ECC Sustainable Inventors Club & Biomimicry will become a 4H details TBAS

Open forums, encourage everyone to participate and share their views. Forums extend an opportunity for youth to have a voice. Forums increase personal learning and help participants come away with new ideas and insights. Forums help build solidarity. By attending these events young people become more connected. When people come together to discuss issues of common concern, ideas get exchanged that become catalyst to action and new collaborations.
December’s Speaker is a Biomimicry speaker, architect and a friend of mine! He’s out of state until December. I I’ll announce that date at our Nov Inventors Meetup!
Why does our :Sustainable Inventors Club” have an emphasis on Biomimicry?
“Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature. It’s the process of looking at a leaf and trying to figure out how to make a better solar cell.
Biomimicry has been going on for a long time. Think about the Wright brothers looking at turkey vultures to learn about drag and lift in flight.
Now biomimicry is becoming one of the ways that engineers, product designers, and architects do their work. It’s mainly because people are looking for more sustainable ways to do things--to sip energy instead of guzzle it, to save materials, to do things in less toxic ways.
Organisms know how to do these things. After 3.8 billion years, life has learned what works and what’s appropriate on the planet. And that’s what the people trying to redesign our world are looking for--so we can live here in a way that enhances this place.” Source
How can people get involved in biomimicry? See Link: http://www.fastcompany.com/biomimicry/janine-benyus-biomimicry-is-innovation-inspired-by-nature
Important Links to watch!
http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_in_action.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs.html
http://instantwatcher.com/hulu/shows/273
Please Read
Imagine designing a shovel, football, shoe, window, car, or any everyday object enhanced by Biomimicry - look around! Check out: Tools for Creative Thinking and Decision Making - http://www.virtualsalt.com/crebook1.htm or Get Netflix and watch (Future By Design) or (Objectified) and get creating on paper please and bring your nature inspired design along! Examine the evolution of everyday products and green storming ways to redesign them more sustainably.
Next month - wind turbines, with a Biomimicry whale of a twist! US scientists discovered that the tubercles -- the scalloped edges on humpback fins -- result in 32 percent less drag and an 8 percent rise in lift when compared to a smooth fin. Humpback whale flipper.
A Resource: AskNature is the world's first digital library of Nature's solutions, organized by function, that can serve as an educational and cross-pollinating tool as well as a collaboration forum among biologists, engineers, designers and other innovators. http://www.asknature.org/media/image/192


Milford Environmental Concerns Coalition Says Stay informed via email
In the past, the ECC News Letters and notices to friends went through broad postal mailings to all current, relevant members. For environmental & budgetary reasons, we are discontinuing this practice, and have created an email distribution list to quickly, efficiently and economically distribute information to our friends and public.
To continue receiving these notices, you must use one of these notification methods:
The preferred method is to join our ECC Email list. To do this:
· Address an email to ddmiddens@gmail.com.
· On the subject line write ECC list.
· In the body of the email, type the words: subscribe Milford ECC List, then leave a space and type in your full name (this must appear on the same line).
2. If you don’t have access to email, you can continue receiving our newsletter and monthly notices. The paper versions of our newsletter will be available at the Milford Library.
If you have any questions or problems joining the email distribution list, contact the DD Vasseur Milford ECC Chairwoman by phone at 203-283-1441 or by email at ddmiddens@gmail.com

Blue Nano | Antimicrobial

Blue Nano | Antimicrobial

Antimicrobial

Silver has long been recognized as a prophylactic/antibiotic. Catholic parishes began using silver chalices to prevent disease transmission between parishioners in the 1300's, and pioneers of the American West had a tradition of placing a silver dollar in a jug of milk to keep it fresh without refrigeration.

Silver kills many strains of pathogens, including fungi, flu viruses, and bacteria resistant to other antibiotics. Unlike organic antimicrobials, silver is thermally stable, functions effectively in almost any environment and lasts significantly longer. As well as killing pathogens, silver has an antiinflammatory effect, enhances wound healing, and is particularly effective at eliminating biologically-induced odors.
Benefits of nanotechnology

Nanotechnology offers two primary benefits to the antimicrobial application of silver. First, adjustment of particle size and shape allows the user to control the antimicrobial activity, duration of activity of the material, and to some extent, material cost. For example, the large aspect ratio of a Blue Nano silver nanowire gives it a 16X greater exposed surface area than a silver sphere of the same mass. This means that our wires create much greater antimicrobial functionality than similar-sized nanoparticles for a given amount of material.

Second, the unique structural properties of nanomaterials allow for them to be configured in a flat sheet, preventing dispersion (sloughing) into open wounds or other sensitive areas. Comparative studies have consistently shown that silver nanomaterials have higher antibacterial potency than free silver ions, and randomized clinical trials have shown that silver nanomaterials allow faster regeneration of the outer layer of skin of burn victims than silver sulfadiazine. Silver nanoparticles do not cause rashes and other hypersensitivity reactions sometimes associated with silver sulfadiazines.
Applications

Current applications of silver nanomaterials as antimicrobials include coatings for:

Footwear
Computer keyboards
cell phones
faucet handles
antibacterial soaps
water filters
disinfectant sprays
air conditioning and heating units
hospital face masks
hospital floor tile
surgical instruments and trays
wound dressings


Blue Nano silver nanomaterials are what is termed a "low ion release" variety of silver; meaning that they dissolve slowly in water relative to other types of silver. Our silver is therefore well-suited to applications requiring long-lasting antimicrobial characteristics and/or water-based cleaning.
Posted by DD Vasseur at 11:30 AM

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Green Book Worm Top 10 picks

  • Dune By Frank Herbert

Blog Archive