighting the more unusual AI stories I’ve stumbled across,

As you can see, I’ve tucked in two tangentially related stories, one which references a neuromorphic computing story ((see my Neuromorphic engineering category or search for ‘memristors’ in the blog search engine for more on brain-like computing topics) and the other is intellectual property. There are many, many more stories on these topics

Art/science (or art/sci or sciart)

It’s a bit of a surprise to see how many art/sci stories were published here this year, although some might be better described as art/tech stories.

There may be more 2024 art/sci stories but the list was getting long. In addition to searching for art/sci on the blog search engine, you may want to try data sonification too.

Moving off planet to outer space

This is not a big interest of mine but there were a few stories,

A writer/blogger’s self-indulgences

Apparently books can be dangerous and not in a ‘ban [fill in the blank] from the library’ kind of way,

Then, there are these,

New uses for electricity,

Given the name for this blog, it has to be included,

  • Frog saunas published September 15, 2024, this includes what seems to be a mild scientific kerfuffle

I’ve been following Lomiko Metals (graphite mining) for a while,

Who would have guessed?

Another bacteria story,

New crimes,

Origins of life,

Dirt

While no one year features a large number of ‘dirt’ stories, it has been a recurring theme here throughout the years,

Regenerative medicine

In addition to or instead of using the ‘regenerative medicine’ tag, I might use ’tissue engineering’ or ’tissue scaffolding’,

To sum it up

It was an eclectic year.

Peering forward into 2025 and futurecasting

I expect to be delighted, horrified, thrilled, and left shaking my head by science stories in 2025. Year after year the world of science reveals a world of wonder.

More mundanely, I can state with some confidence that my commentary (mentioned in the future-oriented subsection of my 2023 review and 2024 look forward) on Quantum Potential, a 2023 report from the Council of Canadian Academies, will be published early in this new year as I’ve almost finished writing it.

As for more about the future, I’ve got this, from a December 3, 2024 essay (Five ways to predict the future from around the world – from spider divination to bibliomancy) about an exhibition by Michelle Aroney (Research Fellow in Early Modern History, University of Oxford) and David Zeitlyn (Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford) in The Conversation (h/t December 3, 2024 news item on phys.org), Note: Links have been removed

Some questions are hard to answer and always have been. Does my beloved love me back? Should my country go to war? Who stole my goats?

Questions like these have been asked of diviners around the world throughout history – and still are today. From astrology and tarot to reading entrails, divination comes in a wide variety of forms.

Yet they all address the same human needs. They promise to tame uncertainty, help us make decisions or simply satisfy our desire to understand.

Anthropologists and historians like us study divination because it sheds light on the fears and anxieties of particular cultures, many of which are universal. Our new exhibition at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Oracles, Omens & Answers, explores these issues by showcasing divination techniques from around the world.

…

1. Spider divination

In Cameroon, Mambila spider divination (ŋgam dù) addresses difficult questions to spiders or land crabs that live in holes in the ground.

Asking the spiders a question involves covering their hole with a broken pot and placing a stick, a stone and cards made from leaves around it. The diviner then asks a question in a yes or no format while tapping the enclosure to encourage the spider or crab to emerge. The stick and stone represent yes or no, while the leaf cards, which are specially incised with certain meanings, offer further clarification.

…

2. Palmistry

Reading people’s palms (palmistry) is well known as a fairground amusement, but serious forms of this divination technique exist in many cultures. The practice of reading the hands to gather insights into a person’s character and future was used in many ancient cultures across Asia and Europe.

In some traditions, the shape and depth of the lines on the palm are richest in meaning. In others, the size of the hands and fingers are also considered. In some Indian traditions, special marks and symbols appearing on the palm also provide insights.

Palmistry experienced a huge resurgence in 19th-century England and America, just as the science of fingerprints was being developed. If you could identify someone from their fingerprints, it seemed plausible to read their personality from their hands.

…

3. Bibliomancy

If you want a quick answer to a difficult question, you could try bibliomancy. Historically, this DIY [do-it-yourself] divining technique was performed with whatever important books were on hand.

Throughout Europe, the works of Homer or Virgil were used. In Iran, it was often the Divan of Hafiz, a collection of Persian poetry. In Christian, Muslim and Jewish traditions, holy texts have often been used, though not without controversy.

…

4. Astrology

Astrology exists in almost every culture around the world. As far back as ancient Babylon, astrologers have interpreted the heavens to discover hidden truths and predict the future.

…

5. Calendrical divination

Calendars have long been used to divine the future and establish the best times to perform certain activities. In many countries, almanacs still advise auspicious and inauspicious days for tasks ranging from getting a haircut to starting a new business deal.

In Indonesia, Hindu almanacs called pawukon [calendar] explain how different weeks are ruled by different local deities. The characteristics of the deities mean that some weeks are better than others for activities like marriage ceremonies.

…

You’ll find logistics for the exhibition in this September 23, 2024 Bodleian Libraries University of Oxford press release about the exhibit, Note: Links have been removed,

Oracles, Omens and Answers

6 December 2024 – 27 April 2025
ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library

The Bodleian Libraries’ new exhibition, Oracles, Omens and Answers, will explore the many ways in which people have sought answers in the face of the unknown across time and cultures. From astrology and palm reading to weather and public health forecasting, the exhibition demonstrates the ubiquity of divination practices, and humanity’s universal desire to tame uncertainty, diagnose present problems, and predict future outcomes.

Through plagues, wars and political turmoil, divination, or the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown, has remained an integral part of society. Historically, royals and politicians would consult with diviners to guide decision-making and incite action. People have continued to seek comfort and guidance through divination in uncertain times — the COVID-19 pandemic saw a rise in apps enabling users to generate astrological charts or read the Yijing [I Ching], alongside a growth in horoscope and tarot communities on social media such as ‘WitchTok’. Many aspects of our lives are now dictated by algorithmic predictions, from e-health platforms to digital advertising. Scientific forecasters as well as doctors, detectives, and therapists have taken over many of the societal roles once held by diviners. Yet the predictions of today’s experts are not immune to criticism, nor can they answer all our questions.

Curated by Dr Michelle Aroney, whose research focuses on early modern science and religion, and Professor David Zeitlyn, an expert in the anthropology of divination, the exhibition will take a historical-anthropological approach to methods of prophecy, prediction and forecasting, covering a broad range of divination methods, including astrology, tarot, necromancy, and spider divination.

Dating back as far as ancient Mesopotamia, the exhibition will show us that the same kinds of questions have been asked of specialist practitioners from around the world throughout history. What is the best treatment for this illness? Does my loved one love me back? When will this pandemic end? Through materials from the archives of the Bodleian Libraries alongside other collections in Oxford, the exhibition demonstrates just how universally human it is to seek answers to difficult questions.

Highlights of the exhibition include: oracle bones from Shang Dynasty China (ca. 1250-1050 BCE); an Egyptian celestial globe dating to around 1318; a 16th-century armillary sphere from Flanders, once used by astrologers to place the planets in the sky in relation to the Zodiac; a nineteenth-century illuminated Javanese almanac; and the autobiography of astrologer Joan Quigley, who worked with Nancy and Ronald Reagan in the White House for seven years. The casebooks of astrologer-physicians in 16th- and 17th-century England also offer rare insights into the questions asked by clients across the social spectrum, about their health, personal lives, and business ventures, and in some cases the actions taken by them in response.

The exhibition also explores divination which involves the interpretation of patterns or clues in natural things, with the idea that natural bodies contain hidden clues that can be decrypted. Some diviners inspect the entrails of sacrificed animals (known as ‘extispicy’), as evidenced by an ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablet describing the observation of patterns in the guts of birds. Others use human bodies, with palm readers interpreting characters and fortunes etched in their clients’ hands. A sketch of Oscar Wilde’s palms – which his palm reader believed indicated “a great love of detail…extraordinary brain power and profound scholarship” – shows the revival of palmistry’s popularity in 19th century Britain.

The exhibition will also feature a case study of spider divination practised by the Mambila people of Cameroon and Nigeria, which is the research specialism of curator Professor David Zeitlyn, himself a Ŋgam dù diviner. This process uses burrowing spiders or land crabs to arrange marked leaf cards into a pattern, which is read by the diviner. The display will demonstrate the methods involved in this process and the way in which its results are interpreted by the card readers. African basket divination has also been observed through anthropological research, where diviners receive answers to their questions in the form of the configurations of thirty plus items after they have been tossed in the basket.

Dr Michelle Aroney and Professor David Zeitlyn, co-curators of the exhibition, say:

Every day we confront the limits of our own knowledge when it comes to the enigmas of the past and present and the uncertainties of the future. Across history and around the world, humans have used various techniques that promise to unveil the concealed, disclosing insights that offer answers to private or shared dilemmas and help to make decisions. Whether a diviner uses spiders or tarot cards, what matters is whether the answers they offer are meaningful and helpful to their clients. What is fun or entertainment for one person is deadly serious for another.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s [a nickname? Bodleian Libraries were founded by Sir Thomas Bodley] Librarian, said:

People have tried to find ways of predicting the future for as long as we have had recorded history. This exhibition examines and illustrates how across time and culture, people manage the uncertainty of everyday life in their own way. We hope that through the extraordinary exhibits, and the scholarship that brings them together, visitors to the show will appreciate the long history of people seeking answers to life’s biggest questions, and how people have approached it in their own unique way.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the book Divinations, Oracles & Omens, edited by Michelle Aroney and David Zeitlyn, which will be published by Bodleian Library Publishing on 5 December 2024.

Courtesy: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

I’m not sure why the preceding image is used to illustrate the exhibition webpage but I find it quite interesting. Should you be in Oxford, UK and lucky enough to visit the exhibition, there are a few more details on the Oracles, Omens and Answers event webpage, Note: There are 26 Bodleian Libraries at Oxford and the exhibition is being held in the Weston Library,

EXHIBITION

Oracles, Omens and Answers

6 December 2024 – 27 April 2025

ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library

Free admission, no ticket required

…

Note: This exhibition includes a large continuous projection of spider divination practice, including images of the spiders in action.

Exhibition tours

Oracles, Omens and Answers exhibition tours are available on selected Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1–1.45pm and are open to all.

These free gallery tours are led by our dedicated volunteer team and places are limited. Check available dates and book your tickets.

You do not need to book a tour to visit the exhibition. Please meet by the entrance doors to the exhibition at the rear of Blackwell Hall.

…

Happy 2025! And, once again, thank you.

Effects of soil contamination could be blunted with nanonutrients

Leave a reply

An October 15, 2024 news item on phys.org highlights research into soil remediation, Note: A link has been removed,

One of the pressing problems that the world faces in the era of climate change is how to grow enough healthy food to meet the increasing global population, even as soil contamination rises. Research recently published in Nature Food by an international team of scientists led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Guangdong University of Technology, and Central South University of Forestry and Technology, has shown that nutrients on the nanometer scale can not only blunt some of the worst effects of heavy metal and metalloid contamination, but increase crop yields and nutrient content.

…

Caption: Nanomaterials can enter plants through above-ground tissues and root tissues. Soil rhizosphere microorganisms, soil particles, organic matter and rhizosphere deposits can also influence NM uptake in plants. Credit: 10.1038/s43016-024-01063-1 Courtesy of University of Massachusetts Amherst

An October 15, 2024 University of Massachusetts Amherst news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes the problem and the proposed solution, Note: Links have been removed,

“Much of the world’s arable soil is contaminated by heavy metals, like cadmium, lead and mercury, as well as metalloids, like arsenic and selenium,” says Baoshan Xing, University Distinguished Professor and director of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at UMass Amherst. Xing, who is also the paper’s senior author, notes that such contamination puts severe stress on the ability to grow staple crops, which also affects the nutritional value of the crops that manage to survive. “We need to come up with solutions to reduce the heavy metals that wind up in our food,” says Xing, and one approach that has shown promise is the use of nutrients at nanoscale, or what he calls a “nano-enabled” agriculture.


The bulk fertilizers that you may be more familiar with are made up of large particles, which aren’t as readily absorbed by the crop. This means that farmers need to apply more, which then increases the levels of fertilizer runoff into streams, lakes and the ocean. However, crop nutrients at the nanometer scale can be specifically designed and mixed for particular crops, growing conditions and application methods, and engineered so that the target plant can most efficiently absorb the nutrients into its system, cutting down on the amount of fertilizer needed, keeping costs down and limiting runoff.

Though nanomaterials are already available on the agricultural market and have plenty of peer-reviewed science looking at their effect on the soil and crop growth, Xing and his colleagues’ research is the first comprehensive account of the effectiveness of nanomaterials as a class, with results that offer practical insights to help steer sustainable agriculture and global food safety.

“We collected data from 170 previous publications on the effectiveness of nanoparticles in reducing heavy metal and metalloid uptake,” says Chuanxin Ma, the paper’s co-lead author who completed his doctoral training at UMass Amherst’s Stockbridge School of Agriculture and is now a professor at China’s Guangdong University of Technology. “From those 170 papers, we collected 8,585 experimental observations of how plants respond to nanomaterials.”

The team then conducted a meta-analysis on this enormous trove of data, running it through a series of machine-learning models to quantify the effect of nanomaterials on crop growth and metal and metalloid uptake, before finally testing a flexible quantitative approach, known as the “IVIF-TOPSIS-EW method,” that can illuminate how to choose different types of nanomaterials according to a range of realistic agricultural scenarios.

The results show that nanomaterials are more effective than conventional fertilizers at mitigating the harmful effects of polluted soil (by 38.3%), can enhance crop yields (by 22.8%) and the nutritional value of those crops (by 30%), as well as combat plant stress (by 21.6%) due to metal and metalloid pollution. Nanomaterials also help increase soil enzymes and organic carbon, both of which help drive soil fertility.

“Of course, nanomaterials are not a silver bullet,” explains Xing. “They need to be applied in distinct ways based on the individual crop and soil.” Which is where the team’s IVIF-TOPSIS-EW method comes into play. “Our method can help policy makers choose the best course of action for their particular situation,” says Ma.

Yini Cao from Central South University of Forestry and Technology also contributed greatly to collecting and analyzing the data in this work.

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the United States National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA).

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Engineered nanomaterials reduce metal(loid) accumulation and enhance staple food production for sustainable agriculture by Yini Cao, Chuanxin Ma, Jason C. White, Yuchi Cao, Fan Zhang, Ran Tong, Hao Yu, Yi Hao, Wende Yan, Melanie Kah & Baoshan Xing. Nature Food volume 5, pages 951–962 (2024) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01063-1 Published: 11 October 2024 Issue Date: November 2024

This paper is behind a paywall.

Enhancing plant tolerance for high salt levels in soil

Leave a reply

Soil with high concentrations of salt is not considered good for growing plants and that may become more of a problem as researchers seek to create greater global food security in the coming decades. From an August 7, 2024 news item on phys.org,

Soil salt concentrations above the optimal threshold for plant growth can threaten global food security by compromising agricultural productivity and crop quality. An analysis published in Physiologia Plantarum has examined the potential of nanomaterials—which have emerged over the past decade as a promising tool to mitigate such “salinity stress”—to address this challenge.

…

An August 7, 2024 Wiley (publisher) news release (also on EurekAlert) provides a few more details about an assessment (meta-analysis) of how nanomaterials could be helpful,

Nanomaterials, which are tiny natural or synthetic materials, can modulate a plant’s response to salinity stress through various mechanisms, for example by affecting the expression of genes related to salt tolerance or by enhancing physiological processes such as antioxidant activities.

When investigators assessed 495 experiments from 70 publications related to how different nanomaterials interact with plants under salinity stress, they found that nanomaterials enhance plant performance and mitigate salinity stress when applied at lower dosages. At higher doses, however, nanomaterials are toxic to plants and may even worsen salinity stress.

Also, plant responses to nanomaterials vary across plant species, plant families, and nanomaterial types.

“Our analysis revealed that plants respond more positively to nanomaterials under salt stress compared with non-stressed conditions, indicating the ameliorative role of nanomaterials,” said corresponding author Damiano R. Kwaslema, MSc, of Sokoine University of Agriculture, in Tanzania. “These findings pave the way for considering nanomaterials as a future option for managing salinity stress.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Meta-analysis of nanomaterials and plants interaction under salinity stress by Damiano R. Kwaslema, Paulo Sulle Michael. Physiologia Plantarium Volume176, Issue4 July/August 2024 e14445 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ppl.14445 First published: 07 August 2024

This paper is behind a paywall.

More dirt from Saskatoon’s synchrotron (Canadian Light Source)

Leave a reply

Apparently, dirt is not welcome at most synchrotrons (also known as light sources) as was noted in my November 13, 2022 posting about Saskatoon’s synchrotron being used to analyze some soil from Hawaii. This time, according to a September 4, 2024 Canadian Light Source (CLS) news release by Rowan Hollinger (also received via email), the soil is from Kansas and there appears to be a second synchroton involved in this research,

With carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increasing in recent decades, there is a growing urgency to find strategies for capturing and holding carbon.

Researchers from Kansas State University (K-State) are exploring how different farming practices can affect the amount of carbon that gets stored in soil. Using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) and the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, California, they analyzed soil from a cornfield in Kansas that had been farmed with no tilling for the past 22 years. During that time, the farm used a variety of different soil nitrogen management practices, including no fertilizer, chemical fertilizer, and manure/compost fertilizer.

“We were trying to understand what the mechanisms are behind increasing soil carbon storage using certain management practices,” says Dr. Ganga Hettiarachchi, professor of soil and environmental chemistry at Kansas State University. “We were looking at not just soil carbon, but other soil minerals that are going to help store carbon.”

As has been shown in other studies, the K-state researchers found that the soil enhanced (treated) with manure or compost fertilizer stores more carbon than soil that received either chemical fertilizer or no fertilizer. More exciting though, says Hettiarachchi, the ultrabright synchrotron light enabled them to see how the carbon gets stored: they found that it was preserved in pores and some carbon had attached itself to minerals in the soil.

The team also found that the soil treated with manure or compost contained more microbial carbon, an indication that these enhancements support more microorganisms and their activities in the soil. In addition, they identified special minerals in the soil, evidence Hettiarachchi says, that the treatments contribute to active chemical and biological processes.

“To my knowledge, this is the first direct evidence of mechanisms through which organic enhancements improve soil health, microbial diversity, and carbon sequestration.”

Because synchrotron imaging is non-destructive, the K-state researchers were able to observe what was going on in soil aggregate (clumps) without having to break up the soil; essentially, they were looking at the carbon chemistry in its natural state.

“Collectively, studies like this are going to help us to move forward to more sustainable, more regenerative agriculture practices that will protect our soils and environment as well as help feed growing populations, says Hettiarachchi. “As well, understanding the role of the different minerals, chemicals, and microbes involved will help improve models for predicting how different farming practices affect soil carbon storage.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Direct evidence on the impact of organic amendments on carbon stabilization in soil microaggregates by Pavithra S. Pitumpe Arachchige, Ganga M. Hettiarachchi, Charles W. Rice, James J. Dynes, Leila Maurmann, A. L. David Kilcoyne, Chammi P. Attanayake. Soil Science Society of America Journal (2024) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/saj2.20701 First published: 21 June 2024

This paper is behind a paywall.

Nano-enabled precision delivery methods for agriculture

Leave a reply

A July 23, 2024 news item on Nanowerk provides an introduction to nanoparticles and their potential use in agriculture, Note: Links have been removed,

Nanoparticles could potentially help address agricultural and environmental sustainability issues on a global scale.

Those issues include rising food demand, increasing greenhouse gas emissions generated by agricultural activities, climbing costs of agrochemicals, reducing crop yields induced by climate change, and degrading soil quality. A class of nanoscale particles called “nanocarriers” could make crop agriculture more sustainable and resilient to climate change, according to a group of specialists that includes Kurt Ristroph, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University.

“Saying ‘nanoparticle’ means different things to different people,” Ristroph said. In nanodrug delivery, a nanoparticle usually ranges in size from 60 to 100 nanometers and is made of lipids or polymers. “In the environmental world, a nanoparticle usually means a 3- to 5-nanometer metal oxide colloid. Those are not the same thing, but people use ‘nanoparticle’ for both.”

Ristroph helped organize a 2022 interdisciplinary workshop on nanomethods for drug delivery in plants. Funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the workshop was attended by 30 participants from academia, industry and government laboratories.

Many of the workshop participants, including Ristroph, have now published their conclusions in Nature Nanotechnology (“Towards realizing nano-enabled precision delivery in plants”). Their article reviews the possibility nanocarriers could make crop agriculture more sustainable and resilient to climate change.

…

A July 23, 2024 Purdue University news release (also on EurekAlert but published July 19, 2024) by Steve Koppes, which originated the news item, delves further into the topic of how agriculture could be made more sustainable with nanotechnology-enabled delivery methods, Note: Links have been removed,

“Nano-enabled precision delivery of active agents in plants will transform agriculture, but there are critical technical challenges that we must first overcome to realize the full range of its benefits,” said the article’s co-lead author Greg Lowry, the Walter J. Blenko, Sr. Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “I’m optimistic about the future of plant nanobiotechnology approaches and the beneficial impacts it will have on our ability to sustainably produce food.”

Plant cells and human cells have major physiological differences. Plant cells have a cell wall while human cells don’t, for example. But certain tools can be transferred from nanomedicine to plant applications.

“People have developed tools for studying the bio-corona formation around nanoparticles in an animal. We could think about bringing some of those tools to bear on nanoparticles in plants,” Ristroph said. 

When nanoparticles are injected into the bloodstream, many components of the blood stick onto the surface of the nanoparticles. The various proteins sticking to a nanoparticle’s surface make it look different.

The task then becomes figuring out what proteins or other molecules will stick to the surface and where the particle will go as a result. A nanoparticle designed to move toward a certain organ may have its destination altered by white blood cells that detect the particle’s surface proteins and send it to a different organ.

“Broadly speaking, that’s the idea of bio-corona formation and trafficking,” Ristroph said. “People in drug delivery nanomedicine have been thinking about and developing tools for studying that kind of thing. Some of those thoughts and some of those tools could be applied to plants.” 

Researchers already have developed many different architectures and chemistries for making nanoscale delivery vehicles for nanomedicine. “Some of the particle types are transferable,” he said. “You can take a nanoparticle that was optimized for movement in humans and put it in a plant, and you’ll probably find that it needs to be redesigned at least somewhat.”

Ristroph focuses on organic (carbon-based) nanocarriers that have a core-shell structure. The core contains a payload, while the shell forms a protective outer layer. Researchers have used many different types of nanomaterial in plants. The most popular materials are metallic nanoparticles because they are somewhat easier to make, handle and track where they go in a plant than organic nanoparticles.

“One of the first questions that you want to figure out is where these nanoparticles go in a plant,” Ristroph said. “It’s a lot easier to detect a metal inside of a plant that’s made of carbon than it is to detect a carbon-based nanoparticle in a plant that’s made of carbon.”

Last March, Ristroph and Purdue PhD student Luiza Stolte Bezerra Lisboa Oliveira published a critical review of the research literature on the Uptake and Translocation of Organic Nanodelivery Vehicles in Plants in Environmental Science and Technology.

“Not a lot is understood about transformations after these things go into a plant, how they’re getting metabolized,” Ristroph said. His team is interested in studying that, along with ways to help ensure that the nanoparticles are delivered to their proper destinations, and in corona formation. Coronas are biomolecular coatings that affect nanoparticle functions. 

The manufacturability of nanocarriers is another interest area that could be transferred to agriculture from nanomedicine.

“I care a lot about manufacturability and making sure that whatever techniques we’re using to make the nanoparticles are scalable and economically feasible,” Ristroph said.

The manufacturability of nanocarriers is another interest area that could be transferred to agriculture from nanomedicine.

“I care a lot about manufacturability and making sure that whatever techniques we’re using to make the nanoparticles are scalable and economically feasible,” Ristroph said.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Towards realizing nano-enabled precision delivery in plants by Gregory V. Lowry, Juan Pablo Giraldo, Nicole F. Steinmetz, Astrid Avellan, Gozde S. Demirer, Kurt D. Ristroph, Gerald J. Wang, Christine O. Hendren, Christopher A. Alabi, Adam Caparco, Washington da Silva, Ivonne González-Gamboa, Khara D. Grieger, Su-Ji Jeon, Mariya V. Khodakovskaya, Hagay Kohay, Vivek Kumar, Raja Muthuramalingam, Hanna Poffenbarger, Swadeshmukul Santra, Robert D. Tilton & Jason C. White. Nature Nanotechnology (2024) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-024-01667-5 Published: 06 June 2024

This paper is behind a paywall.

Wearable air curtain (an invisible mask) kills viruses and blocks 99.8% of aerosols

Leave a reply

If you are vegetarian or vegan or have some objections to animal processing plants, this video is most likely not for you,

A July 8, 2024 University of Michigan news release (also on EurekAlert) describe a technology primarily designed for use by agricultural and industrial workers,

An air curtain shooting down from the brim of a hard hat can prevent 99.8% of aerosols from reaching a worker’s face. The technology, created by University of Michigan startup Taza Aya, potentially offers a new protection option for workers in industries where respiratory disease transmission is a concern.

Independent, third-party testing of Taza Aya’s device showed the effectiveness of the air curtain, curved to encircle the face, coming from nozzles at the hat’s brim. But for the air curtain to effectively protect against pathogens in the room, it must first be cleansed of pathogens itself. Previous research by the group of Taza Aya co-founder Herek Clack, U-M associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, showed that their method can remove and kill 99% of airborne viruses in farm and laboratory settings. 

“Our air curtain technology is precisely designed to protect wearers from airborne infectious pathogens, using treated air as a barrier in which any pathogens present have been inactivated so that they are no longer able to infect you if you breathe them in,” Clack said. “It’s virtually unheard of—our level of protection against airborne germs, especially when combined with the improved ergonomics it also provides.”

Fire has been used throughout history for sterilization, and while we might not usually think of it this way, it’s what’s known as a thermal plasma. Nonthermal, or cold, plasmas are made of highly energetic, electrically charged molecules and molecular fragments that achieve a similar effect without the heat. Those ions and molecules stabilize quickly, becoming ordinary air before reaching the curtain nozzles.

Taza Aya’s prototype features a backpack, weighing roughly 10 pounds, that houses the nonthermal plasma module, air handler, electronics and the unit’s battery pack. The handler draws air into the module, where it’s treated before flowing to the air curtain’s nozzle array.

Taza Aya’s progress comes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the midst of a summer when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported four cases of humans testing positive for bird flu. During the pandemic, agriculture suffered disruptions in meat production due to shortages in labor, which had a direct impact on prices, the availability of some products and the extended supply chain.

In recent months, Taza Aya has conducted user experience testing with workers at Michigan Turkey Producers in Wyoming, Michigan, a processing plant that practices the humane handling of birds. The plant is home to hundreds of workers, many of them coming into direct contact with turkeys during their work day.

To date, paper masks have been the main strategy for protecting employees in such large-scale agriculture productions. But on a noisy production line, where many workers speak English as a second language, masks further reduce the ability of workers to communicate by muffling voices and hiding facial clues.

“During COVID, it was a problem for many plants—the masks were needed, but they prevented good communication with our associates,” said Tina Conklin, Michigan Turkey’s vice president of technical services.  

In addition, the effectiveness of masks is reliant on a tight seal over the mouth and noise to ensure proper filtration, which can change minute to minute during a workday. Masks can also fog up safety goggles, and they have to be removed for workers to eat. Taza Aya’s technology avoids all of those problems.

As a researcher at U-M, Clack spent years exploring the use of nonthermal plasma to protect livestock. With the arrival of COVID-19 in early 2020, he quickly pivoted to how the technology might be used for personal protection from airborne pathogens.

In October of that year, Taza Aya was named an awardee in the Invisible Shield QuickFire Challenge—a competition created by Johnson & Johnson Innovation in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The program sought to encourage the development of technologies that could protect people from airborne viruses while having a minimal impact on daily life.

“We are pleased with the study results as we embark on this journey,” said Alberto Elli, Taza Aya’s CEO. “This real-world product and user testing experience will help us successfully launch the Worker Wearable [Protection] in 2025.”

There’s a bit more information about the 3rd party testing mentioned at the start of the news release in a June 26, 2024 posting by Herek Clack on the Taza Aya company blog. You find out more about Worker and Individual Wearable Protection on Taza Aya’s The Solution webpage, scroll down abut 55% of the way.

Back to school: Stanford University (California) brings nanoscience to teachers and Ingenium brings STEAM to school

Leave a reply

I have two stories that fit into the ‘back to school’ theme, one from Stanford University and one from Ingenium (Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation).

Stanford, nanoscience, and middle school teachers

h/t to Google Alert of August 27, 2024 (received via email) for information about a Stanford University programme for middle school teachers. From an August 27, 2024 article in the Stanford Report, Note: Links have been removed,

Crafting holographic chocolate, printing with the power of the sun, and seeing behind the scenes of cutting-edge research at the scale of one-billionth of a meter, educators participating in the Nanoscience Summer Institute for Middle School Teachers (NanoSIMST) got to play the role of students, for a change.

Teachers hailed from the Bay Area and Southern California – one had even come all the way from Arkansas – for the professional development program. NanoSIMST, run by nano@stanford, is designed to connect middle school teachers with activities, skills, and knowledge about science at the scale of molecules and atoms so they can incorporate it into their curriculum. NanoSIMST also prioritizes teachers from Title I schools, which are low-income schools with low-income student populations that receive federal funding to improve academic achievement.

…

Debbie Senesky, the site investigator and principal researcher on the nano@stanford project, highlighted the importance of nanoscience at the university. “It’s not just about focusing on research – we also have bigger impacts on entrepreneurs, start-ups, community colleges, and other educators who can use these facilities,” said Senesky, who is also an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics and of electrical engineering. “We’re helping to train the next generation of people who can be a workforce in the nanotechnology and semiconductor industry.”

The program also supports education and outreach, including through NanoSIMST, which uniquely reaches out to middle school teachers due to the STEM education outcomes that occur at that age. According to a 2009 report by the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Initiative, even among teens who were interested in and felt academically prepared in their STEM studies, “nearly two-thirds of teens indicated that they may be discouraged from pursuing a career in science, technology, engineering or mathematics because they do not know anyone who works in these fields (31%) or understand what people in these fields do (28%).”

A teacher from the Oakland Unified School District, Thuon Chen, connected several other teachers from OUSD to attend NanoSIMST as a first-time group. He emphasized that young kids, especially in middle school, have a unique way of approaching new technologies. “Kids have this sense where they’re always pushing things and coming up with completely new uses, so introducing them to a new technology can give them a lot to work with.”

Over the course of four days in the summer, NanoSIMST provides teachers with an understanding of extremely small science and technology: they go through tours of the nano facilities, speak with scientists, perform experiments that can be conducted in the classroom, and learn about careers in nanotechnology and the semiconductor industry.

Tara Hodge, the teacher who flew all the way from Arkansas, was thrilled about bringing what she learned back with her. “I’m not a good virtual learner, honestly. That’s why I came here. And I’m really excited to learn about different hands-on activities. Anything I can get excited about, I know I can get my students excited about.”

…

They have provided a video,

One comment regarding the host, Daniella Duran, the director of education and outreach for nano@stanford, she comments about nano being everywhere and, then, says “… everything has a microchip in it.” I wish she’d been a little more careful with the wording. Granted those microchips likely have nanoscale structures.

Ingenium’s STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) programmes for teachers across Canada

An August 27, 2024 Ingenium newsletter (received via email) lists STEAM resources being made available for teachers across the country.

There appears to be a temporary copy of the August 27, 2024 Ingenium newsletter here,

STEAM lessons made simple!

Another school year is about to begin, and whether you’re an experienced teacher or leading your first class, Ingenium has what you need to make your STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) lessons fun! With three museums of science and innovation – the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum and the Canada Science and Technology Museum – under one umbrella, we are uniquely positioned to help your STEAM lessons come to life.

Embark on an exciting adventure with our bilingual virtual field trips and meet the animals in our barns, explore aviation technology, and conduct amazing science experiments.

Or take advantage of our FREE lesson plans, activities and resources to simplify and animate your classroom, all available in English and French. With Ingenium, innovation is at your fingertips!

…

Bring the museum to your classroom with a virtual field trip!

Can’t visit in person? Don’t worry, Ingenium will bring the museum to you! All of our virtual field trips are led by engaging guides who will animate each subject with an entertaining and educational approach. Choose from an array of bilingual programs designed for all learners that cover the spectrum of STEAM subjects, including the importance of healthy soil, the genetic considerations of a dairy farm operation, the science of flight, simple machines, climate change and the various states of matter. There is so much to discover with Ingenium. Book your virtual field trip today!

…

Here’s a video introduction to Ingenium’s offerings,

To get a look at all the resources, check out this temporary copy of the August 27, 2024 Ingenium newsletter here.

Systemic gene silencing in crops with engineered nanocomplexes

Leave a reply

Ultimately, the researchers are working on ways to make agriculture more sustainable but, in the meantime, there’s this June 7, 2024 news item on ScienceDaily describing this work,

Gene silencing in plants has faced significant challenges, primarily due to the difficulty of transporting RNA molecules across plant cell membranes and achieving systemic effects. Traditional genetic engineering methods are time-consuming and often limited by plant genotype. Due to these challenges, there is a pressing need for innovative solutions to facilitate efficient gene silencing and enhance crop productivity.

…

A June 7, 2024 news release, from Nanjing Agricultural University The Academy of Science (publisher of Horticulture Research), on EurekAlert, which originated the news item, goes on to describe the challenges and the proposed solution, Note: Links have been removed,

Gene silencing in plants has faced significant challenges, primarily due to the difficulty of transporting RNA molecules across plant cell membranes and achieving systemic effects. Traditional genetic engineering methods are time-consuming and often limited by plant genotype. Due to these challenges, there is a pressing need for innovative solutions to facilitate efficient gene silencing and enhance crop productivity.

Researchers from the University of Connecticut and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an innovative method using cationized bovine serum albumin (cBSA) and double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) nanocomplexes to achieve effective systemic gene silencing in plants. Published (DOI: 10.1093/hr/uhae045) in Horticulture Research on February 22, 2024, this study demonstrates the potential of these nanocomplexes to overcome the limitations of traditional RNA delivery methods, offering a new tool for plant biotechnology.

The study presents the development of cBSA/dsRNA nanocomplexes for systemic gene silencing in tobacco and poplar plants. By modifying bovine serum albumin to carry a positive charge, researchers created nanocomplexes that bind dsRNA molecules, facilitating their transport and systemic gene silencing. Experiments demonstrated successful silencing of the DR5-GUS and 35S-GUS genes, achieving significant reductions in gene expression. This technology proved effective in delivering RNA molecules across plant cell membranes, overcoming the negative charge barrier of naked RNA applications. Offering a convenient, fast, and non-transgenic approach, this method holds promise for gene function characterization, crop improvement, and large-scale agricultural applications due to its scalability and cost-effectiveness.

Dr. Yi Li, a lead researcher on the project, stated, “The development of cBSA/dsRNA nanocomplexes represents a significant advancement in plant biotechnology. This technology not only facilitates efficient gene silencing but also offers a practical and scalable solution for improving crop productivity. We believe this method will pave the way for new applications in gene editing and agricultural research.”

The implications of this research are vast, offering a potential solution for transient gene silencing in field-grown crops, including orchard trees. This technology could enhance crop productivity by targeting genes that influence drought tolerance, fruit development, and stress resistance, all without the need for genetic modification. The scalable and inexpensive nature of this method could make it a game-changer for sustainable agriculture.

The research and the journal where it is published both have interesting pedigrees. From the June 7, 2024 news release,

Funding information

This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture SCRI (grant no. 2015-70016-23027) and the Connecticut-Storrs Agriculture Experimental Station.

About Horticulture Research

Horticulture Research is an open access journal of Nanjing Agricultural University and ranked number one in the Horticulture category of the Journal Citation Reports ™ from Clarivate, 2022. The journal is committed to publishing original research articles, reviews, perspectives, comments, correspondence articles and letters to the editor related to all major horticultural plants and disciplines, including biotechnology, breeding, cellular and molecular biology, evolution, genetics, inter-species interactions, physiology, and the origination and domestication of crops.

You can add the UK to the US/China mix since the website hosting Horticulture Research is Oxford Academic,

Oxford Academic is Oxford University Press’s academic research platform, providing access to over 50,000 books and 500 journals

…

Finally, here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Engineered dsRNA–protein nanoparticles for effective systemic gene silencing in plants by Huayu Sun, Ankarao Kalluri, Dan Tang, Jingwen Ding, Longmei Zhai, Xianbin Gu, Yanjun Li, Huseyin Yer, Xiaohan Yang, Gerald A Tuskan, Zhanao Deng, Frederick G Gmitter Jr, Hui Duan, Challa Kumar, Yi Li. Horticulture Research, Volume 11, Issue 4, April 2024, uhae045, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhae045
Published online: 22 February 2024

This paper is open access.

After sugar-free meals, soil bacteria respire more CO2

Leave a reply

Scientists have found out more about how carbon cycles through the environment in a June 11, 2024 news item on ScienceDaily,

When soil microbes eat plant matter, the digested food follows one of two pathways. Either the microbe uses the food to build its own body, or it respires its meal as carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.

Now, a Northwestern University [Illinois, US]-led research team has, for the first time, tracked the pathways of a mixture of plant waste as it moves through bacteria’s metabolism to contribute to atmospheric CO2. The researchers discovered that microbes respire three times as much CO2 from lignin carbons (non-sugar aromatic units) compared to cellulose carbons (glucose sugar units), which both add structure and support to plants’ cellular walls.

These findings help disentangle the role of microbes in soil carbon cycling — information that could help improve predictions of how carbon in soil will affect climate change.

…

Caption: Image of soil with a close-up of a bacterium and the cellular pathways involved in carbon dioxide productions. Available substrates from soil organic matter are processed through specific pathways with different amount of carbon dioxide output flux.. Credit: Aristilde Lab/Northwestern University

A June 11, 2024 Northwestern University news release (also received via email and on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, explains what this research means, Note: Links have been removed,

“The carbon pool that’s stored in soil is about 10 times the amount that’s in the atmosphere,” said Northwestern University’s Ludmilla Aristilde, who led the study. “What happens to this reservoir will have an enormous impact on the planet. Because microbes can unlock this carbon and turn it into atmospheric CO2, there is a huge interest in understanding how they metabolize plant waste. As temperatures rise, more organic matter of different types will become available in soil. That will affect the amount of CO2 that is emitted from microbial activities.”

An expert in the dynamics of organics in environmental processes, Aristilde is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and is a member of the Center for Synthetic Biology and of the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy. Caroll Mendonca, a former Ph.D. candidate in Aristilde’s laboratory, is the paper’s first author. The study includes collaborators from the University of Chicago.

‘Not all pathways are created equally’

The new study builds upon ongoing work in Aristilde’s laboratory to understand how soil stores — or releases — carbon. Although previous researchers typically tracked how broken-down compounds from plant matter move individually through bacteria, Aristilde’s team instead used a mixture of these compounds to represent what bacteria are exposed to in the natural environment. Then, to track how different plant derivatives moved through a bacterium’s metabolism, the researchers tagged individual carbon atoms with isotope labels.

“Isotope labeling allowed us to track carbon atoms specific to each compound type inside the cell,” Aristilde said. “By tracking the carbon routes, we were able to capture their paths in the metabolism. That is important because not all pathways are created equally in terms of producing carbon dioxide.”

Sugar carbons in cellulose, for example, traveled through glycolytic and pentose-phosphate pathways. These pathways lead to metabolic reactions that convert digested matter into carbons to make DNA and proteins, which build the microbe’s own biomass. But aromatic, non-sugar carbons from lignin traveled a different route — through the tricarboxylic acid cycle.

“The tricarboxylic acid cycle exists in all forms of life,” Aristilde said. “It exists in plants, microbes, animals and humans. While this cycle also produces precursors for proteins, it contains several reactions that produce CO2. Most of the CO2 that gets respired from metabolism comes from this pathway.”

Expanding the findings

After tracking the routes of metabolism, Aristilde and her team performed quantitative analysis to determine the amount of CO2 produced from different types of plant matter. After consuming a mixture of plant matter, microbes respired three times as much CO2 from carbons derived from lignin compared to carbons derived from cellulose.

“Even though microbes consume these carbons at the same time, the amount of CO2 generated from each carbon type is disproportionate,” Aristilde said. “That’s because the carbon is processed via two different metabolic pathways.”

In the initial experiments, Aristilde and her team used Pseudomonas putida, a common soil bacterium with a versatile metabolism. Curious to see if their findings applied to other bacteria, the researchers studied data from previous experiments in scientific literature. They found the same relationship they discovered among plant matter, metabolism and CO2 manifested in other soil bacteria.

“We propose a new metabolism-guided perspective for thinking about how different carbon structures accessible to soil microbes are processed,” Aristilde said. “That will be key in helping us predict what will happen with the soil carbon cycle with a changing climate.”

The study, “Disproportionate carbon dioxide efflux in bacterial metabolic pathways for different organic substrates leads to variable contribution to carbon use efficiency,” was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant numbers CBET-1653092 and CBET-2022854).

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Disproportionate Carbon Dioxide Efflux in Bacterial Metabolic Pathways for Different Organic Substrates Leads to Variable Contribution to Carbon-Use Efficiency by Caroll M. Mendonca, Lichun Zhang, Jacob R. Waldbauer, and Ludmilla Aristilde. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2024, 58, 25, 11041–11052 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.4c01328 Publication Date:June 11, 2024 Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.

This paper is open access and has a Creative Commons licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0..