"I Am Root"

By: Amanda Guerra Image 1. The image displays four different versions of wind currents transforming the desert dunes. The arrows on each example indicate the wind blowing direction to change the desert dunes. (Bass, 2022).  This article provides information on the investigation of Desert Dunes and the impact of the wind regimes. The four major wind regimes are called Star, Barchan, Linear Self, and Transverse Crescentic. The most common wind regime is Barchan. The researchers gathered satellite images to gather data on the effects wind erosion has on the future of Earth. These wind regimes have a major impact on soil productivity and ecological richness (Bass, 2022). In addition, this is caused by climate change. The increase in temperature and lack of rain allows the sand to be easily maneuvered. The changing of the wind climate has produced overgrazing on the grasslands. Sand dunes provide great help to species that live near the coastal regions. The sand acts like a barrier to p...

 By: Mary Barrera Transparency of edible food packaging: (A) gelatin film, (B) papaya-gelatin film, (C) soy protein papaya gelatin film (Ashfaq et al., 2022).    Most of the food packaging used in markets contain materials that are nonbiodegradable to the environment and take years to be decomposed. This leads to the question in research about if there are alternative methods in packaging that would ultimately reduce generating plastic waste. To relieve this issue, packaging film was made using materials commonly found in households such as gelatin, soy protein, corn starch, and papaya - biodegradable and edible. The process of preparing the packaging film took three steps, but the third step was distinct because glycerin was used as substitute of plasticizer and added to each type of film (gelatin, papaya-gelatin, and soy protein papaya gelatin as shown in the figure above). FT-IR was used to analyze the physiochemical properties that make them suitable to replace tradit...

    How many pairs of jeans do you own? Many? Imagine your discarded jeans aiding in the solution to the creation of a green, sustainable system for recovering polyester and cotton fibers from textile waste.       In this research article, the waste jeans are seen with the potential to develop into a sustainable source of raw cotton to accomplish various processes. The first stage of the process involved leaching nitric acid to remove textile colors from the jeans, then activated carbon to regenerate the used acid. Next, cotton and polyester were broken down and separated using a green switchable hydrophilicity solvent. CO2 was added to extract the polyester and regenerate the solvent. The solidified polyester was then collected by filtration and the solvent's form was changed back.       What I found most interesting about this article is how jeans came to be the main item of retrieval for the study, that's because it consumes more than...

Even though there are increasing research based on ocean plastic pollution over the past decade, there seems to be little that we known about our current knowledge of how floating plastic debris is accumulating in subtropical oceanic gyres and how they may harm the surface associated pelagic community that is most known as neuston. By removing the floating plastic debris from the surface, we can minimize different effects of the pollution that can occur in a neuston. The results show that the dominant species of neuston such as pteropods, isopods, heteropods, and crabs show low atmospheric attributes which can be associated with the fitness benefit such as increased surface area. The research found strategies that can help remove the floating plastic from the ocean and reducing the negative effects of the neuston population.                                        ...

  Green roof substrates have become increasingly well-known within the environmentalist community as a concept that describes many benefits. These benefits include runoff volume control (usually during storms), minimizing the chance of having a heat island effect, lowering noise, reducing building energy use, and allowing for solar panels to perform better. A cost would include frequent rock and soil erosion. The materials that were used in these experiments included crushed brick, sand, coco-peat, expanded perlite, and exfoliated vermiculite, which created the green roof substrate. The methods included substrate analysis, which was done by measuring the green roof substrate components (1g of the components as well as 100mL of DI water in a shaker for 24 hours and then filtered through a 0.45 μm membrane filter). With the plant growth experiments, plant cuttings of P. grandiflora were each put into 175mm pots that each contained a green roof substrate mix. The plants were watered...

  What is interesting about this article is that an opportunity appeared during the pandemic of covid-19 which has become a global disturbance on the conservation land uses and being able to learn from the responses to the crisis that could enable more resilient conservation systems. During 2020 most of the protected land that was lost about 75% revenues, while on the other hand agricultural farms lost less than 10% of revenues. The ranches with more diverse activities, especially with mixed wildlife agriculture systems. The activities are shifting from those that are heavily impacted being international ecotourism, and trophy hunting to the ones that are less affecting such as wildlife meat and livestock. Private and community wildlife ranches and mixed wildlife-agricultural ranches in Southern and Eastern Africa grants one such case study. Although these findings are being put to the test in some contexts, they enable innovation in terms of income-generating activities while also...