High Voltage

Shocking from Craig de Pfyffer on Vimeo.

Monterey Cypress

Note the lack of a protection fence around the tree.

ZeeWeed 1500

GE Expands its Capabilities to Meet Global Water Challenges, Introducing the ZeeWeed* 1500 Pressurized Membrane System TREVOSE, PA.—March 16, 2009— Building on more than 20 years of experience with ultrafiltration (UF) membrane technology, GE Water, a business unit of GE Energy, is expanding its family of ZeeWeed UF products with the introduction of the ZeeWeed 1500. The new pressurized ZeeWeed 1500 module offers cost-effective, skid-mounted solutions that can be rapidly installed for water treatment, tertiary filtration and pretreatment for brackish and seawater desalination. It is available for small- and medium-sized packaged and custom designs for municipal and industrial plants and joins GE’s growing portfolio of products designed to tackle global water challenges. “The evolution of the ZeeWeed 1500 leverages decades of UF membrane experience earned at some of the world’s most demanding water and wastewater applications,” said Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO, GE Water. “The addition of a new pressurized membrane expands the versatility of our portfolio and provides our clients with a broader choice of robust, cost-effective products to help achieve their treatment needs.” Key features of the ZeeWeed 1500 include: Low-fouling PVDF membrane chemistry offering lower frequency and less aggressive cleaning; Outside-in filtration process providing uniform flow distribution and solids loading with no blocked fibers; Ultrafiltration barrier to produce high quality effluent that meets the toughest treatment requirements; Lower chemical usage over comparable systems ; Compact module and simple rack design, with on-rack inspection capability; Ability to retrofit other outside-in UF and MF systems. Delivering on ecomagination ge 2006... report,wheretheycandownloadthe fullreport. Clean energy and water all-in-one Today, more than one billion people around the world lack access to safe water sources. To address this issue, GE researchers are engaged in a project with Texas Tech University, a world-recognized research center for wind-water integration and application, to develop affordable water desalination systems that increase the quantity and quality of clean water available in arid areas around the United States and globally. The partnership focuses on the integration of renewable-energy systems, such as wind turbines, with membrane desalination processes. The development of the integrated renewable energy-water system has the potential to significantly reduce the cost of creating new sources of fresh water from impaired resources, such as brackish water, by directly addressing the major component of operating cost of desalination systems — energy.

FERC Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Preliminary permitting process.

Surfrider-Ocean Amps

"Surf, Baby Surf!"



http://nottheanswer.org/

Phoenix canariensis

IMGP0458, originally uploaded by Environmental Designs.

Canary Island Date Palm at Rockpile, Laguna Beach

Monterey Cypress

IMGP2028, originally uploaded by Environmental Designs.
This is a picture of an old Monterey Cypress, Cupressus macrocarpa. I took this photo during sunset, the tree has recently died.

Cycas revoluta 2007- 033

Cycas revoluta 2007- 033, originally uploaded by Environmental Designs.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

History post

Food Fray

Arabidopsis thaliana

Arabidopsis thaliana

Arabidopsis thaliana (A-ra-bi-dóp-sis tha-li-á-na; thale cress, mouse-ear cress or Arabidopsis), is a small flowering plant native to Europe, Asia, and northwestern Africa.^[1] A spring annual with a relatively short life cycle, Arabidopsis is popular as a model organism in plant biology and genetics. Its genome is one of the smallest plant genomes and was the first plant genome to be sequenced. Arabidopsis is a popular tool for understanding the molecular biology of many plant traits, including flower development and light sensing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabidopsis_thaliana

Plastic producing plants

Plastic-Producing Plants: The cash crop of the future

November, 2000: Stanford, California

From water bottles to artificial heart valves, plastics are essential to our everyday lives. Plastics are synthetic resins made of large, organic polymers refined from valuable natural fossil fuels (oil, coal, petroleum, or natural gas). Normally, plastics take years to degrade and are a major component of landfill and waste areas. However, Dr. Chris Somerville, director of the Carnegie Institute of Washington’s Department of Plant Biology, and other institute scientists have discovered a method for engineering plants to make plastic that would biodegrade more easily–and not use up natural resources in the production process.

http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/botany/botany_map/articles/article_28.html

Recombinant bacteria and plasmid isolation. (From Stern, Introductory Plant Biology, 8th ed., © 2000, McGraw-Hill Companies.)

Futures in Biotech - Genetically Modified Food

Running time...: 48:04

Download MP3 file

February 24th, 2009

Futures in Biotech 39: Food, Genetically Modified

Hosts: Marc Pelletier

Dr. Lisa Weasel discusses the controversies surrounding genetically-modified foods.

Guest: Dr. Lisa Weasel, associate professor of biology at Portland State University in Oregon, a member of Governor Ted Kulongoski's task force on developing public policy for bio-pharmaceutical crops in Oregon, and author of Food Fray: Inside the Controversy over Genetically Modified Foods.

Why isn't there a wide consumer acceptance of genetically modified (GM) foods? If we can design crops that reduce pesticides, grow more effectively in poor soil, bring nutrients such as vitamins A to populations with high incidences of blindness, or even just taste better, why are we hesitating?

GM foods - food fray

the author

Lisa H. Weasel received an A.B. magna cum laude in Biology from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests are centered on ethics and equity issues relating to the life sciences. Dr. Weasel is currently an Associate Professor of Biology at Portland State University in Oregon.
Click here to visit the author's home page.