MicrobeWorld

www.myspace.com/microbeworld

This week's episode of Mundio de los Microbios is muy bien!Mood: hungry hungryPosted at 3:12 PM Dec 17 view more

  • MicrobeWorld

  • 102 / Male
  • WASHINGTON, Washington DC, US
  • Last Login: 12/21/2009

159324927|102|11110|http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/87/m_6bf38df9d7664ef79a01fbfbe9b5d95c.png

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Interests

  • General

    Microbiology, Virology, Immunology, Science, Bioremediation, Energy, Biofuel, Ethanol, ASM, Environment, Wastewater Treatment, Electricity, Technology, Biotechnology, Oceanography, Education, Evolution
  • Music

    Jonathan Coulton, Carl Winters
  • Movies

    Intimate Strangers: Unseen Life on Earth, Outbreak, The Blob, Twelve Monkeys, An Inconvenient Truth
  • Television

    MicrobeWorld Video, Star Trek (all of them), Law and Order (all of them), CSI - Las Vegas, CSI - Miami, Mythbusters, Iron Chef, Alton Brown
  • Books

    Microbe, Food Safety: Old Habits, New Perspectives, Antisepsis, Disinfection, and Sterilization: Types, Action, and Resistance, Archaea: Molecular and Cellular Biology, Manual of Clinical Microbiology, HIV and the Pathogenesis of AIDS, The Invisible ABCs, A Chronology of Microbiology in Historical Context, Many Faces - Many Microbes: Personal Reflections in Microbiology
  • Heroes

    Antony Leeuwenhoek, Edward Jenner, Carl Woese, Joseph Lister, Norm Pace, Robert Koch, Hazel Barton, Louis Pasteur, Ignaz Semmelweis, Paul Ehrlich, R.J. Petri, Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovski, Walter Reed, Martinus Beijerinck, Hieronymus Fracastorius, Agostino Bassi de Lodi, Moselio Schaechter

Details

  • Status: Swinger
  • Here for: Networking, Dating, Serious Relationships, Friends
  • Hometown: Biofilm
  • Orientation: Not Sure
  • Body type: Body builder
  • Ethnicity: Other
  • Religion: Other
  • Zodiac Sign: Aries
  • Children: Proud parent
  • Occupation: Nitrogen Fixer

Companies

  • American Society for Microbiology

    • Washington, DC US

Activity Stream

Blurbs

About me:

MicrobeWorld is a family of programs that includes a video podcast by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) highlighting the latest in microbiology, life science, and related topics. In addition, MicrobeWorld has several podcasts; Meet the Scientist, This Week In Virology and Mundio de los Microbios. ASM is composed of over 42,000 scientists and health professionals with the mission to advance the microbial sciences as a vehicle for understanding life processes and to apply and communicate this knowledge for the improvement of health and environmental and economic well-being worldwide. For more information about microbes, videos, news and resources visit us online at www.microbeworld.org. In the meantime, join our virtual biofilm by quorum sensing with us (a.k.a. "Add to Friends.")

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MicrobeWorld News




MicrobeWorld Video Episode 30 - Biofuels in Puerto Rico


 


Puerto Rico is widely known as the "La Isla del Encanto," which translated means "The Island of Enchantment." And while its beaches, tropical rain forest, and biolumescent bays are wonders of nature, the island is not without its problems. From energy needs to economics, Puerto Rico shares many issues facing the rest of the world.


In this MicrobeWorld Video episode we talk with Nadathur S. Govind, Ph.D., Professor, Marine Sciences Department at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, and William Rosado, Marine Sciences Department at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, about the sustainable biofuel program they are launching in southwestern Puerto Rico.

According to Govind, the island's successful sugarcane industry died in the 1990's. In fact, local rum manufacturers now import their molasses from as far away as Malaysia. As a result, approximately 70 percent of the population in southwestern Puerto Rico is on welfare.


Govind believes he can rebuild the local economy by harnessing bacterial enzymes extracted from the guts of termites and shipworms (mollusks) found in the mangroves off the coast to break down the lignocellulose in sugarcane and hibiscus. The idea is that if he can bring agricultural production back to his community, he can use the crop waste to produce ethanol to supplement Puerto Rico's demand for fuel. And since the byproduct of ethanol is carbon dioxide, he also plans to use algae to capture the gas and produce biodiesel. The waste that he has left over can then be returned to the soil as fertilizer or given to livestock as feed, completing the cycle.


For more information about Govind's program please read the article, "Combining Agriculture with Microbial Genomics to Make Fuels", found in the American Society for Microbiology's Microbe magazine.

Please feel free to embed or distribute this video.

Who I'd like to meet:

Microbiologists, scientists, researchers, students, geeks and anyone interested in science.

Microbe Links

Small Things Considered - Science blog by Moselio Schaechter
Adopt-a-Microbe - An amusing blog about bugs
Microbiology Bytes - Another microbial related podcast from the UK
MicrobeWiki - Exactly what it says

Comments

Displaying 25 of 76 comments
  • Dec 10 2009 3:13 PM

    time ago i was reading about those 'metal-eating' bacteria that belong to the Geobacter genus... the little guys in the pic are eating uranium waste.

    i think i'd risk an indigestion...
  • Dec 10 2009 3:13 PM

    amoebae!



  • Dec 9 2009 9:19 PM

    do you know Microbial art? http://www.microbialart.com/

    this site is a "collection of unique artworks created using living bacteria, fungi, and protists."

    here are some of my favourite works:


    The first four petri dishes (by Niall Hamilton) are fungi and bacteria on agar.
    The others (by Eshel Ben-Jacob) are "part of a series of remarkable patterns that bacteria form when grown in a petri dish. The colors and shading are artistic additions, but the image templates are actual colonies of tens of billions of individual microorganisms. The colony structures form as adaptive responses to laboratory-imposed stresses that mimic hostile environments faced in nature."

    more artists and galleries at http://www.microbialart.com/
  • Nov 16 2009 3:00 AM

    hey, cool page thanks for creating it/ maintaining it!
  • Sep 3 2009 1:26 PM

    seriously though,  cool page :)
  • Aug 11 2009 3:17 PM

    yo i wanna give a shou tout to my homeboyz Serratia Marcescens spp. and Azetobacter Vinlandii spp.  keep holdin your hood down and represent your side mah thug bitch bacteria!
  • Aug 5 2009 3:24 PM

    Hey guys! Good news -- I finally defended my thesis and am now officially a Dr. Valerie :) Keep on spreading the microbe love!!
  • Nov 25 2008 9:11 AM

    do you like protists too? i do.









  • Nov 11 2008 11:13 AM

    Hi,

    Do you have a reference for the work done on probiotics inhibiting shiga-toxin production that was mentioned in the recent episode or has it not been published yet? My research is in the area of probiotics, haven't heard about this trait until now, very interesting!

    Thanks,
    Karen
  • Oct 1 2008 9:11 PM

    Glad to enroll this world!

    Best wishes for Microbe-team!
  • Sep 20 2008 4:27 AM

    Interesting post on bats/rabies.
    In belem i've seen bat bites.
    they aren't like on tv. the bats
    get you while you sleep biting
    tiny pools on your fingertips and
    toes which they lap up. they sometimes come so many times the
    people can become anemic.
    jojo
  • Sep 3 2008 4:35 PM

    Photobucket
    Just peeking in to say, "Hello."
    jojo
  • Aug 23 2008 5:55 PM

    Thanks for kindly supporting SCIENTISTS and thinking musicians such as LEAD GUITARISTS,

    Charles Michael Collins
  • Jul 9 2008 7:58 AM

    Science has no fatherland, for human knowledge covers entire world.
    Ludwik Pasteur

    Hi!
    Thanks for the add.
    Greetings from Warsaw!
  • Jul 4 2008 1:46 PM

    Hey guys! Long time no see! I hope you had a blast in Boston, I wanted to go SOOOOOOO badly, I had such an amazing time last year and Boston is such a lovely city! But I was 8 months pregnant at the time, and it's probably a good thing I didn't go because the baby decided to come early :) I wish I had scooped up that "future microbiologist" shirt last year LOL Other than that, I'm *almost* done the PhD, just have to finish writing the thesis and defend it. After that I want to do some teaching before starting the PDF full time, still no idea what I'll do but I think I'm going to go back to bacteriology; ♥ bacteria more than viruses. I hope I can come to ASM 109th next year, I might be able to get some funding before my scholarship is done, and it would be awesome to go to Philly, there are definitely some things I'd like to do there!
    Take care and all the best!
    Valerie
  • Jun 6 2008 2:33 PM

    Photobucket
    If only man were as smart as dumb
    bacteria and virus, we would know
    the secret of cell membrane invasion.
    Have a great weekend.jooooojo.
    ;)
  • May 21 2008 4:45 PM

    yes, i'm a huge fan, thank you for the req! :-)
    MySpace Codes..
  • Apr 29 2008 12:01 AM

    Hope to see u in person very soon, guys!

    All the best for u!
  • Jan 30 2008 4:33 PM

  • Feb 1 2008 7:45 PM

    I think I have bugs crawling all over me. Baby Teeth XOXO
  • Jan 27 2008 3:59 AM

    Hey, mate! Love your blogs... Keep on searching!
  • Dec 15 2007 12:18 AM

    Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
  • Nov 7 2007 9:35 PM

    wooo!
  • Oct 22 2007 3:23 PM

    Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
  • Oct 8 2007 7:54 PM

    Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

    Thanks for your comment! I'm glad that there is such an interest in the microbe world videos and that I was able to be a part of them!

    GAH I am on ASMs mailing list now and they had to go and send me their fall catalogue.... so I was browsing and decided to do a little pre-Christmas shopping for myself.... I can resist anything except temptation... so I went ahead and ordered another book... Irwin Sherman has a follow up to The Power of Plagues, so I had to check it out... so within 5-10 business days I should be reading it!

    Take care, I hope all is well with you!!

    Valerie