COVID-19: Disposed PPE could be turned into biofuel, say Indian scientists

AUG 04, 2020 DEHRADUN: Indian scientists have suggested a method to convert the plastic used in personal protective equipment (PPE) into renewable liquid fuels, an advance that could help mitigate the problem of dumped PPE, currently being disposed of at unprecedented levels due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the study, published in the journal Biofuels, billions of items of disposable PPE can be converted from its plastic state into biofuels using a high-temperature chemical process called pyrolysis. Sapna Jain, lead author of the study from The University of Petroleum and Energy Studies in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, noted in a statement that the transformation into biocrude -- a type of synthetic fuel -- "will not just prevent the severe after-effects to humankind and the environment but also produce a source of energy". "Presently, the world is focusing to combat COVID-19, however, we can foresee the issues of economic crisis and ecological imbalance also. We have to prepare ourselves to meet the challenges which are forcefully imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, so as to maintain sustainability," Jain said. She said the disposal of PPE is a concern owing to its material -- non-woven polypropylene (plastic) -- adding that these are being designed for single use followed by disposal. According to the researchers, when these plastic materials are discharged into the environment they end up in landfill or oceans, as their natural degradation is difficult at ambient temperature. "They need decades to decompose. Recycling these polymers requires both physical methods and chemical methods," Jain said. She said the proposed strategy is a suggestive measure addressing the anticipated problem of disposal of PPE. In the study, the scientists explored the current policies around the disposal of PPEs, their polypropylene content, and the feasibility of converting them into biofuel. They focused on the structure of polypropylene, its suitability for PPE, why it poses an environmental threat, and methods of recycling the plastic material. Based on their analysis, the scientists call for the PPE waste to be converted into fuel using pyrolysis -- a chemical process for breaking down plastic at high temperature between 300 to 400 degree Celsius for an hour without oxygen. "Pyrolysis is the most commonly used chemical method whose benefits include the ability to produce high quantities of bio-oil which is easily biodegradable," study co-author Bhawna Yadav Lamba said. "There is always a need for alternative fuels or energy resources to meet our energy demands. The pyrolysis of plastics is one of the methods to mitigate our energy crisis," Lamba added. She said the challenges of PPE waste management and increasing energy demand could be addressed simultaneously by the production of liquid fuel from PPE kits. "The liquid fuel produced from plastics is clean and has fuel properties similar to fossil fuels," Lamba said. Copyright © Jammu Links News Source: Jammu Links News

Read More........→August 05, 2020

High-Speed Imaging Method Captures Entire Brain Activity

Credit: Research Institute Of Molecular Pathology

The team used the new system to simultaneously image the activity of every neuron in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, as well as the entire brain of a zebrafish larva, offering a more complete picture of nervous system activity than has been previously possible. Head region and the majority of the brain of a zebrafish larvae, as recorded and reconstructed using the light-field microscope “The new method is an indispensible tool to understand how the brain represents and processes sensory information and how this leads to cognitive functions and behaviour,” says physicist Alipasha Vaziri, a joint group leader at the IMP and MFPL and head of the research platform „Quantum Phenomena & Nanoscale Biological Systems“ (QuNaBioS) of the University of Vienna, who led the project. “Because of the enormous density of the interconnection of nerve cells in the brain, relevant information is often encoded in states of this densely interconnected network of neurons rather than in the activity of individual neurons.”  Vaziri’s team developed the brain-mapping method together with researchers in the lab of Edward Boyden, an associate professor of biological engineering and brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. High-speed functional 3-D imaging: Neurons encode information - sensory data, motor plans, emotional states, and thoughts - using electrical impulses called action potentials, which provoke calcium ions to stream into each cell as it fires. By engineering model organisms that carry fluorescent proteins which glow when they bind calcium, scientists can visualize this electrical firing of neurons in live animals. However, until now there has been no way to image this neural activity over a large volume, in three dimensions, and at high speed. Scanning the brain with a laser beam can produce 3-D images of neural activity, but it takes a long time to capture an image because each point must be scanned individually. The research-team wanted to achieve similar 3-D functional images but accelerate the process so they could see neuronal firing, which takes only milliseconds, as it occurs.
The new method is based on a technology known as light-field imaging, which creates 3-D images by capturing angular information of incoming rays of light. In the new paper, the researchers in Vienna and Cambridge built a light-field microscope which was optimized to have single neuron resolution and applied it, for the first time, to imaging of neural activity. With this kind of microscope, the light emitted by the sample is sent through an array of lenses that refracts the light in different directions. Each point of the sample generates about 400 different points of light, which can then be recombined using a computer algorithm to recreate 3-D structures. “Compared to existing methods, our new technology allows us to capture neuronal activity in volumes up to a thousand times larger at ten times higher speed”, says Robert Prevedel, a postdoc in the Vaziri Lab and first author of the paper. ”We have eliminated the need to scan multiple layers, thus the temporal resolution is only limited by the camera sensor and the properties of the molecules themselves.” Prevedel built the microscope at the IMP in Vienna. Young-Gyu Yoon, a graduate student at MIT and co-first author, devised the computational strategies that reconstruct the 3-D images. Neurons in action: The researchers used the technique to image neural activity in the worm C. elegans, the only organism for which the entire neural wiring diagram is known. This one-millimeter worm has 302 neurons, each of which the researchers imaged as the worm performed natural behaviors, such as crawling. To demonstrate the power of the new technology in higher organisms, they also studied larvae of zebrafish. Their nervous system consists of over 100 000 neurons that fire at a much faster rate, rather like humans. In the tiny larvae, the scientists were able to induce neuronal response to odor stimuli in around 500 neurons and track the nerve signals simultaneously in about 5000 activated neurons. The findings could be ultimately useful in developing new types of algorithms that simulate functions of the brain and predict behaviour. Such models are in high demand in the area of machine learning and object recognition and classification. The work in Vienna was funded by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), the Research Platform Quantum Phenomena and Nanoscale Biological Systems (QuNaBioS), the Human Frontiers Science Program, the European Commission, the VIPS Program of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research,the City of Vienna, and the Vienna Scientific Cluster (VSC).The IMP is funded by Boehringer Ingelheim. Contacts and sources: Research Institute Of Molecular Pathology, Citation: Prevedel R, Yoon Y-G, Hoffmann M, Pak N, Wetzstein G, Kato S, Schrödel T, Raskar R, Zimmer M, Boyden ES und Vaziri A. Simultaneous whole-animal 3D-imaging of neuronal activity using light-field microscopy. Nature Methods Advance Online Publication, 18 March, 2014. DOI 10.1038/nmeth.2964.High-Speed Imaging Method Captures Entire Brain Activity

Read More........→May 19, 2014

UFO, Humanity & time travel are the signage of positive index

Concerning about Unidentified flying objects (UFO’S) are only relate to the calculation of their positive ability index. As Positive means development and negative means demolishment, and time is the biggest terms move along with population and its exploration with respect to various field of doing. Productivity is the goal to achieve to move along with time or beyond time. It’s called moving in time frame or doing a rate of time travel. With Respect to earth as model humanity is a very big term of time as it's being with pure value of development with coordination.

As Human has a brain of vision and program with feel and curiosity which are the nucleus of human so we can say so as human we are on earth for managing the earth resources along with its proper utilization and distributions among each as with nature.

So legality is the biggest term of humanity. As it’s manage human in right direction and reduce the rate of resistance among the various field of exploration and their proper integration.

As its being with a rate of positive ability index which is defined the rate of development and human movements on earth as well all across the planetary system.

As it’s a simple formulation of humanity on earth which moves with positive frame of time with the enhancement of its population which is bounded by legal frame work for the positive directions of mass of the people on earth which provides earth explorations and its massive integration provide a rate of productivity which is the sign to do time travel or move beyond time. So acceptance of legal data, terms provides nonstop improvements in the exploration of earth which is a nonstop process runs in infinite terms.

Positive Ability Index of humans mean variable less doings of humans or any species all across the planetary system and as time progresses we use to find the springs of liberty to move far ahead on earth as well in outer space as like UFO’S (advance species with a level of advancement to move on earth or all across the planetary system)

So thinking about UFO’S (Aliens) are as demon is just a myth of imagination if they are not being with positive ability index then their movement in time and advancement is not possible.

So world must need to save itself from any kinds of war, negativity as humanity got current time after the thousands of years of hardship of generations and era of incarnations and once any strong negativity comes then humanity will run in backward of time frame.

So positivism provides explorations with term of infinity and its integration produce a real process of time travel which applicable on universe’s including earth as whole. Positivism is subject to divine and negativity is subject to demon both has time travel on upwards and second downwards. Image Pixabay License, Free for commercial use, No attribution required

Read More........→September 16, 2022