Gather ye seeds while ye may

As part of the Bureau of Land Management’s Seeds of Success project, The Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank at the Chicago Botanic Garden is preserving the seeds of thousands of prairie species–1,500 by 2010 and 3,000 by 2020–that are native to the Midwest, as far west as the Rockies.  The seeds will be preserved for future use and used in research for assisted migration, a controversial technique to relocate species in anticipation of global changes in climate and habitat.  In addition to collecting a diversity of species, mapping GPS coordinates and documenting soil composition, part of this research includes predicting relocation habitats, a process that has begun in seven climate-change gardens where species from four hardiness zones (zones 4,5,6, and 7) have been planted this fall.  A story in The New York Times about the project interviews Kayri Havens, the Chicago Botanic Garden’s director of plant science and conservation:

“If plants grown from seed collected in Zone 4, 5 or 6 can’t withstand Texas conditions,” Dr. Havens said, “that’s a good sign they’re going to become extinct here, if there’s no way for them to migrate on their own or human-assisted.”

Scientists hope that assisted migration research will aid future restoration projects.  The mother project, Seeds of Success, has so far collected over a fifth of its hoped-for 14,000 native U.S. species, sending a collection of each species to the Millennium Seed Bank Project of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in Britain, which contains the largest seed collection in the world, housed in frozen underground vaults, with the goal of collecting 25% of the world’s flora by 2020.

(via The New York Times)

Urban ecology and infrastructure call for papers

MillionTreesNYC is hosting a research symposium on green infrastructure and urban ecology and is accepting submissions of papers to be presented at that symposium.

The purpose of this symposium is to showcase research and projects that contribute to knowledge on urban landscapes, green infrastructure, and public health in cities and urban areas. We are soliciting papers on research that is either completed or substantially in progress that addresses diverse science questions in the following areas:

• Local Air Quality and Urban Heat Island
• Water Quality, Storm Water Management
• Economic Impacts and Quantifying Returns on Investment
• Urban Environmental Education, Ecological Literacy, and Curriculum Development
• Human Health and Well-Being
• Civic and Municipal Stewardship
• Green Jobs and Social Justice
• Reforestation Dynamics and Forest Health
• Biodiversity and Ecological Communities
• Green Infrastructure and Planting Designs

Submissions deadline is January 8th, and the symposium is March 5th and 6th.

Open source live solar mapping

The Open Source Live Solar Mapping Project, recently released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, tracks private installations of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels  by location in the US and maps them in time.  The map-video, spanning from 1998 to the present day, highlights the spatial concentration of solar energy harvest with changing colors that indicate the number of PV installations in each state.  Solar energy has been identified as the world’s fastest-growing energy technology, with the number of photovoltaic installations doubling every 2 years since 2002.  The Solar Mapping Project is community-driven, relying on information submitted by individuals, industry professionals and government officials.

(via Clean Technica)

Estuary power

A rendering of two stacked electrodes in salt water, drawing positive and negative ions apart and creating a field of intense electric charge.

Researchers at the University of Milan Bicocca in Monza, Italy are working to harvest energy offset by the mixture of fresh and salt water.  The process uses electrodes to draw apart positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged chlorine ions in salt water, then forces those ions away from the electrodes by flooding them with fresh water.  The forced diffusion of ions away from the electrodes to which they’re attracted creates electrostatic energy, which can be extracted as useable power.  The methodology is still under development, but it could potentially be used for the continuous harvest of energy from the junctions of fresh water estuaries with salt water bodies, as happens throughout the creeks that flow through the Freshkills Park site.

(via TreeHugger)

The facts of bioremediation

Greenmuseum interviews Terry Hazen, Director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology and the Head of Ecology at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, about bioremediation, its benefits and its hazards.  Hazen is a well-spoken expert on the subject of remediating contaminated sites and the microorganisms that can be used to do so.  Below, he gives a comprehensive lecture on the subject as part of the lab’s lecture series.

Toward the Sentient City

Amphibious Architecture, an East River water monitoring system, is one of five commissioned projects included in the exhibit.

Toward the Sentient City, an exhibit organized by The Architectural League of New York, examines the implications for architecture of the proliferation of sensor, mobile and other new technologies.  According to curator Mark Shepard:

The exhibition examines the relationship between ubiquitous computing, architecture and the city in terms of the active role its citizens might play – or neglect to play – as both designers and inhabitants, in the unfolding techno-social situations of near-future urban environments.

The exhibit includes TrashTrack, the very intriguing project which we’ve blogged about before, as well as Too Smart City, an array of street furniture, signage and trash receptacles that interacts with passers-by.  The trash cans demonstrate “overly enthusiastic usage of computational intelligence” by analyzing garbage deposits and throwing recyclable or unacceptable trash back out.  Among other projects on display is Amphibious Architecture, a submerged water monitor system in the East River, designed by Columbia University’s Living Architecture Lab.  The exhibit is on view until November 7th at The Urban Center, 457 Madison Avenue, New York City.  Admission is free.

Return on investment in habitat corridors

Aerial views of the square natural areas targeted in the study, and the linear habitat corridors established between them.

Habitat corridors are planted or wild strips of land between natural areas that encourage wildlife to migrate from place to place and, in turn, to help fertilize a broader range of places through the seeds they carry on them or digest.   A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that the establishment of habitat corridors between existing natural areas–and the resulting migration of wildlife between those areas–can increase biodiversity not only in connected sites, but also in habitat adjacent to those sites.  In the study, conducted in South Carolina in conjunction with the USDA, the biodiversity spillover effect was found to extend beyond the boundaries of the connected natural areas by as much as 30%, resulting in a 10-18% increase in plant life–particularly native plants–in the larger area.  The findings suggest that investments in habitat connections can pay off on a scale even beyond their designed ambition.

The master plan for Freshkills Park includes the establishment of habitat corridors around the bases of each of the site’s four landfill mounds, connecting to three large adjacent natural areas–the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge, the Staten Island Greenbelt and Arden Heights Woods–as well as expanding biodiversity in the Freshkills Park site, itself, and in the general vicinity.

(via Scientific American)

Diffuse light solar panels

Researchers in Jerusalem are developing a new type of solar cell that can generate power from diffuse light. The cells form panels that transmit light to silicon solar receptors at their edges. GreenSun Energy of  Tel Aviv say their panels have achieved a 12% efficiency rate, much lower than the world’s most efficient cells, but hope to eventually reach a 20% efficiency. The panels use 80% less silicon than traditional cells, making them more cost-efficient.

The panels would not need direct sunlight to generate power, which not only means they’ll be more useful in regions with less sunny days and in locations without optimal exposure, but also that there will be less efficiency loss due to heat. Once developed, the company hopes to sell the panels at less than a quarter of the price of conventional solar panels.

(Via Inhabitat)

Spray-on solar

Researchers at the University of Texas are developing solar photovoltaics 10,000 times thinner than human hair that can be spray-painted onto surfaces.   The ambition of the  project is to develop a solution of sunlight-absorbing nanoparticles that can be sprayed onto a surface to create a solar panel–a process similar to newspaper printing.  The technology they’re working with uses copper indium gallium selenide instead of silicon and could be cheaper than fabricating conventional solar panels.

(via Inhabitat)

Landfill methane used for hydrogen fuel

Catalyx Nanotech is the first company to use methane for nanofiber production. Through a demonstration project at a California landfill, the company was able to split methane into pure hydrogen and carbon to produce nanofibers.  Carbon-based nanofibers can be applied to a number of  uses: medical, energy, protection, textile; in this case, they’ll be used for hydrogren fuel supply.  The company says that by making hydrogen at a local landfill they will avoid a hugely expensive and energy inefficient process of fabricating and transporting the hydrogen.

(via Clean Technia)