Water Temperatures

The temperatures of North Atlantic water flowing into the Arctic Ocean adjacent to Greenland. They are related to the amplification of global warming in the Arctic. We believe that the rapid warming of the Arctic and recent decrease in the Arctic sea ice extent are tied to the enhanced heat transfer from the North Atlantic Ocean. We can change this!

Ultragreen NASA Research Center

NASA is building an ultragreen research center designed to produce more energy then it uses! It is said to be one of the greenest federal government buildings ever built. It is going to have ceiling panels that cool the air, windows and shades that open automatically, and a constant LCD display of energy use along with many other cool new energy saving techniques. It also has a forward osmosis system that treats greywater, and it reuses it to flush toilets and urinals. This new facility will lower taxes and help the environment! What an awesome deal! Its Revit system allows architects to model designs for maximum performance so they know the impact of every change, such as the amount of daylight available if they rotate the building 10 degrees. The building will use 75% less energy and 90% less potable water than regular code=built structures. Computers will open windows at night to let in the cool air and close them during the day. Software will monitor the temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and light and noise levels.

This new establishment is said the be one of the most "greenest" buildings ever built. I think it was very cool what they are doing, maybe this will inspire other major corporations to follow in NASA's footsteps and go green also! If everyone could think of ways like this to conserve our natural resources then we might be on track to turning around our future.

Misson Ultragreen!

NASA has modified their base in Moffett Field, California to be as green as possible. This new green building contains ceiling panels that cool the air, window shades that open automatically and a constant LCD display of energy use!The NASA Sustainability Base was made to produce more energy than it needs, this way it isn't costing us money or extra energy and its helping. Obama himself had solar panels installed in the white house, this making federal buildings more energy efficient. Also Since the federal government is one of the biggest energy consumers, lowering the utility bill by using the solar panels NASA has used, will benefit taxpayers money and even better, help the environment. You ask why now? Why not sooner had this been done? Sofware. NASA's sustinablility Base wouldn't hve been possible with out our latest sofware. This 50,000 foot squared building cost 23 million dollars to build. Although the building will use 75% less energy than what a normally building would use. 90% less of potable water will be used than normal buildings. After what is called a solid oxide fuel is added to the solar panels and wind turbine, it is then when the Base is expected to produce a noraml flow of power.

Whos going green.. Ultragreen?

NASA is planning on designed to produce more energy then its uses at the sustainability base, this is federal governments greenest buildings, president Obama is planning on reinstalling solar panels on the white house this spring, lowering utility bills will save taxpayers money and save the environment. LEED standing for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, by requiring projects meet the LEED’s second highest, or gold standard. Veterans Affairs are working to install solar panels at facilities nationwide, with going to the sunny areas that will produce up to 100% of their electricity. 23 million, 50,000 square-foot NASA showpiece will use 75% less energy and 90% less water then regular code-built structures. Use 100 wells, each 140 feet deep, run water through copper tubes in ceiling panels, the water will stay at 58 degrees, this will make the cool air fall into the work space below, open the windows at night and close them during the day. Artificial light will be needed 40 day each year, they will benefit from daylight pouring in from floor and ceiling windows and the second floor the skylights.

NASA goes greenER!!!

NASA is currently making a green building. It is a smart building that identifies things.  The building uses the basics of physics and enginneering. It is listed to be on the LEED for its enviromental safety of the building. Leed is Leadership in Energy and Enviromental Design. This project should come out very well, It should help our planet by a major proportion if more and more building begin to come this way. Although the cost is high, the building is for business, not for living, so it can and should be proportionally smaller. This building is a major step in the future if the building comes to work. This project is a major step in the future.

NASA new "green" research center

NASA has been working on a new research center in Moffett Field, CA. They are using a software that is going to tell how must energy is being used in the center. They are also using solar panels, forward-osmosis system, and more to help the Earth. NASA is calling this the "latest misson on Earth".

To Green and beyond

NASA is known for being a leader in technology; well they just upped the ante with their new research center. The building got LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) highest standard possibly, Platinum. The design of the building is also more efficient because of the software that was used to design it. The architect could see how the environment would react to the building being rotated ten degrees. It also features a system of pipes going through the ceiling of the building that carries the water for the building that also cools the building. It will also use the used shower water for toilets, making it less wasteful then just using from a different source. It will only need forty days on the grid to fuel it; this will be days that the weather will interfere. This could be used in schools and other building that has a lot of people to cut cost and better the people in them.

Better fuels? Inside a cow?

Researchers looking at many different was for more affordable and environmentally sustainable bio-fuels, then using simple sugars in food crops such as corn, beets or sugar cane, they are looking for better ways to convert leaves and stems of grasses or woody plants to liquid fuel. Researchers are cutting holes into cow’s stomachs and placing a bag of grass such as switch-grass and alfalfa, to try and collect microbe’s enzymes that break down plants, breaking down plant matter and making it into energy, to us this would be like a catheter. The digestive system in the cow is allowing it to eat more than 150 pounds of plant matter every day such as milled switch-grass and alfalfa, into a permanent, surgically installed portal in the cow’s stomachs and examined the microbes that adhered to each plant type after two or three days. Microbes in the stomachs are sooner or later breaking down both types of plant matter, with different groups of microbes attacking the plant types, researchers are on to switchgrass a promising bio-fuel crop, the cows stomach is one of the best microbial habitats to explore this on the plant-degrading enzymes.

Inside a cow's stomach

Some researchers may have found a new way to make biofuel and it comes from a cow’s rumen. A cow’s first stomach that’s main use is for plant digestion. The way they’re doing this is by putting mesh bags of switchgrass in a cow’s stomach though a cannula. A cannula is a porthole like thing that lets someone look in side an animal’s stomach. The researchers believe that some of a cow’s stomach enzymes may help make less expensive bio-fuels.

Cows and Enzymes for Better Biofuels

I believe that this idea will work. They are artifically making better enzymes for biofuels.  We are using the cow rumens to make energy into biofuels. Microbes make the breakdown of the plant easier.  This should help to our growning problem of non-renewable resources. This is also very easily made into fuels. They can use the swithgrass and harvest and extract the sugars and make ethonal. Although it has to be broken down, this is one way of how to do it.

Cow Rumen Enzymes for better biofuels

Scientists placed mesh bags of switchgrass in the cow rumen to isolate those microbes that adhere to the grass and the microbial enzymes that help break down plant biomass. This effort yielded dozens of new candidate enzymes for biofuel production. When it comes to breaking down plant matter and converting it to energy, the cow has it all figured out. It's digestive system allows it to eat more than 150 pounds of plant matter every day.

cow rumen enzymes for better biofuels

this seems like a good idea, but i think that it would cost a bunch of money because there is millions of cattle around our part of the country. in kansas alone there are about 4-5 million cows, with a large growth rate. the new grass which is easily harvested, the cows can digest them better and break down the sugars more. but i also think that today as a son of a fellow rancher our cattle our doing very well for the harsh winter we are having. and we have only had problems with the cattle as they come off the trucks and are already very sick, actually too sick for our medicine to help them.

Cow Rumen

I think it is a good idea to try and find what bacteria are in the poop. It might be affecting the animals by putting one of the devices into them. But if we can learn stuff from it and it can help us in the long run then its a good thing.

Cow Rumen For Better Biofuels

Scientist put what they call "Mesh Bags" of switch grass in Cow Rumen. To better understand what I'm going to be talking about you should know what cow Rumen is, it is a large fermentation barrel where bacteria break down roughages (food) to hold the nutrients for their use. They did this to separate the microbes that are attached to the enzymes, which help break down plant bio-mass. Cows are basically experts at breaking down plants, and turning it into energy. Cows eat over 150 pounds of plants everyday, but because of their digest system its okay to do this. Scientist have figured out cows have dozens of microbe enzymes in their digestion chamber, that also help breakdown food. The reason being the grass is switch grass and not just any old grass is because switch grass has a sugar in it. And if we could replace the sugar with the sugar in the grass and not depend on crops we'd be better off. Another reason this is good is because grass is very sustainable, so if we used switch grass then it'd last longer and go a lot more ways. Also If the scientist figure out a way to break down cellulose from the switch grass then we could make ethanol from the sugars in the switch grass.

Cows are the key for new biofuels

Science professors are using a cow with cannula ( a prement, surgically installed portal) to see what microbes breakdown plant matter. The have found that different micribes attack the plants to break it down. This cause the professors to try and map the microbes in the cow's rumen ( the main main grass-digestion chamber). After they got the map they started to take some DNA of the microbes. With these new developments we might have a chapper source of fuel that is greener too.

Cow Rumen Enzymes for Better Biofuels

The article I just read was about finding ways to break down plant biomass in the cows Rumen. I didnt' really understand some of the article because it was all science talk but what I did understand was that they put bags of switchgrass in the cows rumen to break down the plant biomass and convert it into energy. The cows digestive system allows it to eat 150 pounds of plant matter every day. This tackles a major barrier to the development of more affordable and environmentally sustainable biofuels. The new way of converting the leaves and stems of grasses or woody plants to liquid fuel is more efficient than relying on fermentation. They say this process is not an easy one though, "The problem with second-generation biofuels is the problem of unlocking the soluble fermentable sugars that are in plant cell wall." said professor Roderick Mackie. Researchers focused on switchgrass for this study, they incubated the grass for 72 hours and conducted a geonmic analysis of all of the microbes that adhered to the switchgrass. These results suggest that the bovine rumen is one of the best microbial habitats to explore for sources of plant- degrading enzymes, the researchers reported. I think that this new discovery is pretty cool, it helps the cows help us make ethanol. This new way of producing ethanol is more efficient than fermentation.