Irandaily | No. 4416 | Science

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RIPI Sets Up Microbial Biotechnology Bank

Director of the microbiology and biotechnology department at the Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) announced that the institute has set up a specialized bank for preserving microbes related to oil biotechnology.
Speaking to Shana, Qasemali Mohebali said the bank had gathered approximately 400 various types of microbes, and mentioned that except for a few number of them which have been bought from other biotechnology banks, most of the microbes have been picked up from oil fields and oil regions in Iran, Fars News Agency reported.
Referring to microbiology as the basis of oil biotechnology, Mohebali said: Since microbes have both negative and positive functions, RIPI plans to take advantage of their positive activities and at the same time to control their negative impacts in oil industry.
Among the negative specifications of microbes, we can refer to corrosion in oil facilities, forming sludge in industrial waters and pollution in fuels used by airplanes, Mohebali said.
He added that another reason for preserving the microbes is using them in enhancing oil recovery projects expressing hope Academic Enhancing Recovery Consortium or any other company involved in enhancing recovery projects to benefit from capabilities of the bank.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the official reported the drafting of an important biotechnological document compatible with oil industry’s criteria and standards.
He said the document includes five comprehensive programs in the field of environmental and industrial biotechnology and is concentrated on solving present problems in oil industry.
Microbial enhancing recovery, microbial treatment of industrial waters, fighting with biological corrosion and upgrading oil cuts by biocatalysts are among the defined programs of the RIPI in industrial sector while deploying biotechnology for cleaning oil contaminated areas and biological treatment of specific industrial wastewaters are related to environmental sector.
The document, which includes all the priorities, strengths and weaknesses of oil biotechnology, is in the course of final review and ratification by Oil Industry Policy Making Council, RIPI official concluded.

Plant Skyscrapers to Herald New Age of Farming

Crops could soon be grown in greenhouses the size of skyscrapers in city centers across the country, it has been claimed.
According to Daily Mail, birds Eye and other food producers are investigating building ‘plantscrapers’, which could accommodate hundreds of storeys worth of crops, in a bid to make farming more economical, sustainable and meet increasing demand.
The “vertical farms” would use an innovative feeding system which nourishes plants with enriched water, therefore cancelling out the need for soil--and the need for food to be grown and harvested in the countryside.
And because the climate inside them can be controlled, it is claimed the farms will dramatically increase crop yields because growing can occur all year round, while the plants would be under cover, so pesticides would not need to be used.
Some supermarket foods such as tomatoes and strawberries are already grown on farms using a primitive form of the so-called hydroponic system. Now there are sophisticated plantscrapers planned or under construction in Sweden, Japan, China, Singapore and Chicago in the US.
In Linkoping, Sweden, a 54-metre-high structure (just over half the height of Elizabeth Tower-- home of Big Ben--in London) is being built by Swedish firm Plantagon.
By 2014, the structure will produce a range of leafy green vegetables, including salad leaves, spinach and mustard greens.
Now Birds Eye is looking into the success of the Verticrop hydroponic system which is being used at Paignton Zoo in Devon to produce cheap vegetable crops for its animals.
There, plants sit in trays which constantly move around a glass building on a conveyor belt to ensure they get the light they need.
Birds Eye is holding talks with Alterrus, the firm behind the technology, about how to increase the scale of the system, while it runs a trial growing herbs at the site.
Other key Birds Eye crops, such as peas and spinach, will be used in trials in the near future.
Birds Eye’s head of agriculture, James Young, said, “This method enables us to grow crops indoors within a controlled environment--reducing energy usage, removing the need for pesticides and eliminating the threat of bad weather while maximizing on space.
“Although the trial is still very much in its early stages, we believe that Verticrop could have the potential to make farming more sustainable while continuing to provide consumers with the best quality produce.”
A number of other British companies are also exploring the technology, including East End Foods, which is building a vertical farm at a site in Aston Cross, Birmingham. Company chairman Tony Deep Wouhra said the system has huge advantages over conventional farming because it speeds up the growing process and saves on space.
He told The Grocer magazine, “There is not enough food in the world. Some 67 percent of agricultural land is used to produce food to rear animals and only 33 per cent for human food.
“Urban people ought to understand it is possible to grow leafy plants that are healthy in 25 days.”

Robotic Hedgehogs to Explore Martian Moons

NASA’s past few Mars rovers have been friendly robots with head-like masts and cameras for eyes, easily anthropomorphized and adored.
The next generation might be decidedly less cute--they resemble a medieval battle mace, Popsci wrote.
The Phobos Surveyor is a new concept from researchers at Stanford, MIT and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The spacecraft would visit the Martian moon Phobos, or maybe an asteroid. Then one or more mace-ball rovers would deploy from the mothership (which would stay in orbit above) and leap and tumble across the surface of the moon or asteroid. Marco Pavone, an assistant professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford, came up with the idea and nicknamed the hopping rovers “hedgehogs” (definitely a cheerier name than mace balls).
Hoppers are a favored design for future planetary explorers because they could cover much more terrain than a rover, and could easily cross canyons and other hazardous areas. With a hopper, you don’t face problems like a stuck wheel, which doomed NASA’s Spirit Mars rover. MIT and Draper Labs have a prototype moon hopper vying for the Google Lunar X Prize: The Terrestrial Lunar and Reduced Gravity Simulator, or Talaris. That one uses ducted fans and compressed nitrogen to hover and hop around.
The hedgehogs would not need much energy to hop on Phobos--the Martian moon’s gravitational field is 1,000 times weaker than that of Mars--so their inertial spinning would propel them easily. Here’s how it would work: The Phobos Surveyor, which Stanford’s news service describes as coffee-table-sized with two umbrella-shaped solar panels, would travel to Phobos and map the moon’s terrain. After a few months, it would deploy five or six hedgehogs, one at a time, each a few days apart. The spacecraft would communicate with each other to determine each hedgehog’s position, and determine where it should hop next.

Computerized Fishing Rod

Imagine that you’re an angler who has several lines in the water at once. How will you know if a fish strikes on one of your unmanned rods?
Well, you could attach a bell to each rod, or just listen for its reel to start running. In these days of electronic everything, however, another alternative is now in the works--the computerized POLETAP SMARTROD, Gizmag said.
The water-resistant rod is the creation of Kansas-based inventor Ed Hope. It works with any reel, and contains an accelerometer that detects the telltale jerk of a fish taking the lure.
Using a single-button control, users can switch between High, Medium and Low sensitivity settings. Medium and Low are intended for situations such as trolling or fishing in rain storms, in which the rod is likely to be subjected to a lot of non-fish-caused movements. Even in the High sensitivity setting, however, the rod can reportedly be carried around without accidentally going off.
When a fish strike is detected, the SMARTROD responds with an auditory alarm and flashing red LEDs--the alarm can be disabled, in order to avoid annoying one’s fellow anglers. Once the user starts reeling the line in, the fish-detecting microprocessor temporarily shuts down. This keeps the rod from flashing, shrieking and generally carrying on throughout the fish-landing process. Once the line is cast out again, however, the system is automatically re-activated.
For “slow-striking” fish that don’t yank quite so hard on the line, a tilt alarm function can also be selected. This detects any significant change in the angle of the rod, as might occur if something were slowly but surely making off with the lure--it will also let the user know if the rod has simply fallen over.
The SMARTROD requires two CR2032 lithium cell batteries, which are said to be good for one to two seasons of use (depending on how much action the rod sees). It comes in two versions--a 7-foot (2.1-meter) two-piece medium action spinning rod, and a 6.5-foot (2-meter) two-piece medium action spincast rod.

TaskOne Multipurpose iPhone Case

The smartphone is already a modern-day multi-tool, combining communications, entertainment, information access and all kinds of personalized content.
But while the smartphone can multitask in the virtual world, it can’t do quite as much back in the physical world, IdeaConnection said.
The TaskOne iPhone case changes that, giving Apple’s smartphone the functionality of an old-school Swiss Army pocket knife. Like the Morgan E Pulse, it seamlessly blends cutting edge technology with retro-inspired design.
The 3.1-ounce (89-g) TaskOne from TaskLab is similar to the ReadyCase we covered previously, but it offers more implements. The innovative case rivals an actual multi-tool in offering a portable, pocket-sized toolbox with 16 separate tools.
Its 2.5-inch (6.4-cm) knife includes both serrated and fine edges, and the opposite side has a 1.8-inch (4.6-cm) wood saw. Six metric Allen wrenches, small and large flathead screwdrivers, medium Phillips screwdriver, and pliers with an integrated multi-size wrench take care of torque-related tasks. Other tools include wire cutters, a wire stripper, a ruler and spoke wrenches. Of course, there’s also the obligatory bottle opener and kickstand.
Since the thick casing and rotating implements common on traditional multi-tools wouldn’t work that well with the thin profile of an iPhone, TaskLab seats the tools flat inside the aluminum backing of the case. Each tool is secured via a spring assembly and accessed with a button. Some of the tools automatically secure into work mode while others are removed and either secured into a separate slot or used in standalone form.
In addition to the aluminum back that holds the tools, the TaskOne has polycarbonate edge bands that secure to the sides of the phone and provide a raised bezel to protect the screen. TaskLab says that the TaskOne can be removed in seconds, so it’s easy to take off in situations where you can’t carry a knife (e.g. air travel).

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