Our understanding of algae, their unique and rich diversity, is shifting more and more towards finding industrial applications for production of useful products, in particular, food (human food, fish food and animal food), energy and farmaceutical products. There are known methods and tools to extract oil and other valuable products from algae, also to change the genetic content and chemical composition of many algae.

Many and many organizations give lots of money for research for commercialization of algae. Research takes is typical path fuelled by society needs, human hopes for prosperity and fears from environmental threats. In this amazing journey of what we are right now and where we are heading to, there are several important facts to be known, e.g. benefits and threats. There are, also, key interests in understanding the potential of artificial photosynthesis as a new path, not yet fully understood, for production of energy.

Algae are “biochemical reactors” that can recycle carbon to produce organic compounds in different forms, which indeed is the origin of all the gas and oil reservoirs around the world. Multi-hundred-million dollar industries have invested in many products, e.g. sushi wrap, oils, dental impression, ice cream thickener, cosmetics, medical products, plastics… etc. They still invest more and more money for production of energy-rich food, biofuel from algae and use of wastewater to grow algae as well as for the extraction of other useful products like coloring agents and anti-oxidant, agro-culture business for production of food in the fish and shellfish industries.

Basic research is needed, and even imperative, to solve central bottleneck in algae processing technology ranging from cultivation, harvesting, extraction of desired products, processing and refining. Micro-algae are known to grow very fast and there is commercial potential in industrial microbiology where molecular biology in combination with aquaculture and marine farming can yield hybrid and novel technologies. Unlike industrial small-scale microbial technologies, e.g. cheese, beer, alcohol that are based on “closed systems” trying to cultivate algae on large-scale, i.e. in open systems, is a great challenge. Algae are now looked upon as the most sustainable known potential source of biofuel. The challenges are transferring the many different types of small-scale bioreactors to open systems for growing algae at large scale. Up-scaling of algae-based technology leads to emergent issues that are not fully controlled, e.g. competitor algae, predators and diseases (bacteria and viruses). Up-scaling to large-scale open systems, therefore, requires solving a wide-range of difficulties and threats including those arising from varying weather conditions, e.g temperature, and much work is still needed.

Earth – the blue planet: lots of water-lots of algae-lots of oxygen. The most important and oldest single cell plants on earth “The Algae” and the very reason of our existence. These single cells carry lots of secrets and many of them are still unknown to us though they played important roles in the evolution and development of life on earth. They have micro- and nano- devices with complex molecular structures and diversity of biochemical metabolic reactions, e.g. photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation, production of amino acids and lipids. Algae with thousands and thousands of species can be very small or very large in size with different colors and can be useful or harmful. Algae remains, diatoms, can be preserved in sediments for millions of years. The most important is that algae are the origin of gas and oil and recently that  algae can be used for production and a source of biofuel!

Agricultural production is very much dependent on land-water resources and in recent decades there have been trends towards new agricultural solutions either to substitute the increasing degradation in land-water qualities or to find new agricultural alternatives more suitable for arid and semi-arid climate.

Degradation in water quality resulting from waste, pollutions and sanitation on the one hand, and reduced land quality due to decreasing soil fertility, man-made technological interferences “dams”, soil erosion and climate change on the other, triggered new shifts in agricultural technologies. Traditional agricultural techniques are becoming more and more dependent on artificial fertilization either to compensate for decreasing soil fertility and/or to increase soil productivity.

Chemical pesticides are still in use, inefficient irrigation routines and further pressures on water resources have, also, caused gradual degradation in land-water resources in particular the large-scale and long-term negative impacts on water resources.

These trends have forced shifts towards new agricultural technologies that either rely on less land and indoor green-house solutions and/or what is known as “complete liquid fertilizers” as well as clean sterilized organic-fertilization. These solutions, foliar spray, fertigation programs, hydroponic solutions, aireal/soil application of “liquid complete” and/or “sterilized clean organic” ferilizers” have new advantages. However they either shifted focus to alternative solutions that may require additional costs, i.e. making food production less economic, or made farming and agriculture that can not afford the new technologies to continue their “business-as-usual” traditions.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/A-COMPLETE-LIQUID-FERTILIZER/2283468

220 AD The Great Wall, 1420 AD The Forbidden City, 1997 AD Three Gorges Dam and 2002 AD China does again with the biggest construction project on earth in the middle of the deep ocean. That is to meet the 21st century where China’s export-import trade is exploding by nearly 30% each year and to support the heavy traffic from Yangtze River where there is considerable sedimentation of silt where it meets the ocean.

This China’s Ultimate Mega Port, The Yangshan Port, is one of the busiest cargo facilities on earth with the world biggest import-export trade. It has one of the most advanced and cutting edge control system in any container port around the world. It is 32 km off-shore and 15-20 meters deep, a 20 km cargo-port that can handle 25 million shipping containers in one year, i.e. 70 000 in just one day and to built it required thousand of million cubic meters of soil. It is built for loading and unloading gigantic containerships and linked to the main land China by the second world largest bridge.

This natural documentary gives some clues about the very origins of human behavior. Bonobos do resemble chimpanzees but they are completely different species diverged from each other around two million years ago. Where chimpanzees fight and murder bonobos are peacemakers and unlike chimps it is not the bonobos males but the females who have the power. So, bonobos social life tells us a different story about kindness and empathy and that these characters do not belong to people alone. The bonobos are deeply intelligent apes, relaxed, highly social and develop life-long friendships. These and many other reasons explain why they are so peaceful and from where we get our gentler side of our behavior. Knowledge that is largely unknown to the rest of the world.

Two groups of researchers set up study camps in Lomako and Wamba in the rain forest of the Congo to do forest observation and document the social behavior of bonobos, our nearest relatives. The work of these researchers was interrupted during a decade of political instabilities and civil strive in the Congo with major threats for the life of bonobos as they were hunted for meat of a starved population. After the end of these instabilities the researchers started to return to see if there were still hopes and chances to complete their research and to get more answers from the bonobos.

There many examples of businesses in the public sector that went over to private owners, and visa-versa, with major political transformations/reforms. Such major shifts from private-to-public or public-to-private were not always performed on sustainable long-term policies with solid assessment analysis of the socio-economic consequences. Sustainable economic management requires taking in considerations how the lifecycle of companies may look like in a turbulent and dynamic world.

5 key differences between a private and public company

Check the top 10 health benefits of eating Kale.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4408/Top-10-Health-Benefits-of-Eating-Kale.html

Go organic and green, even better go straight to the queen of greens “KALE”. Anti-inflammatiry, anti-oxidants, more iron than beef, more calcium than milk, low calories, no fats, very rich in vitamin A, C and K. To be organic means that you remove the threats of residual pesticides.

http://marinahunley.com/2013/11/18/health-benefits-of-kale/

For those who are working in laboratories and/or in a way or another being exposed to indoor pollutants, there are guidelines for the exposure to such pollutants. In this document such guidelines for indoor air-quality are given for some selected indoor sources of pollutants (benzene, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, naphthalene, nitrogen dioxide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (especially benzo[a]pyrene), radon, trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene). These pollutants are known in respect of their hazardousness to health and are often found indoors in concentrations of health concern. For these pollutants information is given for their indoor sources, pathways of exposure, indoor concentrations, indoor–outdoor relationship, kinetics and metabolism, health effects, and health risk evaluations as well as other relavant explanations.

Click to access e94535.pdf

Air pollution has become the world’s single biggest environmental health risk. According to WHO it is linked to around 7 million death or nearly one in eight death in 2012. The new figures are more double previous estimates and suggest that outdoor pollution from traffic fumes and coal-burning, and indoor pollution from wood and coal stoves, kill more people than smoking, road death and diabetes combines.

The document is WHO’s Air Quality Guidelines Global Update 2005. These Guidelines offer guidance to policy-makers on reducing the effects on health of air pollution for the four most common air pollutants – particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide.  Also, issues affecting the use of the guidelines in risk assessment and policy development.

This document contains Part (1) Application of air quality guidelines for policy development and risk reduction; Part (2) Risk assessment of selected pollutants (Particulate matter, Ozone, Nitrogen dioxide, Sulfur dioxide).

Click to access E90038.pdf

Modern brain research has facilitated to understand the interaction between mind and brain, to turn brain anxiety into calmness, to reduce stress and anxiety, relieve pain, change lifestyle habits, and to live with more wellness. Brains can be wired in different ways, but they are also changeable “neuroplasticity” and thereby we can bring about a state of “worrying well”, i.e. to turn anxiety and stress into calmness and confidence. These all related to that our worries are in fact no more than thoughts, anxieties are feelings, and threats are responses. In this context, we have to take inconsideration that men and women are emotionally different.

Air pollution is a worldwide problem especially in many big cities and industrial areas around the world. Emission of fine particulate matter (e.g. aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 µm; PM_2.5) , chemicals (e.g. biogenic VOC) and pollutants (e.g. heavy metals), and associated photo-chemical reactions (e.g. production of tropospheric ozone) in the atmosphere as well as in-cloud interactions (e.g. acid rain) experienced dramatic changes since the industrial revolutions. Concentrations of hazardous pollutants in global atmospheric air masses, dry and wet precipitates have been subject to gradual increasing reaching harmful levels for air-quality what regards human health (e.g. lung cancer, mortality) and the environment (e.g. negative impacts for forests and vegetation and quality of life in aquatic eco-systems) in many places around the world.

Climate change influences air quality through several mechanisms, including changes in photochemical reaction rates, biogenic emissions, deposition/re-suspension, and atmospheric circulation. Several techniques/approaches were used in such studies including atmospheric chemistry, climate model inter-comparison, high-resolution satellite observations together with a global atmospheric models and extensive compilation of surface measurements to better represent global air pollution exposure.

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/23/infographic_shows_air_pollution_deaths_around_the_world_newscred/

It is interesting and even generous that some nations and civilizations were able to maintain something that describe and illustrate the beautiful reality but yet a difficult and critical past of their history. It is part of the nations and civilization’s mindfulness of their cultural heritage where conflicting history is turned to friendship. Granada is a true window for a glamorous past worth visiting instead of reading history books. Granada is an integration of innovative architecture, cultural history in a unique social and environment context.

https://www.spain-holiday.com/blog/granada-top-weekend-break-destination.php

Climate Change impacts are moving fast towards a global dangerously heat up of the planet over the next 5 decades. Major cities around the world could become uninhabitable because of irreversible man-made climate change within the coming few decades. The changing temperatures could render some nations uninhabitable with uncontrollable migration across borders. Camilo Mora and his team predict that in about a decade, Kingston, Jamaica, will probably be off-the-charts hot — permanently, Singapore in 2028, Mexico City in 2031, Cairo in 2036, Phoenix and Honolulu in 2043 as global warming takes hold.

The study from the University of Hawaii published online Wednesday in the journal Nature predicts that even if we utilized all resources to stop and halt our current carbon emissions, the changes are irrevocable and can only be postponed. Climate Departure maps show the cities that will suffer from irrevocable climate change. Ecosystems across the world would, also, regularly experience never-seen heat environments, such results are based on about 150 years of record-keeping.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451604/Apocalypse-Now-Unstoppable-man-climate-change-reality-end-decade-make-New-York-London-Paris-uninhabitable-45-years-says-new-study.html