Chemists Without Borders

Science as a tool of empowerment

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 11:29:00 +0000

We may be living in the Information Age, but not all human settlements have been swept over by the wave of science and technology, yet. So why should every child, whether attending the most prestigious school in the country or a godforsaken one-room school in a village invisible to most maps with intangible prospects of a career in the sciences, learn science?

Teaching STEM subjects, when done the right way, does not mean simply teaching the names of the planets, or the elements in the periodic table. It is teaching logic, critical thinking and problem solving. It is nurturing curiosity and the right dose of skepticism while at the same time giving children the opportunity to be enthralled by and understand the wonders the universe. I will go as far as saying that every child has the right to marvel at the greatness of our cosmos. Science hates apathy of the mind, stimulates independent thinking and hence aids in the development of the full potential of the person.

This means that when all the details learnt at school, memorised equations, atomic numbers and what not, are forgotten, the science literacy that is left gives the knowledge and tools to make smart informed decisions. This is especially important when it comes to management of resources such as land, water, energy and biodiversity. All of which when managed properly lead to a better quality of life.

More than anything, science is a mind frame and a critical way of thinking. These are gifts that you cannot easily return back and can be used for free to fight propaganda and brainwashing by manipulative authorities. If this isn’t empowerment I don’t know what is.

What we should keep in mind is that great responsibility comes with disseminating knowledge. If this powerful way of thinking does not have a structure to support itself, it would be a futile attempt at empowerment. It is like showing the children the candy they cannot have, exhibiting what they are missing out on, rather than giving them a choice to take ownership of their lives. In such cases wouldn’t ignorance be bliss?

Inquisitiveness towards life is an exciting outlook to have. The joys in rediscovering how the wall hits you back as hard as you are hitting it, that white light hides within it the rainbow and that saying that the Universe is infinite is not just another metaphor, are delights no child should be deprived of.

1.7 million children die every year due to polluted environment: WHO

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 01:10:00 +0000

1.7 million children die every year due to polluted environment: WHO

Two World Health Organization (WHO) reports highlighted that children are exposed to harmful chemicals through food, water, air and products around them. Photo.

Imagine what could be accomplished if a fraction of the 20 million of us in the global chemical enterprise (according to the International Labour Organization) and our networks mobilized ourselves collectively to make a difference. What solutions might we devise and implement? What influence might we have on those who are already tasked with addressing this tragedy? Think globally; act locally.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 22:10:00 +0000

University of Massachusetts has just published an excellent article on their project with Chemists Without Borders on a low cost process they are developing to measure the concentration of arsenic in rice. When the process is fully developed, it will be transferred to a lab at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh, and Chemists Without Borders Bangladesh Team will promote the service to rice producers, dealers and consumers in Bangladesh.

You can read the full article here.

Humanitarian crisis looms in Fallujah after ISIS defeat

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 01:11:00 +0000

Dear Mr. President,

With all due respect, I got the impression from this piece on tonight's PBS NewsHour (just a few minutes of your time to watch, please) https://youtu.be/a3oL3WjLLA4?t=5m46s, that much more has been promised and could be done to support these refugees than we are currently doing. It was suggested that we are distracted by military and political issues. If am not misinformed, Mr President, shame on us. Since when did the greatest country in the world lack enough resources to master all three effectively, military, political AND humanitarian? I know you share my deep concern about all these refugees. Please address their plight with even greater urgency. Food, water, medicine, at least. Thank you.

With the highest respect,

Peace,

Bego

Chemists Without Borders Receives Award from the American Chemical Society

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 26 May 2016 02:23:00 +0000

Congratulations to Chemists Without Borders for receiving an American Chemical Society P3 Award! The purpose of the Partners for Progress and Prosperity (P3) Award is to encourage and recognize successful and exemplary partnerships. These partnerships must result in impactful outcomes that improve the public perception and appreciation for chemistry, promote career advancement opportunities, support entrepreneurship in the chemistry enterprise, advance advocacy efforts with government and thought leaders, or support STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education or research. Chemists Without Borders is being recognized for its humanitarian work in improving water quality and science education in South Asia and Africa. We are grateful to all our volunteers, past and present, and the ACS for their support and partnership! We accepted the P3 award at the Central Regional ACS meeting in Covington, Kentucky.

Huddled Masses

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 20:55:00 +0000

As I sat in the comfort of my warm bed last night, the sound of the rain pelting against my bedroom window put a smile on my face. Then I thought of those refugees who are none so fortunate. On top of what they have already lost and endured, they don't even have tents to protect them from the elements. They are, as it were, just outside my bedroom window ("with their faces pressed against the window of our affluence," as Sen. Edward Kennedy once so eloquently said) huddled in the mud and rain, men, women and children, the infant and the elderly. It's simply not good enough. What then must we do?

"The ILO [International Labor Organization] estimates that there are up to 20 million people employed in the global chemical, pharmaceutical and rubber and tyre [sic] industries today." We are a huge pool of people, many of whom are not chemists but who are all connected with one another with probably six or fewer degrees of separation. I think it’s fair to say, too, that each of us has at least 10 people in our personal circle who are unique to us. That’s 200 million educated people worldwide! Imagine what can be accomplished even if only one thousandth of us were active. The question remains, “How do we mobilize that larger community?” What are your ideas that will help these suffering people sooner rather than later?

The Power is in the Network

Peace,

Bego Gerber

Barriers To Pollution Prevention | Chemical & Engineering News

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 06:36:00 +0000

Barriers To Pollution Prevention | Chemical & Engineering News

Here's an interesting piece by Cheryl Hogue of C&EN about a study by the Environmental Protection Agency. The study finds that "many industrial facilities aren't acting to prevent the release of toxic chemicals because they aren't aware of less hazardous alternatives."

HERE'S WHAT KEEPS INDUSTRIAL FACILITIES FROM PREVENTING POLLUTION
Many cite lack of information about less toxic chemicals or alternative technology.

a Includes customer demand and unsuccessful efforts to reduce pollution.
SOURCE: EPA, Toxic Release Inventory data for 2014

Credit: Adapted from EPA

If that is true in the United States, is it also true in developing countries? If so, how might we help developing countries become more aware, and implement alternatives? All ideas welcome.

Peace,

Bego Gerber

Flint, MI

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 01:24:00 +0000

How could this happen? How, in the 21^st century, in a country that is modern, educated, and relatively wealthy, could such an atrocity occur? How could anyone forget how important clean water is to the health of people, especially children. How could this have gone on so long before action was taken to warn residents of Flint, MI? How could the local government be aware of this and not do something for so long? We often think of clean water issues as a 3^rd world problem, due to a lack of education, resources, or money. Yet here we are…

This CNN article sites a Genesee County Board of Commissioners October public health emergency declaration as saying that the water from the Flint water plant met all federal standards. The lead was said to be leaching from service lines or solder connections due to the corrosivity of the Flint River water.

According to this article, Michigan officials ignored EPA warnings. Previous lead poisoning incidents like that in Washington DC in 2004 were mentioned as well, so this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

There have also been questions raised in this article about the sampling practices used across the US for testing water and how it may result in artificially low lead readings.

If nothing else, maybe this crisis will make people more vigilant about making sure everyone has access to clean drinking water. It is something that we in the US have come to expect, but it is too important to take for granted.

Donning his white coat, this doctor dances for dollars

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 05:48:00 +0000

Donning his white coat, this doctor dances for dollars

Check out this great video. There's more to this doctor than simply
medicine. Similarly, there's more to each of us than simply chemistry,
and so too for pretty much everybody. The mission of Chemists Without
Borders is to solve humanitarian problems by mobilizing the resources
and expertise of the global chemistry community and its networks. What
can you do? Whom do you know? Whom can you mobilize? Let's talk.

Peace, Bego

Achievements of Chemists Without Borders Bangladesh Arsenic Education Project

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 16:33:00 +0000

Since September 2014, I have been managing the Chemists Without Borders team in Bangladesh. We started with a team of part time interns, all graduates of the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh. We had the objective of seeing whether we could work effectively with high schools to educate the students, and through them, their families about the health hazards of arsenic in drinking water.

Figure 1. Arsenic Education team (from the left): Monira Sultana, Nishat Raihana, Taslima Khanam, Anowara Begum, Shahena Begum.

We worked with six high schools and found the students to be very interested in our message, with high attendance and lots of questions at our presentations. Also, at each school, we had many volunteers to make measurements of arsenic concentration at wells near the schools. Our team trained the students how to make the measurements and gave them the test kits. As a result, we got arsenic concentration measurements at 20 to 30 wells in the neighborhoods of most of the schools. We found that two of the schools, Sitakunda High School, and Teriail High School, had very high arsenic concentrations (150ppb) at the school wells. This was a surprise result for the students and the teachers at these schools. They didn’t realize that they had been drinking water contaminated with arsenic.

Figure 2. Skin effects by drinking arsenic contaminated water.

A detailed report on our work during Stage 1 of our project (Sept 2014 through Dec. 2014) can be found on our Indiegogo site. Since January 2015, our work in Bangladesh has been led by Anowara Begum and Shahena Begum, and their priority has been to form partnerships and funding relationships so that the project can be sustainable on a long term basis. They have been joined for two months this summer by Adam Cooper, an American student from Stetson University in Florida.

Accomplishments so far have been:

1. Several Bangladesh Rotary Clubs have agreed to fund the replacement of arsenic contaminated wells at the two high schools discovered in Stage 1 of the project, and this will bring clean water to 4000 people.

2. HOPE Foundation for Women and Children of Bangladesh has asked our team to investigate wells contaminated with organic matter in their region, which has caused a number of people to become ill. We will also meet with their director for midwife training to discuss including our arsenic presentation in their midwife training.

3. Agami, a Bay Area organization that supports a number of schools in Bangladesh, has asked us to meet with their team in Dhaka and with teachers at schools in the Chittagong region to discuss our providing an extended course on health education to students in their schools.

4. A prominent newspaper in Bangladesh, Prothom Alo, has published an article on our work in the local language, Bangla.

5. On August 2, our American student, Adam, will be interviewed on a Bangladesh national TV program about Chemists Without Borders and our work in education and health improvement in Bangladesh.

I’d like to invite anyone who has our interest in our work or who might like to support it by volunteering or making a financial contribution to contact me at:

Blogger:

Ray Kronquist
@RayKronquist

ray@kronquist.com

One person’s half used bar of hotel soap could be another person’s best chance to survive?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 23:35:00 +0000

On my list of things I could donate that I would consider life saving, I would put blood, organs, bone marrow, even clean water. Half used bars of hotel soap? That never crossed my mind. It did to Shawn Seipler, now the CEO of the nonprofit initiative called Clean the World. According to an article I read, Seipler found that millions of used bars of hotel soap are sent to landfills around the world every day. This is quite staggering when you think about it. All that soap gone to waste, while people in developing countries are dying from illnesses that could be avoided, simply by washing their hands. It is something we take for granted, but can make a big impact in other countries. After some processing to remove residual bacteria and reform the bars, the soap is ready to go. Clean the World has since teamed up with Global Soap and has delivered more than 25 million bars to 99 countries. This is a pretty amazing accomplishment and just goes to show you that the old saying, “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure”, really is true.

Mussels make superglue?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 06 Dec 2014 23:34:00 +0000

Nature is so amazing. I heard about this topic on the radio last week and was curious to learn more about it. Even with all the technological advances we have made, humans still pale in comparison to what nature figured out a long time ago. One such example is the fibers and adhesives that mussels use to attach themselves to objects in the sea. Their ability to stick to wet surfaces is of particular interest as this may have potential application in medicine for wound closure due to surgery or injury. This could even include surgeries to unborn babies. Current chemical adhesives are no match for the salty, wet conditions of the human body. Mussel adhesives are so strong they are able to hold on during waves and storm currents making them a great example to study. Hmm...and here I was just thinking they were a seafood dish. Check out this article to learn more.

Support Bangladesh Arsenic Education Project on IndieGoGo

noreply@blogger.com (Elmo) — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 14:19:00 +0000

Dear friends of Chemists Without Borders,

I am pleased to announce the kickoff of our campaign on IndieGoGo aimed at educating high school students in Bangladesh on the dangers of drinking water contaminated with arsenic. Chemists Without Borders has provided arsenic test kits to six schools in Bangladesh to test the drinking water in their schools and in their surrounding communities. Our goal is to educate the students about arsenic poisoning, which is a critical health issue in Bangladesh and many other parts of the world. For wells that test above the limit of 50 parts per billion (ppb) of arsenic, we plan to work with other organizations to provide for alternative sources of clean drinking water.

Please take a few minutes to take a look at the IndieGoGo site, watch the brief video, and read about the success so far of the project. I am very proud of the work we have done so far, and with your help, we plan to scale up the project to reach more schools, eventually reaching all areas affected by arsenic in Bangladesh and elsewhere. Please feel free to share this information with others in your network who might be interested in the work Chemists Without Borders is doing. We can’t do it without you!

Warmest regards, and best wishes for a peaceful holiday season.

Steve

Steve Chambreau
President, Chemists Without Borders
stevechambreau@chemistswithoutborders.org

Chemists Without Borders is a 501(c)(3) organization registered with the Internal Revenue Service. All donations are tax-deductible as permitted by US law. Please check with your employer to see if they will match your donation!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bangladesh-arsenic-education-project#home

Functional Stupidity in Academia Blocks Meaningful Efforts to Pursue Sustainability

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 18:50:00 +0000

by Josh Kearns

* * *

Hi - Your erstwhile correspondent Josh Kearns here! As a Chemist Without Borders doing work of on-the-ground relevance, you may enjoy this critical look at the continuing struggle to bring academia into accord with the real world....

* * *

OK, so a paper came out in PLOS-ONE a couple months back where the authors used statistical analysis to predict that the area in the southeastern US covered by suburban sprawl would double or triple by 2050 if we continue development by business-as-usual (defined as a forward linear extrapolation of the past few decades).

“BLECH – more suburban sprawl!!!!” was my knee-jerk first response, typical of most enviro-types like me I reckon.

But then I was like, “Hold on – two to three times the area? That’s a huge area. It would take a vast amount of energy, resources, and capital to build that!”

“And hold on – business-as-usual continuing several more decades? No way! Not happenin’! Resource constraints are already seriously hobbling our economy – how can they assume growth like we experienced during the 1980’s and 1990’s? Fuelled by what? Shale oil? Ha ha good luck with that....”

I’m not in a position to judge the internal details of the authors’ statistical and modeling methods. But I can recognize that the baseline assumption upon which their model is predicated is false. And absurd.

You would think, then, that it wouldn’t make it through peer-review. You would think.

Anyway, this thing was enough of a burr under my saddle that I decided to write the authors, and leave comments on the article’s web page, and even get in touch with the editor. To wit, the exchange is reproduced below.

In a society as afflicted with such poverty of imagination regarding any economic M.O. other than “grow or die” as ours is, hokey baseline assumptions for future scenario modeling made by tame academics is a factor we’ll have to contend with if we hope to meaningfully address our current economic and environmental predicaments.

The first step is rooting out learned stupidity.

Disclaimer: It’s not that I think this particular paper represents the most egregious instance of functional stupidity in academia. Not at all. Not by a long shot, in fact. (See, for example, our Reinvent the Toilet Project. That project was arguably significantly more stupid because it wasted a lot of money and physical resources and was not limited to simply inconveniencing some electrons in a futile computer modeling exercise.)

I pick on this PLOS-ONE paper because it’s pretty straightforward to argue that the conclusions are totally meaningless since the premises upon which the modeling was based were false (notwithstanding however technically rigorous the subsequent computations were). If a dumb hillbilly like me can see that much, then it should’ve raised some red flags among the reviewers, if not the authors themselves. Therefore, carping on this paper serves as an effective foil to underscore the point that absurdities can sail through the peer review process without a hitch as long as they conform to prevailing prejudices.

And of course this particular kind of blindness isn't limited to academia, but is pervasive across all sectors of our society.

* * *

Hi XXXXXXX (editor’s name redacted) -

I am writing in response to an article recently published in PLOS-ONE entitled “The Southern Megalopolis: Using the Past to Predict the Future of Urban Sprawl in the Southeast U.S” by Terando et al. for which you are listed as the editor.

This paper has some methodological flaws that deserve highlighting. In fact, a fundamental premise of the study is false. I have raised these concerns with the corresponding author as well as in the paper’s comments online section at the PLOS-ONE website, but – perhaps predictably – have not gotten any traction in so doing. This is an interesting case to consider however, as it provides an illustration of how study premises that are in reality absurd or impossible are often fairly likely to pass peer review if they conform to prevailing prejudices.

The paper is based on the stated assumption that, "For fast growing regions such as the Southeast US, the most relevant scenario for conservation and adaptation planning is the “business-as-usual” (BAU) scenario in which the net effect of growth is in line with that which has occurred in the past." However, here the author’s have committed a version of Bertrand Russell's "turkey fallacy." Being fed by the farmer every morning consistently for several months, the turkey contentedly but wrongly extrapolates the happy circumstances of the recent past far into the future. The turkey is correct, until Thanksgiving.

The authors conclude that, "Our simulations point to a future in which the extent of urbanization in the Southeast is projected to increase by 101% to 192% [over the next 50 years]." However, they appear not to have tallied the (affordable) energy, material, and financial resources that would be required to deploy suburban sprawl over 2-3 times the current area throughout the region, or inquired whether it is realistic to expect that the required growth in these resources will materialize over the time period in question.

To illustrate with one example: the extensive deployment of the suburban armature over the preceding few decades has been keyed to dependence upon an increasing supply of affordable, high-energy-profit-ratio (or energy return on investment, "EROI") oil. The last major discoveries of such high EROI oil - the North Sea, and the north slope of AK - were brought online in the late 70's/early 80's, and their production is now winding down. Today's "tight oil" (e.g. shale deposits) does not qualify as high EROI since it is so much more expensive in both energy and monetary terms - and thus will not support the same rate of growth in infrastructure and finance as yesteryear's high-EROI conventional "light, sweet" crude. In addition to the declining energy profit ratio of oil (the "master resource"), other factors of resource depletion, climate destabilization, unsustainable debt accumulation, and the impingements of bio-physical limitations to continual economic growth make projections of growth "in line with that which has occurred in the past" (i.e., the "turkey fallacy") increasingly implausible.

I suggested this to the corresponding author in a personal communication. His response included the statement, "we believe it's reasonable to first give folks an idea of what patterns of growth may look like if we continue our current policies and preferences." Implicit here is that continuation of "our current policies and preferences" is a possibility, when it is in fact not a possibility. In a society where there is widespread lack of understanding of and the political will to deal with bio-physical limits to continued expansion of the human economy (a lack that extends right up to the highest levels of government, business, and academia), this suggestion by the authors sends an incorrect and unhelpful message.

Realistically, if planners and officials believe that BAU is possible, they will pursue it. The authors’ agenda of modeling based on BAU and then pointing out the dreadful ecological implications of the resulting sprawl is an emotional/moral appeal. The environmental/climate movement has long used this strategy with little success. Could a more compelling reality-based argument be made by demonstrating that that, due to high costs, insufficient EROI, accumulation of un-repayable debt, Ponzi finance dynamics, etc., BAU and the linear extrapolation of the suburban sprawl economy decades into the future is a physical and economic impossibility – and, therefore, we don’t actually have a choice whether to develop along a path that’s substantially different from BAU?

Rhetorical concerns aside, if the baseline condition (BAU based on the past few decades linearly projected forward 50 years) used by the authors in their modeling exercise is physically and financially impossible, then the output of their model is not meaningful. Consideration of the vast quantities of rapidly depleting energy and resources, as well as finance capital (itself dependent upon net energy and surplus wealth), that would be required to deploy suburban sprawl at 2-3 times the current expanse in the SE US should have instigated a "gut-check" regarding the plausibility of this modeling exercise - if not by the authors themselves, then by reviewers and PLOS-ONE editors. That - apparently - no "gut-check" was performed by any of the parties involved signifies the extent to which the idea of infinite growth on a finite planet is taken for granted, even among members of the intellectual class ostensibly concerned with "sustainability."

In this analysts' opinion, in light of these issues and oversights the paper should be retracted, and an explanation for the retraction published in PLOS-ONE. This would help to shift the conversation towards the reality-based domain and away from the unhelpful mythology of perpetual “progress” and growth.

Regards –

Josh

I received the following response from the editor:

Hi Josh,

Thanks for the thoughtful email.

The crux of accepting this paper revolved around this explicit criterion at PLoS One: "Experiments, statistics, and other analyses are performed to a high technical standard and are described in sufficient detail." I feel that the technical side of the paper is sound. Your criticism is of an assumption, but that (to me) does not affect the technical standards of the model. As such, I found this manuscript met criteria for publication in PLoS One.

Wow! I just couldn’t leave that one hanging out there... So I responded:

Fascinating!

Indeed my comment does not pertain to the technical standards of model application, but only to the relevance and actuality of the conditions upon which the model is predicated.

I have a friend who is seeking to publish a statistical analysis of superb technical standards and described in ample detail regarding the metabolism of alfalfa by unicorns (based upon extrapolation from zebra data). I will let them know that they should submit the study to PLOS-ONE!

To which the editor replied:

It is a strange standard - and why you see such high variance in paper quality there.

Well, that's quite an admission.

So, basically, the editor agrees with me but cites the journal’s editorial policies as the root of the problem and – what’s more – as constituting a block to any real corrective action.

This seems to be an instance of functional stupidity at the level of the academic enterprise (or at least at the level of one of the top journals). This concept was introduced by Alvesson and Spicer in a 2012 paper in the Journal of Management Studies entitled “A stupidity-based theory of organizations.”

According to Alevsson and Spicer

Functional stupidity refers to an absence of reflexivity, a refusal to use intellectual capacities in other than myopic ways, and avoidance of justifications.

It’s functional in the sense that it contributes to the stability of the organization or enterprise. It’s stupid in the sense that it involves willful or unconscious intellectual impairment – for example, that stemming from “group-think.”

What’s a contemporary example of group-think? How about the pervasive unwillingness to question the pursuit of infinite economic growth on a finite planet, for starters?

Alvesson and Spicer’s concept of functional stupidity has most obvious relevance to the corporate world. But they readily acknowledge is applicability in academia as well:

Functional stupidity as a general condition that pervades many spheres of social life, including academia. Contemporary academia could be seen as a hothouse for functional stupidity. In academia, huge amounts of time and energy are expended on writing papers for publication in top ranked journals, in our bid to ‘play the game’. These papers may be read or used by very few, and mainly by those eager to pad out the reference lists attached to their own papers. Rarely is there any serious discourse around the meaningfulness of this enterprise, apart from occasional debates about ‘relevance’. Perhaps this is because publications are not only a measure of our ‘market value’ but also are seen as an expression of our intelligence and knowledge. The result of an article being accepted for publication can be a deep sense of satisfaction and strong identity-confirmation, simply because it ‘proves’ how smart we are. Of course there are material rewards, but these are often less important than the symbolic ones. One could say that functional stupidity is a key resource for any institution eager to maximize careerism. This can make researchers into willing journal paper technicians who focus on writing papers for leading journals within a narrow subfield. This may detract from broader scholarship with slower and less predictable results and, perhaps, with a greater likelihood of saying something really interesting and/or socially useful.

Yeah – what they said.

Cell phones really are becoming the all-in-one device

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 13:37:00 +0000

George M. Whitesides of Harvard University and coworkers have invented uMed, an electrochemical detector that uses the voice channel of a cell phone on any cellular network to transmit data for remote analysis. It costs about $25, so it could bring water quality testing to people that cannot afford expensive electrochemical instruments. It even uses the cell phone’s vibrate setting to mix samples. The device uses test strips or electrodes with a potentiostat to perform chronoamperometry, cyclic voltammetry, differential pulsed voltammetry, square wave voltammetry, or potentiometry. This can be used to detect trace amounts of toxic metals in drinking water, measure glucose in blood, monitor sodium in urine, and perform an electrochemical enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for malaria antigen. For such a simple, inexpensive device, it really packs an analytical punch. The article mentioned that further work would involve using the device to gather data in the field and get some feedback by users. Maybe Chemists Without Borders could volunteer to gather some data & provide feedback in exchange for the use of the devices. Seems like a win-win to me.

Link to publication:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/08/01/1405679111

If anyone is interested, the publication indicates that correspondence be directed to : gwhitesides@gmwgroup.harvard.edu

"Smart lens" technology

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 01:11:00 +0000

I have a pretty strong corrective lens prescription. I have astigmatism in my left eye which is not corrected very well by glasses, but toric contact lenses do a pretty good job since they are weighted and return to proper position with every blink. With my prescription I am becoming more and more limited in what corrective lenses can do for me as I become more and more nearsighted. As I get older, my eyes are starting to change less as the muscles in my eye begin to weaken, but I have often wondered, "What will I do if my eyes move beyond the realm of what can be corrected with current lens technology? "

A prototype smart lens.

Credit: Novartis

     Enter Google X and their scifi problem solvers. They have designed “smart lens” technology that works to incorporate sensors, microchips, and other electronics into contact lenses. Novartis is licensing this technology with a couple ideas in mind. One possible use is the treatment of the loss of the eye’s ability to focus on close objects (presbyopia). Refractive surgery would likely need to be combined with the lens, but together they could possibly return the eye’s natural autofocus ability.     This seems like just the beginning of what a lens like this could do to correct vision. Who knows, maybe one day I will benefit from this early work with “smart lenses”.
     Another really impressive idea is using the “smart lens” to measure glucose levels in the eye fluid of people with diabetes. People today must continuously draw their blood to measure glucose levels, but maybe one day their “smart lens” would wirelessly send their glucose level to their phone. No fingerpicks. Pretty neat idea if they can get it to work as reliably as a blood glucose meter.
     Maybe Google X can develop a cheap sensor for Chemists Without Borders that would wirelessly send water contaminant data to an analyst halfway across the world…you never know…horseless wagons were futuristic long ago.

REMINDER - IdeaConnection Projects Q&A call: 9am PST August 7, 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 00:45:00 +0000

IdeaConnection Projects Q&A call: 9am PST August 7, 2014

Chemists Without Borders - IdeaConnection Projects Conference Call Agenda

Dates: Aug 7^th 2014 9am PST

LISTEN -- IdeaConnection QA Conf Call July 17 2014 6pm.WMA

Project Overview in Google Docs: CWB IdeaConnection Solutions

Join a Team:

1) ACTIVE 8504 Cottage Industry Arsenic Removal (filter) Sign Up for 8504

2) ACTIVE 8500 Arsenic Penny per Test Sign Up for 8500

3) PENDING 8505 Water Treatment Tool Kit Sign Up for 8505

4) PENDING 8502 eWaste (plan) Sign Up for 8502

5) PENDING 8503 Water Testing Tool Kit Sign Up for 8503

Conference call AGENDA:

In this open conference call, Dr. Steve Chambreau, President of Chemists Without Borders, will give an update on the IdeaConnection solutions provided recently to Chemists Without Borders. This will detail the history of the IdeaConnection collaboration, including proposed challenges, the solution evaluation process, and the accepted solutions that we plan to move forward. We will discuss how to move these solutions forward and look for team members to help with this. Please see Newsletter #15 for more details.

Date:	Thursday, August 07, 2014
Start Time:	09:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time
End Time:	09:55 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Dial-in Number:	1-626-677-3000 (West Coast)
Access Code:	365675

If you are interested in learning more about the IdeaConnection solutions and how you can help Chemists Without Borders with listed challenges, please attend this conference call.

Louis J Ciabattoni
louciabattoni@chemistswithoutborders.org

Vice President of Membership and Administration

Mobile: +1-650-255-2760 Skype/@Yahoo/@Google: CiabattoniLJ

Business, Bees, and Nicotine

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 11:00:00 +0000

Since 1945, the use of pesticides has risen 3,300 percent, however crop loss due to pests has not decreased. Despite the fact that USA (on average) uses 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides annually, crop loss has increased by 20 percent. To make matters worse these statistics were taken a decade ago, and if you remember anything from your high school biology class, pests evolve and adapt swiftly to the new environment. Now, with tougher pests you need stronger chemicals, and the vicious cycle continues. Since there is a high demand for these pesticides, hundreds of thousands of chemicals are produced (yearly) and they have to be screened by the EPA. Theoretically, this is what EPA should do and would like to do. However, unfortunately their major back-logs and a continuous stream of chemicals are constantly being pushed by respective firms thus creating a loop hole where a couple of hundred chemicals make it to the market without ‘intensive’ screening -- among them are several neonicotinoids.

Photo: taken from the ACS 'molecule of the week.' Clothianidin-

One of the first neonicotinoids to make it to the market was Clothianidin. This insecticide was jointly developed by Bayer and Takeda Chemical Industries to replace nicotine (as an insecticide). As a Side note, nicotine was thought of to be a good insecticide, however it degrades too quickly thereby not practical in large scale production. In general neonicotinoids have an affinity for nicotinic acetylcholine receptors which are in control of sodium channels responsible for cell signaling. These neural receptors bind with the neonicotinoid which results in paralysis and death in insects – no cell signaling, no movement. Since there were massive domino effects on bees and other organisms, several neonicotinoids have been issued a 2-year ban for further investigation.

Due to the wide-spread usage here in the USA, bee populations are are already feeling the heat.In a memorandum to federal agencies Obama ordered the EPA to assess the impact of all pesticides, on pollinator health with a deadline of 180 days. EPA has started the assessment, which now has a deadline. There are environmental advocacy groups pressuring EPA to ban neonicotinoids because of its impact on bees. Larissa Walker, head of the pollinator campaign at the Center for Food and Safety says, “The White House announcement is on the right track, but assessment and habitat building alone won’t save our pollinators.” What do you think will come about this?

-Quote taken from C&EN article “The White House and Bees.”

Blogger:

Michael (Mykola) Schur

Chemical Engineering student at Calvin College

@Mykola_Shchur

IdeaConnection Projects Q&A call: 6pm PST July 17, 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 12:07:00 +0000

Chemists Without Borders - IdeaConnection Projects Conference Call Agenda

Dates: July 17 6pm PST and ALSO on Aug 7^th 2014 9am PST

Project Overview in Google Docs: CWB IdeaConnection Solutions

Join a Team:

1) ACTIVE 8504 Cottage Industry Arsenic Removal (filter) Sign Up for 8504

2) ACTIVE 8500 Arsenic Penny per Test Sign Up for 8500

3) PENDING 8505 Water Treatment Tool Kit Sign Up for 8505

4) PENDING 8502 eWaste (plan) Sign Up for 8502

5) PENDING 8503 Water Testing Tool Kit Sign Up for 8503

Conference call AGENDA:

Date:	Thursday, July 17, 2014
Start Time:	06:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time
End Time:	06:55 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Dial-in Number:	1-626-677-3000 (West Coast)
Access Code:	365675#

If you are interested in learning more about the IdeaConnection solutions and how you can help Chemists Without Borders with listed challenges, please attend this conference call.

Louis J Ciabattoni
louciabattoni@chemistswithoutborders.org

Vice President of Membership and Administration

Mobile: +1-650-255-2760 Skype/@Yahoo/@Google: CiabattoniLJ

Can biomass char remove toxic synthetic chemicals from drinking water?

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 18:00:00 +0000

Earlier this morning, Aqueous Solutions launched a science crowd-funding campaign through experiment.com!

We're raising money to purchase laboratory supplies, reagents, etc., for a series of micro-column tests in the lab that will determine the capacity of locally generated biochar for removal of toxic pesticides and pharmaceutical residues from drinking water sources.

Check out our project website, and please consider supporting this work - thanks!

Biochar made from longan wood, by traditional village char production methods in northern Thailand. The micro-porous nature of biomass chars provides tremendous internal surface area, and makes for effective contaminant adsorption.

Winter is coming, or is it always cold in Russia?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 00:27:00 +0000

Fire at the regional trade union council building in Odessa, Ukraine Photo: Barcroft Media

In the midst of the Ukrainian crisis, tactics reminiscent of the Cold War began emerging—ones that trace back to the KGB laboratories half a century ago. From guns that spray hydrogen cyanide to assassination attempts with “Agent Orange,” it seems that the use of chemicals as weapons (not to be confused with chemical weapons) is still on the Soviet agenda. On May 2^nd 32 people died due to a fire in the trade unions building in Odessa, which were occupied by pro-Russian protesters. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed outrage and immediately accused Ukrainian authorities for responsibility of this scandal: however, as investigations progressed, a well-known agent came into the picture—chloroform. Large traces of chloroform were found in the ashes of the building coupled with open exits, unscathed parts of the building and positions of the bodies that did not show signs of escape or struggle puzzled authorities.

But why chloroform? Chloroform (CHCl₃) is easily synthesized and dangerous depending on levels of exposure. It is a colorless liquid with a pleasant scent, and sweet taste (one of the discoverers that chemist Samuel Guthrie enjoyed was its “cherry like taste”) and occasionally took shots of the liquid. Chloroform can be easily synthesized by combining two common household items – bleach and acetone. In an exothermic reaction the two will form a heavy liquid where a simple decanting will yield a substantial amount of chloroform. Before chloroform was known to cause kidney and liver damage, it was used as an anesthetic, administered by breathing in more than 10000ppm of air. On its own chloroform is not a significant threat, but using it to incapacitate people in this situation is deadly.

Ukraine has asked Israel to help in the investigation: thus far, authorities from both sides of the crisis have been detained and further chemical analyses will reveal the truth. However, all eyes are on Russia with suspicion: more on the story to follow as the investigation furthers.

Blogger:

Michael (Mykola) Schur

Chemical Engineering student at Calvin College

@Mykola_Shchur

Just So You Know

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:04:00 +0000

We are speaking at the 248th ACS National Meeting & Exposition on August 10-14, 2014 in San Francisco, CA USA.

Chemists Without Borders - Bego Gerber, our Chairman and Co-Founder, is presenting our ongoing humanitarian work on Sunday afternoon August 10^th and Steve Chambreau, our Co-Founder, President and Director, is also presenting at 8am on August 12^th. Come and join us for simulating presentations and further discussions. More details will follow…

Electricity from body heat

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 May 2014 02:04:00 +0000

It amazes me how smart some people are. At 15 I was just trying to learn to drive a car; Ann Makosinski from British Columbia invented a flashlight that produces light just by using the warmth of your hand. It works via the thermoelectric effect which is the direct conversion of temperature differences to electric voltage. An article in gadgets.ndtv.com states: “The light generated is modest, but enough to find your keys or light the page of a book. It worked for around half an hour in her tests at an ambient temperature of about 10 degrees Celsius, but would last longer or shorter depending on temperature differences”. For people without regular access to electricity this is pretty impressive. Another article says, “She remembered hearing human beings described as walking 100-volt light bulbs: “I thought, why not body heat? We have so much heat radiating out of us and it’s being wasted.” How right she is. This technology has such far reaching potential. How many other things could be powered by harnessing our own body heat? I think she has a bright (pun intendedJ) future ahead of her.

Forget the Cutting Edge – Embrace the Old-Tech Future

noreply@blogger.com (Josh) — Thu, 01 May 2014 14:16:00 +0000

By Josh Kearns

Our society is pathologically enthralled with “the new.” As scientists and engineers, we’re inculcated starting from very early in our training to seek “the cutting edge” of technological development and innovation. But if we want the results of our research efforts to stand the best chance of making a beneficial impact in the future, that’s the opposite of what we should do.

The reason is that technology ages in reverse. Or put another way, the longer a given technology has been around, the more likely it is to persist into the future. So if you want your efforts in science to matter in the future, you’d better look to the past for defining relevant research questions.

According to philosopher and risk analyst Nassim Taleb, author of Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder, while perishable items (such as human beings, cats and dogs, and tomatoes) experience a decline in life expectancy with each passing day, nonperishable things (such as art, literature, cultural forms, ideas and technologies) can experience increased life expectancy the longer they are in circulation. This concept of “ageing in reverse” is known as the Lindy Effect.

Think of it this way: every morning that you wake up brings you one day closer to your death. (Sorry to be so blunt.) But for some forms of art, culture, architecture, ideas and technology that stand the test of time, each passing day that they endure increases the likelihood that they will persist yet longer.

Take the example of whatever recently released pop song just topped the charts – what are the odds that people will still be listening to this song six months from now, or a year from now, or ten or twenty years from now? Pretty low odds. But what about Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1973 anthem Free Bird? Nearly a half-century has passed, and people around the world (especially in my native home of southern Appalachia) are still rockin’ out super hard to Free Bird!

What are the odds that many decades hence requests for “Free Bird!!!” will still be shouted by countless ebulliently inebriated concert goers, long after the last member of the original Skynyrd lineup is resting peacefully in his red clay grave? I give it pretty damn good odds. But will Free Bird still be inspiring face-melting air-guitar solos two or three centuries from now? That’s a tough call (though one can be hopeful…).

In Austria nearly two-and-a-half centuries ago, Mozart was just hitting his peak. If humans can manage not to do ourselves in through climate change, soil fertility exhaustion, poisoned water, deforestation, warfare, fisheries collapse, antibiotic resistant superbugs, toxic smog, radioactive waste…etcetera, etcetera…in the meantime, will humans of the mid-twenty-third century will still be enjoying The Marriage of Figaro? Owing to the Lindy Effect, odds are they will be.

OK so the Skynyrd reference was a bit goofy, but give these a thought:

What’s more likely to be read 500 years from now: The Bible, or Harry Potter?

What’s more likely to be in use 500 years from now: Roman aqueducts, or iPads?

What crops are more likely to be cultivated successfully 500 years from now: locally adapted organic heirloom varieties, or patented GMOs requiring specialized concoctions of fossil-fuel derived chemical fertilizers and pesticides?

What’s more likely to still be standing 500 years from now: the Pyramids of Giza, or the Mall of America?

In Antifragile, Taleb asserts that our modern culture trains us to think that the new is always about to overcome the old, but that this is just an optical illusion because the failure rate of the new is much higher than the failure rate of the old. (Consider the plethora of contemporary pop music acts that in retrospect comprise “one-hit wonders.”) Taleb observes that, “in general, the older the technology, not only the longer it is expected to last, but the more certainty we can attach to such as statement.” And precisely because complex, novel technologies are proliferating at such a high rate in our contemporary world, “the old has a huge advantage over the new.”

And that’s how we have to think when we are trying to define research questions that stand the best chance of being relevant in the future. Forget the cutting edge – embrace old-tech!

It’s important to stress two things: (1) that the Lindy Effect is not about every technology, but about life expectancy as a probabilistically derived average, and (2) it’s not that all technologies don’t age, but that technologies that are prone to age are already dead or will be shortly.

I’ll illustrate with an anecdote from my own work in water and sanitation for developing communities.

Somehow, I was part of a research team awarded a massive grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations’ “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge” (RTTC). We were funded to develop the “Sol-Char” toilet – a kind of Rube Goldberg contraption that thermally converts human feces to a supposedly beneficial char soil amendment. This was accomplished via a very sophisticated and expensive system of reflective dishes and fiber optics for capture, concentration and transmission of solar energy. The whole large, elaborate, and costly array was mounted on a computer-controlled precision tracking system so that maximal solar incidence would be constantly achieved. While truly impressive efficiencies of solar energy harnessing were obtained in the lab (a number of patents applications were filed), the Sol-Char toilet will never, ever be deployed anywhere – least of all anywhere in the much-touted “developing communities” that the RTTC program alleged to serve.

Why not? Anyone who has spent even a modest amount of time in the field and working outside of academia realizes that expensive, high-tech and cutting-edge interventions conceived in developed world laboratories don’t stand a good chance of providing lasting solutions to real-world water and sanitation challenges. Low-cost, decentralized, locally conceived and managed, so-called “appropriate” technologies fare much better as sustainable solutions. This is a direct manifestation of the Lindy Effect.

For me, the whole Bill Gates / RTTC thing was a fluke. My efforts in sustainable water and sanitation focus on R&D to adapt, optimize, and extend old technologies that have stood the test of time. For example: simple composting toilets that render human excreta safe for handling and provide soil fertility. The use of composted human waste in agriculture is an ancient practice, as documented in F.H. King’s classic study Farmers of Forty Centuries. Until the advent of industrial processes for converting non-renewable fossil energy (primarily natural gas) to synthetic fertilizers, the use of (organic) human and animal manures was essential for maintaining soil fertility and crop yields. This will inexorably once again be the case as cheap and abundant fossil fuels deplete, ecological limits to technological expansion bite harder, and the sun sets on the industrial era in the decades and generations to come. Therefore we can attach a high degree of probability to the perseverance and proliferation of traditional composting toilets for closing the loop between human and animal waste treatment and food production in the future.

Are composting toilets a singular “silver bullet” for solving the world’s sanitation crisis? No. Do they work in all human settlements, climates, and cultures? No. Do they always function flawlessly and eliminate 100% of pathogens? No. Do they invariably solve more problems than they cause? No, unfortunately. But could they be enhanced and optimized through research and development? Certainly! (And of course, many researchers are currently doing just this – for example, see the excellent work by Toilets for People!)

Another example: at Aqueous Solutions, we’re advancing drinking water treatment technologies using charcoal. Charcoal filtration is a traditional practice dating back at least to ancient societies in Egypt and India. The technique is 4,000-plus years old and so according to the Lindy Effect we can estimate that it will persist for a similarly lengthy timespan. Our goals are to optimize the production of charcoal, making it more energy efficient and more environmentally friendly while producing consistent and enhanced water filter char capable of controlling modern chemical toxicants such as pesticides. In order to achieve widespread and sustainable implementation of our systems over the long term, our innovations must fall within the technological, cultural and economical scope of long-lived traditional means.

So in summary: I am not inveighing against science and innovation per se – just stressing that innovation should be geared toward making refinements in traditional technologies, rather than generating revolutionary, transformative technological configurations that just end up making things more complicated and fragile, and therefore short-lived.

Don’t waste your time on expensive flashy new-fangled gizmos. Here today, gone tomorrow.

* * *

Well, dear reader, I’m nearing the end of my present stint as a Chemiste Sans Frontières. This time next week I’ll be on a plane somewhere over the Pacific, contemplating my reintegration into US culture and the day-to-day rigueur of working on a University campus.

If anything you’ve read here in the past few months has caught your interest, feel free to connect with me through Facebook. (And, please “Like” Aqueous Solutions!)

Links to my other posts

Doing Manual Labor for Sustainable Development Makes You Sexy

I've Got a Beef With Sustainability

 Crowd-Funded Low-Tech Cyanide Mitigation, Anyone?

(Bio-) Chemists Without Borders: Help Aqueous Solutions Hack Field E. coli Testing!

A Chemist’s Critique of Economics and “Sustainable Development”

Part I: Contemplation of the Energy Return on Investment (EROI)

Making “Low-Tech” Biochar Adsorbent For Decentralized Water Treatment

Ler Per Her Water Treatment Workshop

Chemistry Notes From the Field: A New Blog!

Just So You Know

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 20:15:00 +0000

Recently Gabriela Solano and Alvin Menezes have joined our HR team. Initially, they will be staffing our internal positions and then positions within our upcoming projects. Those of you whom returned a Chemists Without Borders Application form will be contacted. Your chemistry and ancillary skills are vital as we fortify our organization. If you want to make a difference and can help, let us know.

From our recent Newsletter 15, we are working on several projects. Our Arsenic Education Project team is working on deliverables for a high school awareness rollout in Bangladesh. We are starting to receive IdeaConnection solutions addressing our five challenges across water quality and worker safety. A new Sierra Leone Chemist Lab Kits project manager is rejuvenating this initiative.

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