Busting Food Safety Myths
There are many myths and common misconceptions about food safety. I plan to discuss a few of these and set the record straight.
Cleaning Groundwater where size really does matter!
Ever scrubbed a stain from your carpet? Then you know how annoying spills can be. Unfortunately there is no magic stain stick for uranium and nitric acid spills that alter groundwater chemistry, biology, and flow patterns allowing them to persist for hundreds of years. However, this study of incredibly small ultramicrobacteria is shedding new light and understanding into how these highly active small cells may influence contaminant movement and be stimulated by the addition of nutrients.
One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure: Using Microbes to Make Energy
Much of the waste produced in this country has an incredible amount of untapped energy. We haven't really been able to harvest energy from a lot of them until recently. Now, scientists have realized they can use devices, known as bioelectrochemical systems, to convert these wastes into electricity, hydrogen, and chemicals. This talk will go over the history, fundamentals, and current status of these devices, outlining some of the problems currently being researched.