Introduction
Microalgal biotechnology has emerged due to the great diversity of products that can be developed from biomass. Microalgal are photosynthetic prokaryotic or eukaryotic microorganisms that grow rapidly and have the ability to live in different environment due to their unicellular or simple multicellular structure.Microalgal have a simple cellular division cycle which allows them to complete their development cycle in a few hours. Microalgal when subjected to physical and chemical stress can produce high concentration of certain compounds for example proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, polymers and pigments.To produce these products, microalgae are grown using carbon dioxide,sunlight and industrial wastes in open pond systems and photobioreactors . Usage of industrial wastes reduces cost of culture medium nutrients and also reduces environmental problems.The fuel that we obtain now are mostly from fossil fuels and they are not a renewable source of fuel. Thus it is important that we find another alternative source of fuel. The growth of Algae Oil is a recognised process due to its final products and the production of oil is a function of the selection and feeding of a specific strain of algae. The production of Algae Oil is primarily used in the process of producing biodiesel fuel. All Biofuels are made from biomass. These biofuels can all be produced from algae. Microalgae contains oil within its cell. This oil can be used to make biodiesel. There are many kinds of microalgae which contains oil. Once they are grown, the oil is removed from the microalgae using chemicals or by squeezing oil out of the cells using scientific equipment.The oil is used as an ingredient in biodiesel. This oil is changed chemically from plant o...
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...lgae cultivation and harvest process has been successfully established in Scotland, and the project is investigating ethanol production and methane generation from seaweed. Statoil and Bio-Architecture Lab(BAL) aims to commercialize the production of ethanol and co-products from microalgae in Norway and Europe.
2. In Asia, there is a project led by Mitsubishi Research in Japan which plans to start the demonstration of ethanol production with waste seaweed in 2012 to develop cultivation technologies by 2016. After which, they aims to set up a production process by 2020. The South Korea National ENergy Ministry has started a 10 year project with their aim of producing 400million gallons a year of ethanol by 2020. The Philippine government also has invested more than $5 million US dollars to build an ethanol plant with seaweed bioethanol technology from South Korea.
Cephalopods are known to be exceptionally intelligent by invertebrate standards and in some respects even rival “higher” vertebrates. These animals have many highly evolved sensory and processing organs that allow them to gain a greater understanding of their environment and their place within it. Due to their advanced structures, many of which are analogous to vertebrate structures, and abilities they have been widely studied. Their methods of learning have been of prime interest and many experiments have been conducted to determine the different ways in which octopuses can learn. From these experiments four main kinds of learning have been identified in octopuses: associative learning, special learning,
The Lagoon Nebula featured as Nasa’s astronomy picture of the day was photographed by John Nemcik using various filters to capture the light emitted by the Hydrogen, Sulfur, and Oxygen. While photographed showing beautiful vibrant, eye-catching colors, the Nebula would appear naturally appear gray to human eye due to poor color sensitivity existing at low-light levels (spacetelescope.org). The Lagoon Nebula is home to the formation of new stars, as well as several other interesting phenomena such as Bok globules, and the hourglass nebula. It is these regions of the nebula that make it a continuous area of interest and study for astronomers.
ABSTRACT: Chloroplasts carry out photosynthetic processes to meet the metabolic demands of plant cells (Alberts, 2008). They consist of an inner thylakoid membrane and a stroma. (Parent et. al, 2008).In this experiment we demonstrate the unique protein compositions of isolated thylakoid and stromal fractions from broken and whole spinach chloroplasts. Because these compartments carry out different metabolic processes, we confirm our hypothesis that performing SDS-PAGE on these fractions will result in distinct patterns on the gels. In isolating and analyzing nucleic acid from broken, whole, and crude chloroplast samples we demonstrate that genes for photosynthetic protein psbA are found in chloroplast DNA, while genes for photosynthetic enzyme
Scorpaenidae are mostly marine fish,very few found in fresh and brackish water. The family have around around 45 different genera and 380 different species. They are mostly found in the India Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Most of them lives in coral, tropical reefs and shallow waters, warmer areas. Not all of the family fish lives in the shallow water, small portion of the Scorpaenidae live deep as around 7,000 feet. Just like most of the coral reef fish are, Scorpaenidae have camouflaged body. Their characteristic reflects their name, they have sharp spine that can sting other organisms. Their spine are covered with venomous mucus just like how some other kind of fish are covered with the venomous mucus. Their body are covered with scales. Generally speaking, the Scorpaenidae family fish have different number of spines over the course of the body. Most known type pf Scorpaenidae are lionfish and scorpionfish. Lionfish have preorbital bone with 3 spines, spines and third below the diagonal; , big mouth, end position, oblique fissure. Mandible, vomer and jaw bone with villiform teeth group. Gill openings are wide, tetrabranchiate membranes without the isthmus, pre-opercular margin with 5 spines. Body are ctenoid scales, round head. On the side, there are about eight to nine dorsal fin, fin spines and rays of an anal fin; five to six pectoral fins, they are large, round, and are branched from the upper fin rays. There are about one to five pelvic, sub thoracic; caudal fin rounded truncate. Reef stonefish are extremely camouflaged, they could look exactly like a rock when hiding for predation. The spines of Scorpaenidae are hard and rough, some of their fin spines have poison, can cause serious pain, swells and fatal wounds. Some of ...
Tyner, Wallace. “The U.S. Ethanol and Biofuels Boom: Its Origins, Current Status, and Future Prospects.” BioScience. August 2008. Vol 58 (7):646
It is believed that the world's supply of oil will last until about 2040. If you think about it, that’s not too far in the distance future. Oil is running out fast and we need to think of an alternate energy source. When we burn oil, we release carbon dioxide into the air which causes the earth’s climate to warm; a temperature rise of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit could have serious if not devastating consequences. In the United States alone 60 percent of each person’s carbon footprint comes from the goods they buy, while the other 40 percent comes from their energy use at home, driving, and flying. That totals out to be about 10 billion tons a year. There are other energy sources but let’s think about the environmental and energy benefits of algae biofuel. Algae was first explored as a fuel alternative in 1978. Gas prices had skyrocketed, and the government was looking to help ease the crisis. The Aquatic Species Program run by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, researched high oil-output algae for biofuel. After testing 3,000 types of algae, the program concluded that the algae, if...
Sponges are naturally passive, non-aggressive creatures…for the most part. Around 20 years ago, biologists discovered an odd phenomenon named carnivorous sponges. Since then, there have only been 7 reported species of these deadly sponges found.
Intro Microplastic particles in wastewater have become a global issue that is having detrimental effects on not only the water system, but the food chain as well. Many countries have recognized these tiny plastic particles as a problem, and are in the process of banning manufacturers from producing products such as toothpastes and body cleansers that contain polyethylene microbeads. The objective of this review is to shed light on the prevalence of microbeads in our water systems; they cannot be filtered out of the water due to their small size. This in turn puts many ecosystems at risk, and could potentially be quite harmful to humans in the long run. Relevance of water quality issue This issue affects mankind, aquatic species, and the cleanliness of the water system on a large scale.
Leboffe, M. J., & Pierce, B. E. (2010). Microbiology: Laboratory Theory and Application, Third Edition 3rd Edition (3rd Ed.). Morton Publishing
Another problem with the bio-fuel is one method of growing the algae. Open pond growing is risky as the algae can easily be contaminated and the pond it is growing in has to have carbon dioxide pumped into which, if not monitored properly, could wildly throw of the ecosystem there killing many of the inhabitants. As well as how much maintenance and care must be taken so that the algae can grow at the best rate. But bio-fuel labs have found a way around this by using closed bioreactor systems as to not risk causing any harm to the environment and to have much more control over the algae its self. But until more of the large fuel companies decide to research and develop this product, we will just have to be content on reading any new developments that occur.
Planet earth has an amazing range of diversity among the living thing and the habits they live have caused species to evolve and adapted to their environments. A minuscule amount of this diversity will be explored by taking a closer look at Thaumoctopus mimicus, the mimic octopus, and Amorphophallus titanum, the titan arum.
Microbes are microscopic life forms, usually too small to be seen by the naked eye. Although many microbes are single-celled, there are also numerous multi-cellular organisms. The human body has 10-100 trillion microbes living on it, making it one giant super-organism. Since the first link between microbes and diseases was made, people have been advised to wash their hands. Scientists, however, have recently started to investigate more closely how the microbes that call the human body home affect our health. While some microbes cause disease, others are more beneficial, working with our bodies in many subtle ways.
As a young child, I always wanted to be royalty. I dressed up as a princess for Halloween, I read hundreds of books on the Medieval times and the Elizabethan age, and I even tried stealing our house from my parents to turn into my own personal queendom. Despite all that hard work and hope, I was still just an ordinary American kid, without any chance of securing an apartment for myself, much less a queendom. Or so I thought until I read the book Do Not Open, by John Farndon over the summer before sixth grade.
Plankton are marine microorganisms that live in various aquatic environments. The term “plankton” may include organisms such as protists, bacteria, as well as small plants and animals. Plankton move by drifting through water; they are also are photosynthetic organisms, meaning they absorb sunlight in order to obtain energy. According to NOAA, “Most phytoplankton are buoyant and float in the upper part of the ocean, where sunlight penetrates the water. Phytoplankton also require inorganic nutrients such as nitrates, phosphates, and sulfur which they convert into proteins, fats, and carbohydrates” (NOAA, 2009).
Plankton biodiversity has fascinated ecologists for the past few decades. It has become a major topic of research in plankton ecology since many aquatic creatures rely on it. Although principle of competitive exclusion tells us that the number of surviving species cannot exceed the number of limiting resources at equilibrium, still many species coexist for limited number of resources. Also, in the famous paper “The paradox of plankton”, Hutchinson (1961) first posed the classical problem “... how it is possible for a number of species to coexist in a relatively isotropic or unstructured environment all competing for the same sorts of materials”. However, it has been suggested that in isotropic environment non-equilibrium dynamics driven by several