Pond Scum Research Articles

From Pond Scum to Miracle Molecules: Cyanobacterial Compounds New Frontiers

From Pond Scum to Miracle Molecules: Cyanobacterial Compounds New Frontiers

Applications of Algal Based Therapeutics in Human Health

Algae are microorganisms abundant in our world’s ecosystems and are present in the form of pond scum, seaweed, phytoplankton, cyanobacteria etc. The algae produce multiple primary and secondary metabolites as a result of their intrinsic biochemical pathways. The metabolites are biologically active molecules such as polysaccharides, proteins, fatty acids, pigments, vitamins, minerals and other further complex molecules. These compounds can be harnessed for pharmaceutical applications due to their inherent properties or derivatives which possess desired properties such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antitumour, anticancer, antiviral and antimicrobial characteristics. They have benefits of being less toxic, biodegradable and vastly available due to the large number and variety of algae present in our world. This review paper discusses the properties of such bioactive molecules as well as their current and potential applications. The application areas discussed are drug delivery systems, cancer, COVID-19, cardiovascular diseases and as an alternative to antibiotics.

Eternity in the Moment: William Blake and Mary Oliver

Of all the modern and contemporary poets who have been influenced by Blake, Mary Oliver might seem an unlikely heir. We think automatically of the visionary system of Yeats, the pugnacious lyricism of Roethke, the prophetic excess of Ginsberg, or the erudite obscurity of Geoffrey Hill. We certainly don’t expect to find Blake’s challenging and transcendent poetics echoed in simple verses that celebrate the “god of dirt,” the messy world of vultures, skunks, and pond scum. On the other hand, Oliver’s deliberate invocations of Blake prod us to look again at his attitude toward nature and the physical body. Even her most “naturalistic” poems, like the one above, are steeped in the language of art: the butterflies’ wings are “pages” like those of Blake’s illuminated books, their energy the “agitated / motions of the mind.” For both poets, the human mind marks the border between the material and spiritual worlds, and the poet’s task is to awaken the reader’s imagination toward some purpose. That purpose generally is not made explicit but rather grows organically out of the visionary experience: an experience in which “ordinary” perception is suspended.

A species by any other name would sound as sweet.

David Smith argues against the prevalent practice of naming newly discovered species after human beings.

Plant Evolution: Assembling Land Plants.

Traditional evolutionary scenarios posit that land plants emerged from land plant-like relatives, the charophytes. New phylogenies suggest a closer affinity to simpler pond scum relatives, and evidence the gradual assembly of the land plant genome, revealing a phenotypic simplification from the complex ancestors envisaged by traditional scenarios.

Thoreau és az organikus kritika egy sajtóvita tükrében


 A tanulmány Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) filozófiáját tárgyalja a Thoreau-szakirodalomba általunk bevezetni kívánt organikus kritika mentén. A tanulmány apropója egy 2015 őszén lezajlott sajtóvita, amelyet Kathryn Schulz robbantott ki a New Yorkerben megjelent Pond Scum. Why do we love Henry David Thoreau? c. cikkével. A cikk a hagyományos, negatív előjelű Thoreau-kritikát (amelyet James Russell Lowell és Robert Louis Stevenson neve fémjelez) folytatja, és hipokritának, mizantrópnak és gondolatilag károsnak állítja be az amerikai filozófust. Schulz cikkére számtalan válasz érkezett, a tanulmány ezeket tipizálja, majd összeveti a meglátásokat.
 Véleményünk szerint, ha az organikus kritika módszerével olvassuk, a thoreau-i gondolkodás tisztába tehető és kivédhetőek a klasszikus vádak. A tanulmány tézise, hogy Thoreau nem normatív jellegű filozófiát folytat, hanem az emberi élet végtelen dinamizmusára emlékezteti elsősorban saját magát, másodsorban fele-barátait.

Effect of competing landuse practices on Chakaria Sundarbans mangrove in Bangladesh using Landsat imagery

This paper quantifies the extent to which Chakaria Sundarbans mangrove has been depleted through human interference using Landsat imagery of 1972 and 2017. The images were corrected for radiometric and atmospheric effects. To improve the classification process, the Chakaria Sundarbans’s Landsat 2017 image was pan-sharpened. The earlier image which comprises of the virgin forest was classified into three classes (water, mangrove, wetland) while the later was classified into four classes – waterbody, mangrove, pond scum and saltpan using supervised classification method and support vector machine classifier. Using the statistical bias adjustment, precise area estimates for each land cover class was obtained. The result shows that between 1972 and 2017, Chakaria Sundarbans mangrove forest has reduced by about 87.5% (from 6000.27 to 877.76 hectares). Currently, about 21% of the land is being used for salt mining, 45% for shrimp farming while the water body takes 26%. It is observed that the river has reduced in width; however, water surface area increased by 2%. The bias-adjusted overall classification accuracy yields 95.44% and 94.70% for classified maps of 1972 and 2017, respectively. Evidently, the mangrove has been completely lost to over-exploitation of resources.

Characterization of Bacillus megaterium, Bacillus pumilus, and Paenibacillus polymyxa isolated from a Pinot noir wine from Western Washington State

This report provides the first confirmed evidence of Bacillus-like bacteria present in a wine from Washington State. These bacteria were isolated from a 2013 Pinot noir wine whose aroma was sensorially described as being ‘dirty’ or ‘pond scum.’ Based on physiological traits and genetic sequencing, three bacterial isolates were identified as Bacillus megaterium (strain NHO-1), Bacillus pumilus (strain NHO-2), and Paenibacillus polymyxa (strain NHO-3). These bacteria grew in synthetic media of low pH (pH 3.5) while some survived ethanol concentrations up to 15% v/v. However, none tolerated molecular SO2 concentrations ≥0.4 mg/l. Growth of strains NHO-1 and NHO-3 in a Merlot grape juice resulted in increases of titratable and volatile acidities while decreases in titratable acidity were noted for NHO-2.

Prevalence of Salmonella and Escherichia coli contamination in shrimp (Penaeus monodon) farms, depots and processing plants in different areas of Bangladesh

A study was conducted to determine the level of contamination by indicator organisms (Salmonella and Escherichia coli) in shrimp (Penaeus monodon) farms, depots and processing plants of Cox’s Bazar, Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira districts of Bangladesh using conventional technique of bacterial isolation and identification. The results of this study revealed that prevalence of Salmonella positive samples was 43.7%, 62.5%, 20% and 0.0% for water, pond scum, shrimp and basket samples, respectively at farm level. Meanwhile, the prevalence of E. coli positive samples was 62.5%, 43.7%, 60% and 60% for water, pond scum, shrimp and basket samples, respectively at farm level. In case of depots, shrimp, basket and mat samples were analyzed and found 20%, 56.3% and 23% positive for Salmonella and 53.3%, 37.5% and 92.3% positive for E. coli. Bacteriological assessment of the shrimp samples obtained from four seafood processing plants revealed that all the samples were found contaminated with Salmonella and E. coli except the samples of one industry. Investigation finally showed that with few exceptions all the samples from farms, depots and processing plants have different levels of contamination by Salmonella and E. coli, which is very much alarming for shrimp industry of Bangladesh.Asian J. Med. Biol. Res. June 2016, 2(2): 171-176

Heckling Paradise, and: Anniversaire, and: History Offers No Instruction, and: A Toast

Heckling Paradise, and: Anniversaire, and: History Offers No Instruction, and: A Toast Todd Fredson (bio) Heckling Paradise Adam, you remember the zoounmaintained since the fighting,as Abidjan became selectively abandoned? Remember, in our villages, those cinder-blockhouses unroofed since the economy stalled—weeds grown upinside higher than the walls? I close my eyes and rearrange what's left here.That Frenchman who belched at the alligators,dragged his Ivorian prostitute away by the hip. The two lions that rolled their eyes on the brokenconcrete slab as I stuck my hand through the bars. The monkeys won't even play with themselves. You saidwon't tug their red dicks? I wanted to rip out my heartand throw it to them. We joked when the turtle poked its beak through the pond scum,bathtub fart-bubble head. Would it be too sentimentalto add the civetteprowling with one lost leg? Yet true.You said this all simply: [End Page 133] Life is dangerousunder these blue skies. And I learned with my slight smile—scuttle, attrition . . . whatever is wild has been wildby a matter of permissions;willingness to hurt and to be hurt. Consider the turtle, in situ.Hours ferrying itself through loaves of foam,it digs a nesting trench. Back and forth to the surf,staying lubricated as it lays its eggs. But that's the idea—with the zoo, you're stuck there. Anniversaire Rainon the full moon'shigh tide, rainon the bulb of driftwood. The first timeyou want to hear a voiceany voice will do. The birdspeck you apart, pole starweightedsomewhere in their guts. [End Page 134] History Offers No Instruction Slow enough to keep from sweatingbut fast enough to keep the flies off my neckI learned to walk in those years, which were endless years.Mothers yelled, and I woke in the thick heat."Ka dah!" They clapped their buckets down the path.The children peering over my window ledge dropped in chase. I wiped sleep from the ledgeof my face, rolled onto the concrete sweatingalready. A nannie bleats on this side of the path.Goats' call and response next—Hear the kid's panicked nattering? This heatwill have emptied my water basin, mineral rings like years of scree marks on an expanding shore, yearsticked like rice across the bottom of a pot. Letyourself watch—Ee dah ka fei blei nah. Eathere with me! Benét will stop. Slosh sweatingdown her bucket, tracing streaks on her neck.From her ears, drops pock dusty leaves. The path is clogged, Consti and Simone wade a new patharound Benét. Her gaze follows me. Fourteen years—like some purple-winged bird twisting its neckfor my arrival. But I never—until with this ledgerIn courtyards the cacao is spread for "sweating."We only pay for these beans that have dried in the heat. Once, maybe, I was really there. Above Benét's heart,a pagne knot. And her baby behind bounces over the path."The gendarmes picked on a particular woman andgrabbed her breasts and started pulling her in circles . . . [End Page 135] Then told five boys to get an erection and rape the women . . .took their penis in the palm of their hands and hit it, hard, with the buckle of his belt." Am I, I am, nicked.And you, you've not heard how stout the heat?The new president fumbles the bouchon de liegepromising to outpace the past. A well-heeled path:if intervention, and if traders, if the market bearsthe new labor. As technologies sweeten. The nurse's wet tin roof. The pump's handle and neck.The glare paints your eyes shut. Years stammer, the heatbreaks—rain stomps that distance back into a single edge. A Toast Between each of the streamsthere is a flower.In the sand and gravel between eachof the nine streamsa flower for each of the boys,a flower for each of thenine I have become. [End Page 136] Todd Fredson Todd Fredson is the author...

Broad Phylogenomic Sampling and the Sister Lineage of Land Plants

The tremendous diversity of land plants all descended from a single charophyte green alga that colonized the land somewhere between 430 and 470 million years ago. Six orders of charophyte green algae, in addition to embryophytes, comprise the Streptophyta s.l. Previous studies have focused on reconstructing the phylogeny of organisms tied to this key colonization event, but wildly conflicting results have sparked a contentious debate over which lineage gave rise to land plants. The dominant view has been that ‘stoneworts,’ or Charales, are the sister lineage, but an alternative hypothesis supports the Zygnematales (often referred to as “pond scum”) as the sister lineage. In this paper, we provide a well-supported, 160-nuclear-gene phylogenomic analysis supporting the Zygnematales as the closest living relative to land plants. Our study makes two key contributions to the field: 1) the use of an unbiased method to collect a large set of orthologs from deeply diverging species and 2) the use of these data in determining the sister lineage to land plants. We anticipate this updated phylogeny not only will hugely impact lesson plans in introductory biology courses, but also will provide a solid phylogenetic tree for future green-lineage research, whether it be related to plants or green algae.

Releasing Stored Solar Energy within Pond Scum: Biodiesel from Algal Lipids

Microalgae have emerged as an attractive feedstock for the mass production of renewable transportation fuels due to their fast growth rate, flexible habitat preferences, and substantial oil yields. As an educational tool, a laboratory was developed that mimics emerging algal biofuel technology, including the extraction of algal lipids and transesterification into biodiesel. First, students were introduced to algae as an energy feedstock and taught how to cultivate and harvest algal biomass. Next, students learned how to convert algal biomass to a transportation fuel using transesterification and extraction, including an experimental comparison of base- and acid-catalyzed transesterification methods. The energy content of homemade algae biodiesel was determined and compared to soybean biodiesel and petroleum diesel using a homemade calorimeter.

Green Gold

Most people consider algae a nuisance. But it turns out that one man's pond scum is another man's gold, to draw on an old expression. An algal species with the right properties could be immensely valuable. That's why we and others at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, Colo., have been busy "bioprospecting" for promising scoops of slime.

Prehistoric life: evolution and the fossil record

Prehistoric life: evolution and the fossil record

Impact of invasive apple snails in Hong Kong on wetland macrophytes, nutrients, phytoplankton and filamentous algae

Summary1. Grazing by invasive species can affect many aspects of an aquatic system, but most studies have focused on the direct effects on plants. We conducted mesocosm and laboratory experiments to examine the impact of the invasive apple snail Pomacea canaliculata on macrophytes, filamentous algae, nutrients and phytoplankton.2. In a freshwater pond, we confined 500 g of Myriophyllum aquaticum or Eichhornia crassipes with 0, 2, 4 or 8 apple snails in 1 m × 1 m × 1 m enclosures for approximately 1 month. Apple snails grazed heavily on both species of macrophytes, with higher overall weight losses at higher snail densities. The damage patterns differed between the two macrophytes. In M. aquaticum, both leaves and stems suffered from substantial herbivory, whereas in E. crassipes, only the roots suffered significant weight reduction.3. In addition to grazing on macrophytes, apple snails appeared to have controlled the growth of filamentous algae, as these did not develop in the snail treatments. The ability of P. canaliculata to control filamentous algae was supported by a laboratory experiment where the consumption was as high as 0.25 g g−1 snail DW d−1. Because of a lack of native herbivorous snails in the pond, the growth of filamentous algae (mainly Spirogyra sp.) reached 80.3 g m−2, forming a spongy pond scum in the no‐apple snail control. Together with previous reports that apple snails could eat the juveniles and eggs of other freshwater snails, our results indicated that P. canaliculata could have out‐competed native herbivorous snails from the pond by predation on their juveniles or eggs. Alternatively, P. canaliculata might have out‐competed them by monopolisation of food resources.4. Nitrogen and phosphorous concentrations remained low throughout both experiments and were not correlated with apple snail density. The treatment effects on chlorophyll a (Chl a) and phytoplankton composition varied in the two experiments. In the M. aquaticum experiment, with increasing snail density, Chl a increased, and the phytoplankton community became dominated by Cryptophyceae. In the E. crassipes experiment, Chl a level was independent of snail density, but with increasing snail density, the phytoplankton community became co‐dominated by Cryptophyceae, Chlorophyceae and Bacillariophyceae.5. Given the multiple effects of P. canaliculata on wetland biodiversity and function, management strategies should be developed to prevent its further spread. In invaded wetlands, strategies should be developed to eradicate the apple snail and re‐introduce native snails which can control the development of filamentous algae.

From pond scum to pharmacy shelf

Protein-based therapies promise to treat everything from cancer to arthritis, but the bacteria and mammalian cells that usually produce proteins leave much to be desired. New research shows that green algae—and genetically tweaked yeast—can churn out proteins that are cheaper and better tailored for human use than those made by traditional systems. Amber Dance reports on these new recruits in the pharma factory.

From Science 's Online Daily News Site

Highlights from Science 's online daily news site, Science NOW, this week include a new analysis showing that China fell short on cleaning up its air pollution before the Olympics , artificial blood vessels , instant sunglasses , and the dance of pond scum .

Toxic Slurry and Pond Scum

Book Review| September 01 2008 Toxic Slurry and Pond Scum Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape Mass MoCANorth Adams, Massachusetts May 24, 2008 – April 9, 2009 Alisia G. Chase Alisia G. Chase ALISIA G. CHASE, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Art Department at the State University of New York at Brockport. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Afterimage (2008) 36 (2): 27–28. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2008.36.2.27 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Alisia G. Chase; Toxic Slurry and Pond Scum. Afterimage 1 September 2008; 36 (2): 27–28. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2008.36.2.27 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAfterimage Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2008 Afterimage/Visual Studies Workshop, unless otherwise noted. Reprints require written permission and acknowledgement of previous publication in Afterimage.2008 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Reach

The Reach Tom Daley (bio) Naked in the heat of a cornfield we shiver, shin-deep in the cow pond's edge. Beyond our feet, watercresses breathe a haze that slides out of our hands. [End Page 121] Back then we would pretend only to talk while soapy lather slithered down our backs. We stand groin to groin now, no fumbling back to bashful washcloth. Time we tried this field we mined with fledgling itch. We work new talk through sidelong looks that set our teeth on edge. Your shoulders flex. My wrists and hands whittle a twitch. Come faster, breath. Let sweat knit above our lips. Now breathe. Will to make a thing we can't take back. Time commands we summon touch to hand. All through my skin my body fields magnetic needlings. We coax and edge collision with our piss-warm talk. You stammer in the shallows. "Oh, let them talk . . ." I pitch into the cow pond, praying breath will catch, will clear the water. Green-edged waves swamp pond scum. Behind my back, you dive too. The pond rimples like a force field. We're toe to toe. Small wakes break under hands. You kink a smile. "Give me your hand." "For what?" I laugh. "So someday you can talk about the time I took you by a muddy field?" Wire twilight frays. Breath shadows breath. I swim around you. You reach to touch my back. I stand and stumble to the water's edge. Your legs scissor the water. Edgy as a minnow, you stall on whirlpool hands. You arch, then drop your eyebrows. Back to back, dusk stirs, then suffocates our talk. [End Page 122] Pond stain fogs us like cold breath. You wriggle from the water. At the field's mucked edge, we dress. We bluff more talk, muffle our hands. Stretching our breath, we turn our backs. Darkness ducks the field. Tom Daley Tom Daley is a machinist. His poetry has appeared in Perihelion, Cyber-Oasis, Pemmican, and Yemassee. Copyright © 2004 the University of Nebraska Press

Uptake of heavy metals, arsenic, and antimony by aquatic plants in the vicinity of ore mining and processing industries

The uptake of heavy metals, As, and Sb by aquatic plants — fluvial horsetail, platyphyllous cattail, etc. — growing in industrial collection ponds of metal mining industry in the Kemerovo region, Russia, was studied. Cu, Pb, Cd, Zn, As, and Sb are the major pollutants in these plant habitats. The elemental concentrations in plants, their acid extracts, and the bulk water chemistry were determined by flame and electrothermal atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Sediments were analyzed by X-ray fluorescence. The analytical data obtained demonstrate high pollutant concentrations in sediments, water, and plants, especially in their roots. Submerged hornwort and pond scum were shown to be hyperaccumulators. The heavy metal concentrations in the plants exceed the corresponding concentrations in the habitat (water) by tens of thousand times. Analysis of fresh platyphyllous cattail acid extracts has demonstrated that As and Sb present a serious threat to human and animal health, as they are capable of entering food chains in large amounts.