SciPod

Water-treatment processes are essential for water reuse in municipal, agricultural and industrial applications. Wastewater treatment ensures our safety and prevents sickness and death from parasites and contaminants every year. However, certain chemical contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals and pesticides, are difficult to remove from water, and can accumulate in the food web, eventually entering our food supply and potentially causing adverse health outcomes. Dr Luisa Orsini [Loo-ee-sah Oar-see-nee] and her colleagues at Daphne Water Solutions Ltd have developed a cutting-edge water-bioremediation technology, which is based on the use of small aquatic invertebrates called water fleas. By removing harmful contaminants from water, the sustainable and eco-friendly technology enables water reuse, while protecting human health and the environment. 

The story of research into juvenile hormone, a fundamental chemical that regulates insect life history, follows the same thread as many other tales of scientific discovery. A series of serendipitous findings and observations led researchers to identify this unique hormone and isolate it from a moth. Additional studies focused on its potential as an insecticide, given that it has diverse effects on various aspects of insect physiology. In a recent review paper, Professor Lynn M Riddiford of the University of Washington details major developments in the history of juvenile hormone research.

When it becomes too cold or a predator draws near, animals can flee to nicer locales. Plants, on the other hand, do not have this luxury. Instead, they have evolved chemical defences to deter pests and respond to changes in their environment. Dr Ella Katz of the University of California, Davis, is interested in the wide variety of chemical defences found in plants. In a recent study, she and her colleagues show that geography, environment, population history and genetics all combine to produce different chemical defences within the same plant species.

Chemical space, a term referring to the catalogue of all known molecules, has been constantly expanding for over 200 years. Our understanding of this space is based on the work of countless researchers over the years. Dr Guillermo [Gee-yehr-moe] Restrepo and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Germany, have been analysing trends in the history of chemistry, to gain an understanding of how the field became what it is today.

International organisations have recently been trying to educate farmers in developing nations about optimal practices for growing and storing crops. While many farmers stick to these newly acquired practices, others eventually adapt them or slightly deviate from them. Researchers at Purdue University, Michigan State University, Iowa State University, and the Agricultural Research Institute of Mozambique recently carried out a study exploring how farmers have adapted an effective crop-storage practice in northern Mozambique.

Telemedicine is increasing in utility and demand, not least due to the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic on the provision of healthcare. With this in mind, Dr Intan Sabrina (at Hospital Tuanku Ampuan Najihah, Hospital Jempol and Tung Shin Hospital, all in Malaysia) and Dr Irma Ruslina Defi (at Hasan Sadikin General Hospital in Indonesia) have collaborated to publish an important review on current telemedicine guidelines in South East Asia, from which they make considered recommendations for its further development.

Blazars are some of the brightest and most vibrant objects known to astronomers: emitting high-velocity jets of matter, and producing gamma rays which outshine almost all other sources in the known universe. To study these phenomena, astronomers must use the latest techniques to observe blazars simultaneously at different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, while also capturing the elusive neutrinos they emit. In a recent article, Dr Markus Böttcher, an astronomer at North-West University on Potchefstroom, South Africa, presents an overview of the latest advances in these ‘multiwavelength’ and ‘multi-messenger’ techniques – and where they could lead in the near future.

There are up to one billion people with low literacy globally, many of whom live in rural areas and only speak their region’s local language. In Africa alone, there are an estimated 2000 local languages. Researchers are exploring new ways to make knowledge accessible to isolated communities that only speak local languages. One approach involves the use of animated educational videos, which can be dubbed in any language and can be shared in rural communities. In a study conducted in Benin, Dr Julia Bello-Bravo of Purdue University compared the effectiveness of animated educational videos to traditional presentations. This work was performed in collaboration with Benin’s International Institute for Tropical Agriculture. Dr Bello-Bravo’s team found that, not only did participants prefer videos, they actually learned more from them too.

In order to meet the demands of a growing human population, farmers across the globe are attempting to improve the yields and nutritional content of their crops. However, this is an especially difficult challenge, in an age where climate change is negatively impacting our agricultural systems. To address these pressing issues, Dr Lynn Brandenberger and Dr Joshua Massey of Oklahoma State University focus on the intersection of soil health and crop production. Recently, they demonstrated how cover crops can greatly improve soil health and, consequently, enhance crop yields.

Integrated pest management describes effective and environmentally sensitive approaches to controlling agricultural pests, which are based on combinations of different practices. Educational information on integrated pest management is much more accessible in the developed world than in developing countries. This is due to a combination of language and technology barriers around information sharing. To ensure that reliable content related to integrated pest management systems and other educational resources can also be widely accessed by people in developing countries, researchers at Michigan State University and Purdue University have created Scientific Animations Without Borders – or SAWBO – which provides scientifically accurate animations about various important topics.