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Green Gasoline!
Components for green gasoline can be sythesized in a laboratory from agricultural waste. New processes are breaking the barriers to producing green gasoline on the large scale needed for industrial produciton. Credit: Ben Barnhart
Two research teams recently announced that they have successfully converted sugar-potentially derived from agricultural waste and non-food plants - into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
Chemical engineer Randy Cortright and his colleagues at Virent Energy Systems of Madison, Wisc., a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research awardee, and researchers led by NSF-supported chemical engineer James Dumesic of the University of Wisconsin at Madison are now announcing that sugars and carbohydrates can be processed like petroleum into the full suite of products that drive the fuel, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
"NSF and other federal funding agencies are advocating the new paradigm of next generation hydrocarbon biofuels," said John Regalbuto, director of the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at NSF and chair of an interagency working group on biomass conversion. "Even when solar and wind, in addition to clean coal and nuclear, become highly developed, and cars become electric or plug-in hybrid, we will still need high energy-density gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for planes, trains, trucks, and boats. The processes that these teams developed are superb examples of pathways that will enable the sustainable production of these fuels."
The process was originally discovered in early 2006 for which a patent was recently applied. Similar research at the Dumesic Laboratory produced similar results.
The key to the breakthrough is a process called aqueous phase reforming. In passing a watery slurry of plant-derived sugar and carbohydrates over a series of catalysts -- materials that speed up reactions without sacrificing themselves in the process -- carbon-rich organic molecules split apart into component elements that recombine to form many of the chemicals that are typically extracted from non-renewable petroleum.
Green gasolines are generating interest across the academic and industrial communities because they yield a product that is compatible with existing infrastructure, and can be crafted from plants grown in marginal soils, like switchgrass, or from agricultural waste. "We are quickly working to put our renewable, green gasoline and other hydrocarbon biofuels in fuel tanks all over the world." said Randy Cortright, chief technology officer at Virent.
Source: National Science Foundation: www.nsf.org
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This reconstruction of a Neanderthal girl was generated from a skull discovered in Gibraltar and was created by renowned scientific sculptor Elizabeth Daynes of Paris, France. Photo: Anthropological Institute, University of Zürich
Tools Prove Intelligence of Neanderthal
Research by United Kingdom and United States' scientists has put another nail in the coffin of the premise that Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) became extinct because they were less intelligent than our ancestors (Homo sapiens). The scientists have shown that early stone tool technologies developed by our species, Homo sapiens, were no more efficient than those used by Neanderthals. Published in the Journal of Human Evolution, their discovery debunks a belief held by archaeologists for more than 60 years which most of us learned in school.
Many long-held beliefs suggesting why the Neanderthals went extinct have been debunked in recent years. Research has already shown that Neanderthals were as good at hunting as Homo sapiens and had no clear disadvantage in their ability to communicate. Now, these latest findings add to the growing evidence that Neanderthals were equally as intelligent as our Homo sapiens ancestors.
The team spent three years flint knapping to produce stone tools. They recreated stone tools known as "flakes," which were wider tools originally used by both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, and "blades," a narrower stone tool later adopted by Homo sapiens. Archaeologists often use the development of stone blades and their assumed efficiency as proof of Homo sapiens’ superior intellect. To test this, the team analysed the data to compare the number of tools produced, how much cutting-edge was created, the efficiency in consuming raw material and how long tools lasted.
Blades were first produced by Homo sapiens during their colonization of Europe from Africa approximately 40,000 years ago. This has traditionally been thought to be a dramatic technological advance, helping Homo sapiens out-compete, and eventually eradicate, their Neanderthal cousins. Yet when the research team analysed their data there was no statistical difference between the efficiency of the two technologies. In fact, their findings showed that in some respects the flakes favoured by Neanderthals were more efficient than the blades adopted by our ancestors.
While Homo sapiens spread out to the rest of the world from their home in Africa around 50-40,000 years ago, Neanderthals evolved in Ice Age Europe and most likely have their origins in a far earlier migration of human ancestors dating from 600,000–350,000 years ago. Neanderthals are thought to have died out around 28,000 years ago, suggesting at least 10,000 years of overlap and possible interaction between the two species in Europe.
Source: University of Exeter: www.exeter.ac.uk/news/newsneanderthal.shtml
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Hot Chili Peppers!
One of the wild chili peppers in Bolivia that was studied by researchers.
Ever wonder why those chili peppers you enjoy so much are hot? "Usually a plant creates fruit in order to entice animals to eat and disperse its seeds, so it doesn’t make sense for that fruit to be painfully hot", said University of Florida zoology professor and evolutionary ecologist, Douglas Levey.
Turns out the source of your Mexican food's spicy heat is linked to a pepper plant's defense system. Based on research on wild chili plants in rural Bolivia the scientists found that the leading cause of seed mortality is a fungus called Fusarium. The fungus invades the fruits through wounds made by insects and destroys the seeds before they can be eaten and dispersed.
Capsaicin, the chemical that makes the peppers hot, drastically slows microbial growth and protects the fruit from Fusarium. And while capsaicin deters local mammals, such as foxes and raccoons, from consuming the chilies, birds don’t have the physiological machinery to detect the spicy chemical and continue to eat the peppers and disperse seeds Levey said.
Hum, turns out the birds like chilies, too!
Source: University of Florida: http://news.ufl.edu
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Smallest Snake Species Found in Caribbean
Here is a tiny thread snake resting on a quarter.
Imagine a snake so small that you could fit several of them in a teaspoon? Well, the world's smallest species of snake, with adults averaging just under 4 inches in length, has been identified on the Caribbean island of Barbados. Discovered by Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State University, the species -- which is as thin as a strand of spaghetti is small enough to rest comfortably on a U.S. quarter.
Hedges and his colleagues also are the discoverers of the world's smallest frog and lizard species, which also were found on Caribbean islands. According to Hedges, the smallest and largest species of animals tend to be found on islands, where species can evolve over time to fill ecological niches in habitats that are unoccupied by other organisms. Those vacant niches exist because some types of organisms, by chance, never make it to the islands. For example, if a species of centipede is missing from an island, a snake might evolve into a very small species to "fill" the missing centipede's ecological niche.
The Barbados snake, like others to which it is related, likely feeds primarily on the larvae of ants and termites. The snake, named Leptotyphlops carlae, is the smallest of the more than 3,100 known snake species.
Such discoveries helps scientists to better understand the unique biodiversity of a region and in so doing, support ongoing conservation efforts. Hedges said, "It is difficult to protect a species if you don't know it exists."
Source: Penn State University: http://live.psu.edu/story/33773
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