User:Giovanni Lostumbo: Difference between revisions

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Welcome to my OWW page.


I am interested in starting an OpenWetWare lab project in bioengineering, solar utilities, and RepRap[http://blog.reprap.org/][https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/RepRap_Project][http://www.reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page], three developments which are mutually inclusive towards a free electricity (not in the the same sense as Gibbs'[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gibbs_free_energy], but aware of it) and climate project.
==3D Printable Organic PhotoVoltaics via Metabolically Engineered Biosynthesis Pathways Notebook==
http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Giovanni_Lostumbo/Notebook/3D_Printable_Organic_Photovoltaics_via_Biosynthesis


My first project will document, using multimedia (high-resolution images, video tutorials, and protocols) on how to harvest melanin (and later, polyaniline+other organic conductors: http://openwetware.org/wiki/Image:Organic_batteries_w-annotations.pdf.pdf) from ''bacillus atropheus,'' ''b. thuringiensis, or b. subtilis'' for use in OLEDs, capacitors, organic solar photovoltaic panels, batteries and other electronics.


 
Page in Pdf format:
== Introduction ==
http://openwetware.org/wiki/Image:3D_printable_organic_PVs_and_Biosynthesis.pdf
 
Energy comes in several mediums. The consumption of energy usually involves the combustion of fuel to generate heat to spin motors for the purpose of kinetic energy[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Kinetic_energy] or to spin turbines to generate electricity via electromagnetic induction [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction] for the purpose of potential energy[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Potential_energy] when stored in a battery or capacitor. The ability to develop an energy generator utility that is accessible and affordable could come with advanced research and development efforts towards RepRap technology and bioengineering of microbes for the purpose of yielding abundant organic solar voltaic panel raw materials[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Raw_material]. World energy consumption is heavily based on non-renewable fossil fuels and a new solution could be developed faster through a decentralized effort similar to how the Linux GNU/GPL operating system was developed [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/GNU][https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License] and adopted with varying "market share" (with mild to moderate popularity) since the early 1990s. Linux software is stored in online repositories such as FTP servers [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol] and via p2p [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Peer-to-peer] file-sharing[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Torrent_Swapper]. Computer-aided design (CAD) stores 3D manufacturing blueprints in electronic medium as well. Efforts such as those by http://gnusha.org/skdb/ for hardware and http://biobricks.org/ for biological molecules  allow both an electronic repository and an organization for physically replicable parts that could be accessed for research and applied towards hardware and biotech instruments (Addenum: Gnusha.org also develops biological constructs). The same type of organization inspired from http://www.gnu.org/ led to the development of digital sharing content/media with http://creativecommons.org/ and Open Farm Tech [http://openfarmtech.org/wiki/Main_Page]. Furthermore, there are incentives such as the Gada Personal Manufacturing Prize[http://humanityplus.org/projects/gadaprize/]:
 
"Grand Personal Manufacturing Prize
 
The Grand Prize would seek to make the technology more rapidly scalable by increasing the productivity of the
replication process. As a bonus, the Grand Prize may additionally be helpful in recycling material waste (such as
plastics) into material suitable for RepRap use. Plastics such as HDPE and Polypropylene, of which millions of tons 
exist as waste matter, may be suitable candidates, and recycling of such waste material would be viewed favorably
by the judging panel.
 
The Grand Prize is expected to be funded at $80,000 before launch (it is presently not funded). There are three 
parameters that will be used to judge the efforts of the teams participating in the competition.
 
    * That the cost of the material used for printing does not exceed $4/kilogram.
    * The capacity to print a full set of parts for a complete replica of itself within 7 days, including the
    * time for reloading, and clearing of printer head jams.
    * Maintain a total materials and parts cost under $200 and that 90% of the volume of the printer parts be
    * printed.
 
The judging committee envisions a variety of technologies which might be deployed to achieve this end including:
 
    * Software to drive and manage banks of RepRap printers
    * Hardware and software systems to automatically unload printed parts from RepRap printers
    * Hardware and software systems to sort, clean and package or assemble printed parts
    * Innovations in plastics recycling, and development of a suitable grinder and extruder"
 
This could accelerate the development of RepRaps that could be used towards decentralized, mass-production[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xeio3w_adrian-bowyer-the-reprap-lift-franc_tech] of progressively efficient solar panels that would generate enough electricity to be "too cheap to matter"[http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free]
 
However, since that hasn't happened yet, or there is no incentive to pass that energy barrier, here are some more informational resources that could be used to integrate and realize the potential of solar power towards further development.
 
"The available solar energy resources are 3.8 YJ/yr (120,000 TW)[86,000 TW in link]. Less than 0.02% of available resources are sufficient to entirely replace fossil fuels and nuclear power as an energy source." [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:Available_Energy-4.png]
 
from:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Solar_power
Also of reference:
 
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Insolation
 
To demonstrate how rapidly a freely distributable RepRap and solar utility kit could be developed, several affiliated projects could be developed simultaneously in an ad-hoc[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ad_hoc], self-organizing[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Self-organization], hologenomic [http://blogs.cambia.org/raj/index.php/2010/11/16/the-hologenome-theory-of-evolution/] superorganism[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Superorganism]: an international effort to engineer microbial strains that yield durable, organic semi-conductors for the purpose of progressively efficient (5->40%+?) capture of insolation into organic solar photo voltaic panels and energy storage which could be integrated into a modular[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Modularity], future version[https://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/b2510075291ed172#] of a RepRap to develop a multiversal[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Software_repository][https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Synaptic_%28software%29] battery, connector [https://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/8a3170d15efc147f#] and a compatible PV frame set [https://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/fb3847441f1408fb?] using a format similar to that of ISO standards and IEEE-SA specifications. Recharging a battery, auto, and home could be as fast as Wall-E [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8szceStqZI] at sunrise as he gets ready for compacting trash of the long-departed humans orbiting space and surviving easily from space-ship automation.
 
"The proper tool for a task, Not every nail needs a hammer. Are we too fixated on Exotitech?"
"Connectors and Batteries. Designing them to be society wide." (above links)
 
A comprehensive analysis and research center for global annual energy consumption, the source and endpoint of that energy, and its effects (both natural and anthropogenic) on climate change and the environment:
http://gcep.stanford.edu/research/exergy/flowchart.html
 
"All things good on this Earth flow into the City" -Pericles
 
And all good things flow from...farms. Vertical polyculture[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Polyculture] farms [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Vertical_farming] using microbially-synthesized and RepRap'd OLED [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Organic_light-emitting_diode] grow lights [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Grow_light#LED_Grow_Lights] for food, and bioreactor farms for energy. Microbes can harvest conductors which can then yield solar energy for renewable power. Solar utilities and energy independence is a right[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/25/science/earth/25fossil.html], not a privilege. GPL and post-scarcity[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Post_scarcity] can make that possible. Just past the greenwashing[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Greenwashing] horizon is the "blue sky"[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/BlueHat] approach.
 
== References ==
 
Links to papers:
"Formation of melanin pigment by a mutant of Bacillus thuringiensis H-14"
http://mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/reprint/139/10/2365.pdf (free)
 
"Isolation, purification and physicochemical characterization of water-soluble Bacillus thuringiensis melanin."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15760342
 
Dissertation by Zhiwei Pan, PhD, on Metabollic engineering of Bacillus product yields:
http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-05302007-093344/'''unrestricted'''/ZhiweiPan_ETD2007.pdf
http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-05302007-093344/unrestricted/ZhiweiPan_ETD2007.pdf
 
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Organic_solar_cell
 
Top recorded solar efficiency of an organic solar cell: about 5%:
http://openwetware.org/wiki/Image:Organic_Polymer_efficiency_as_solar_voltaic.png
from:
 
Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Volume 18, Issue 5, Solar Cell Efficiency Tables (version 36), Wiley 2010 [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pip.1021/pdf] 5-7.9% for organics
 
Illustrative and informative Nanosolar video: http://nanosolar.com/nanosolar-technology-overview
 
11/2009: "How (not) to resolve the energy crisis" [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/11/renewable-energy-is-not-enough.html]
 
03/2011: "UN report: Cities are Climate Change battleground" [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/29/961311/-UN-report:-Cities-are-Climate-Change-battleground?via=search]
 
== Publications ==
 
 
Li Q, Jagannath C, Rao PK, Singh CR, Lostumbo G. Analysis of phagosomal proteomes: from latex-bead to bacterial phagosomes. Proteomics. 2010 Nov;10(22):4098-116. doi: 10.1002/pmic.201000210.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21080496
 
Li Q, Lostumbo G. Proteomic Analyses of a Variety of Intracellular Bacterial Species Infecting Different Host Cell Lines. Current Proteomics Volume 7 Issue 3 ISSN: 1570-1646 pp.222-232 (11)
http://www.benthamdirect.org/pages/content.php?CP/2010/00000007/00000003/009AS.SGM
 
== Contact ==
 
Email address can be found at my Google Groups profile (I frequent OpenManufacturing and DIYBio (they're also here:[http://openwetware.org/wiki/DIYbio]):
https://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=UfVTNBsAAAAUop8qaq9-N_EijEqGqhzdvS6NllHqJt6FvmRxWW9AJg
(the squiggly phrase has to be typed in the box to confirm you're hue-man. Alternatively, the following sentence can be interpreted: first name (above) dot last name at gmail dot com.
 
Feel free to make edits to the project ideas and references and send me links/publications that I can also post for you on this page. If you would like to start an online lab on OWW regarding this specific project or a related one such as RepStrap printing [http://reprap.org/wiki/Category:RepStrap] or plasmid/bacteriophage development, also please message me. Thanks!
 
 
== About ==
 
I live in the postmodern world[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Postmodernism], rather than just reading novels about it and living in the modernist one, out of empirical observations that led me to accept scientific fact rather than a complete/initial interest in it. I've been compared to a human thesaurus, which accurately suggests that I purposely have abandoned all context and most primary sources for the purpose of reflecting the world as it exists and not as a bubble that is artificial and inconsequential to society's ability to adapt by moving on from outmoded, unhealthy, and environmentally unsustainable modernist/ethnocentric thought.
 
I was an English major for a year and a half when I started college, but then I moved into Biology, not because I didn't find English important but because I was seeking to understand something universal to human life in contrast to the current (post-modern) literary era's soulless thematic conclusion-that realities are metaphysical and not quite universal. What I learned from Biology and evolutionary phylogenetics is that DNA might be somewhat universal (Arsenic DNA backbone pending but even then-still), but the phenotypic nature of life itself varies so much at the microbial scale that I reached the conclusion that the reason so much conflict exists in human society is because people can't deal/adapt with their differences[http://www.hummusguide.com/2010/01/bruno-and-worlds-best-hummus.html]. Yet microbes do a lot better job at symbiosis, based on the vast majority of mutualism in the biosphere[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Biogeochemical] and systems ecology[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Systems_ecology]. Fortunately, at least some evolutionary sociobiologists[http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-17/bostonglobe/2948429_1_altruism-mole-rats-evolutionary-theory] and psychologists[http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/4891397/Kiwis-mother-of-language-discovery-creates-stir] see a bigger picture. The rest depends on society's willingness and/or ability (from gene street[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Genetics] to K street[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/K_Street_%28Washington,_D.C.%29]) to adapt.
 
Thus, I see myself more as a wedge/widget[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Widget] between the arts/humanities and the sciences, similar to C.P Snow's The Two Cultures[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Two_Cultures]. Perhaps in equal intensity or based on the situation/context, artists-humanists need to think more scientifically as scientists should think more culturally.
 
If the picking of an undergraduate major included the privileges of a hedge fund investment, college could be about studying whichever portfolio succeeds. Realizing this esoteric benefit, many twenty-somethings of this generation have become stem cells[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=all] and jacks/amateurs of all trades rather than mastering a particular field, especially if that fields' requisites become quickly outdated. A perma-pluripotent cell would have more options and abilities to contribute to larger, but ad-hoc projects that accomplish community-defined goals in a shorter amount of time.  Google's Summer of Code (GSoC) [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code] and Internationally Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM)[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/IGEM] and their contributions to GPL software/biology are examples of short-term projects with long-term applications. The question is why the similar organizations are not being emphasized to address issues in climate change, bioremediation and accessible sustainable energy. Pink Army[http://pinkarmy.org/] is one such initiative in biomedicine, concerned with treating unique diseases with custom-made pharmaceuticals.
 
Lateral thinking[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Lateral_thinking] (of memes) and horizontal gene transfer[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer] seem to have a lot in common for the purpose of evolutionary equilibrium[http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.4125] and survival.
 
== Obstacles: Systems Ecology: Choosing Applied and/or Basic Science Research? ==
 
 
Bioremediation-based climate change solutions [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Methanotroph][http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap3-4/final-report/default.htm]
 
The following is from [http://www.eco-business.com/opinion/alternatives-to-alternative-energy-by-h-t-goranson/] (but disagreeing with the point on methane clathrate as I think methanotroph bioremediation is a more environmentally friendly solution compared to exploitation of natural gas/methane and solar energy as the electricity solution:
 
"If there was ever a time for a massive investment in research into long-term energy sources, that time is now.
We need something on the scale of the Manhattan Project (which created the atomic bomb), or the Apollo Program
(which put a man on the moon).
 
Both initiatives succeeded in a short period of time and at a relatively low price. In current dollars, each cost
about $200 billion – a mere fraction of what the United States has paid for the Iraq war, and less than the cost
implied by the  rise in oil prices over the past year.
 
Both the Apollo Program and the Manhattan Project had unique characteristics. Each marshaled the sharpest minds
from a range of countries to address one task. Tolerance for failure was slim in both initiatives, so they tended
to rely on the previous generation of scientific insight, because the resulting technology was more trustworthy.
Neither entailed a great scientific challenge, but rather''' a vast engineering''' problem. Although invention 
was required, existing scientific
methods were used.
 
Unfortunately, governments now focus only on one aspect of this investment format, in which technology that is
almost ready is funded. But this results in endless efforts to make non-ideal methods less troublesome. We need a
game changer, like the integrated circuit, radio, or '''electricity'''. Such a paradigm shift requires an
Apollo-scale investment, but in basic science."
 
I think electricity is the game changer, via decentralized development of solar voltaic utilities printed w/RepRap. Mass-Biomass conversion. As linked above, the potential insolation is available: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:Available_Energy-4.png].
 
The extraction of fossil fuels is an applied science. Fossil fuel depletion is bad for the environment even when fuel consumed as planned. The alternatives to this applied science, rather than the "best bad idea,"[http://www.miller-mccune.com/science-environment/ocean-carbon-sequestration-the-worlds-best-bad-idea-23521/] would require basic science research in systems ecology. Whether or not to turn its research results- those from simulation/scenario modeling into acts of geoengineering or ecological engineering[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ecological_engineering] for the purpose of developing alternative sustainable renewable energy utilities- has to be integrated into a sustainable and predictable ecological system cycle.
 
Questions to be asked from basic science in systems ecology:
What does thermodynamics teach us about irreversible entropy in the environment?
How would the earth's climate progress if greenhouse gases did not increase as they currently are?
What ecological phenomena require the most study for the purpose of bioremediation and sustainability?
What are the levels of conservation needed in addition to net decreases in greenhouse gases?
 
== Conclusion ==
 
What's not needed is another [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89127786]. Fortunately, this may hint at a sea change [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131046392][https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sea_change].
 
== Other ==
links of interest:
https://www.multiswap.net/about/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cmb/
https://twitter.com/ks91020
http://www.media-art-online.org/iwat/home.html
http://mediagoblin.org/
The importance of electricity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XckB846wRCI (@04:30)
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shQXKmxsnCY
 
The stitching of this wiki was made possible by ontological [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ontology] systems and their self-organizing, recursive[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Recursion], node-centralizing [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Node_%28disambiguation%29] gravity. The format is based in part on David Pearce's cerebrally-taxing web-ring of resonating pages on medical health whereas this maintains the dense text:link ratio but uses one single page designed like a Mission Control Center [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Mission_control_center ]and its purpose is for visualizing an entire free electricity project's potential from start hypothesis to finish results and its integration into the ecological cycle.

Latest revision as of 18:54, 29 January 2013