Sustainable grass

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have been given a 2.1 million dollar grant from the US Department of Agriculture to develop draught resistant grass that needs less maintenance and requires less water. 

Silverwood Park, MN Sept. 2012 - Dry grass - photo N. Carlson

They will attempt to replace Kentucky Blue grass with fine fescue grass.  The grass grows slower and is more draught resistant.  Unfortunately it does not do as well in high temperatures and there will be a need to breed high temperature tolerance into the grass.

It makes sense to incorporate several kinds of grass seed into a lawn if you can get them to grow at a similar rates.  It will reduce the chance of a disease wiping out the lawn.  There is also a move to a more diverse plant mix in the lawn or redefine the lawn with more native plant species.

Park in Minnesota - N. Carlson

 

Hospital acquired fungal meningitis

An interactive tool for tracking the outbreak is available through Health Intelligence.

Update from the Boston Globe Liz Kowalczyk: Visible mold was found in the vials in green globs or white hairs.  Mold was also growing on materials in the NECC.  Mold was found in the clean rooms used for preparation.  The lab was using non sterile materials and located adjacent to a recyling center.

Mike Stobbe from AP reports on theories about how the steroids got contaminated.  An additional fungus, Exerohilium spp. has been implicated

NBC news reports on Fungal Meningtitis sickens 12, kills 2 at at outpatient treatment centers in Tennessee and North Carolina.  Patients received lumbar epidural injections contaminated with Aspergillus spp. 

CNN reports that the Meningitis outbreak has spread to 5 states with 4 dead.  It is linked to Aspergillus contamination of Methylprednisone acetate.

Video is available from USA Today

The FDA has  Id'd the (NECC) NEW England Compounding Center as the source.

Aspergillus fumigatus - photo N. Carlson

The CDC has a fact sheet on Fungal Meningitis.  It is rare but can be life threatening.

Summary of NECC indictment - 7 minutes

Natural gas fuel for vehicles

Because of lower prices for natural gas, the recent discovery of new reserves in North America and the high price of gasoline there is a push towards natural gas powered vehicles.  This topic is covered in a USA Today article Natural gas vehicles get a second look .

CNG United provides information about the pros and cons of coverting a vehicle to compressed natural gas.  The biggest downside is that the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) tank takes up extra space.   The second is an infrastructure problem because there are not many CNG fueling stations.
The current price of natural gas to an equivalent gallon of gas is $0.63 US.   This varies up to $2.00 per gallon.

The most likely application for conversion would be agricultural vehicles and possibly long distance trucks.  Buses would be another quick adapter since they have a specified route and a central fueling station.

According to NGV global News there are plans to add an additional 1,000 plus CNG fueling stations in the US during the next three years. This is a cooperateve venture between DeBartolo Development, along with Keystone Consulting Group, a real estate investment company and Peake Fuel Solutions. 

There is also a push towards having home CNG fueling stations. This is similar to rural areas where there is no piped natural gas and a CNG tank is ues for furnace fuel.  The same tank could be used to fuel vehicles.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/ngv.htm 
 

 

Resilient Communities Project at the U of MN

In an Start Tribune article: U offering Cities a New Partnership to Solve Problems by Kelly Smith students and professors are scaling up sustainability issues from the class and bringing them to communities.  The Resilient communities project at the University of Minnesota is working with the city of  Minnetonka.

Graduate students partner with cities to address issues such as storm water managment, roof top gardens and other projects.  The work is based on the sustainable cities program at the University of Oregon launched in 2009.  The school works with a city for a year on various projects and these are integrated into the curricula.  This is an example of the classes and activities for the city of Springfield, Oregon

A request for proposal (RFP) to partner with the U of MN for fiscal year 2013/2014 will be available in October of 2012. 

 Silver Lake Park, St Anthony, MN - reverse field photo - N. Carlson

Autodesk Sustainability Workshop

The Autodesk Sustainability Workshop produced some very unique designs for simple objects.  The goal of the class was to redsign common household products to simplify the design, use a sustainable process and make them appear to be old fashioned.

Chen Guo - Salt & pepper shakers
 

Robert Fish - tape dispenser - single piece of metal

The autodesk group has free software for students interested in design.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RZjDN3v650 

Amory Lovins - Integrative design - improving energy efficiency speaking at an Autdesk workshop

For more information about improving engineering design go to the 10xE website at the RIM

Science-ish accurate health reporting

Julie Belluz  from the Science-ish blog   provides a list of five problems practically applying health research in an article from Macleans.CA.

Reporters sensationalize the research and don't spend enough time to do in depth reporting.  Researchers aren't paid for the time they work with journalists and do not trust them to report the information accurately.  The resultant health policies are not in sync with the best available medical evidence.

I have interviewed people as a student newspaper reporter and have been interviewed by reporters on science topics.  It is difficult to convert technical information into actionable information for the general public.  It is similar to the task of presenting scientific evidence at a trial to a jury.

As I have read articles from other journalists, I am usually let down because they only cover the moment and don't give a historical perspective or don't bring in other information to provide a depth of understanding to the topic.  I've tried to do this with the emerging swine flu H3N2 problem at state and county fairs in the US.

Joel Barker July 11, 2012 U of MN - photo N. Carlson

I attended a talk by Joel Barker as he introduced a The Implications Wheel tool at a workshop on Strategic Exploration - Learning to Explore the Future on July 11, 2012 at the U of MN St. Paul.  The implications wheel allows people to examine the implications of a policy at three degrees of separation from the policy.  Imagine five spokes on a wheel and then five spokes of a single spoke and five more spokes off of a single spoke of the new wheel.  Each spoke in the wheel is a positive, negative or neutral outcome for the policy.

Innovations at the Verge speech - Joel Barker

This allows people to see problems with policies before they are implemented.  It works especially well when conducted with a group of diverse backgrounds using the wisdom of crowds.

Linking good science research reporting with the implications of health policy based on that research would go a long way to providing more effective and efficient public health policy.  

Public Health Job postings

The University of Minnesota School of Public Health has US job postings for positions focusing on Minnesota with additional positions through out the US.  The positions include volunteer as well as paid positions. The over one hundred position list is sortable by state.





The U of Minnesota Department of Environmental Health and Safety is hiring a Safety Training coordinator.  Application and job description information is available here.


Job postings at the Minnesota Department of Health are listed here.




Can You Imagine? from Harvard School of Public Health on Vimeo.






 

Legionaire's outbreak and information

Two death's from Legionaire's disease are reportedly linked to a downtown Marriott Hotel in Chicago, Illinois.  Chicago Tribune reporter, Mitch Smith confirmed that the hotel has drained the pool, whirlpool and fountain.

Several non fatal legionella cases in Wisconsin were caused by exposure to a decorative fountain that was heated by lamps and a nearby fireplace. 

http://www.shea-online.org/View/ArticleId/124/Legionnaires-Disease-Outbreak-Linked-to-Hospital-s-Decorative-Fountain.aspx

Recommendations for decorative fountain maintenance as commissioned by the South Dakota department of health are listed on this pdf.  Below water lighting, plastic pipes and poor treatment of water contribute to problems with the decorative fountains.  Keeping the temperature below 65 degrees and maintaining at least 0.5 ppm of chlorine will reduce problems with legionella. 

 

The IAQ network  video on Legionaire's Disease

The IAQA network Cooling towers and Legionella.

 

 

Pontiac fevor is also caused by Legionella bacteria by IAQA network

 

Methane from Windpower

Brita Bell writes in Ecomagination about a research project designed to take atmospheric carbon dioxide and convert it into methane using electricity and a methanogen called Methanobacterium palustre.  The ideal power source would be night time excessive electrical power produced by wind energy.   

http://gcep.stanford.edu/research/factsheets/electricalcurrentviamicrobes.html

In 2012, Stanford Scientists describe an unsuccessful attempt to use Methanothermobacter marburgensis, to convert waste carbon dioxide from power plants or anaerobic digestion of biowaste to methane.  They are looking at an organism that is less sensitive to methyl viologen a highly toxic compound that forms part of the pesticide paraquat and is produced when electricity is applied to stimulate the production of methane.


Some of these methanogens grow in deep sea vents in the ocean capturing hydrogen and carbon dioxide to produce methane.  They may be the type of alien life forms found on the planet mars according to a Huffington Post article.





 

BYD Life size Remote Control Car from China

On August 21, 2012 Bertel Schmitt reports in The truth about Cars that BYD China has modified a Toyota Corolla car and added a remote control to allow operation of the vehicle in a 10 meter space.  The intended purpose is to make parking easier or to maneuver the car closer when it is raining.