Curing World Hunger with Aquaculture 2025
Aquaculture is defined as the rearing of aquatic organisms under controlled or semi-controlled conditions. Aquaculture is not new. Many ancient civilizations had used some form of aquaculture. In China, the aquaculture can be traced back to around 3500 B.C. with the culture of the common carp. In 475 B.C. The oldest document on fish culture was written by Fan Li, a politician and administrator, dated back to 475 B.C. His document described methods for pond construction, brood stock selection, stocking, managing ponds and fish harvesting. In ancient Egypt, aquaculture seems to have evolved in parallel with the development of irrigation. Even though there is no document exists, drawings in tombs, dated back to about 2000 B.C. showed the aquaculture of tilapia. Other cultures such as the ancient Rome, English and European all had some types of aquaculture dating back many thousand years.
One aspect of aquaculture is called aquaponics, or the combination of aquaculture and hydroponics. Many scientists and researchers believe aquaponics could be a key component to a more sustainable, resilient food system. I believe aquaponics is the solution to world hunger. Culturally speaking, it is something humans have done for thousands of years but in much smaller scales. With advance in science and technology, new approaches to aquaponics can be developed and taught to tribes, villages, towns, cities all over the world.
Let’s say that the goal for the project is “to solicit expert opinion for a set of standard turnkey aquaponic systems catering to different topographies, weathers and cultures”, I think the Delphi method of research is probably best suit for this project. The participants will be from different parts of the world. They can conduct their own onsite research including pilot studies; refine their views as they learn from their experiences and as they receive feedback from the research team.
In addition to the ‘cultural readiness’ for the project, the need for inland communities to have sea and fresh water products, the need to decrease pressure on wild fisheries, and the need to have products from green and clean sources are all positive environmental forces. Government grants and private donation will make the project possible, however, until the technology become cheaper, some of the systems are still too expensive to implement, one example is the RAS (Recirculating Aquaculture System). Local and international rules, regulations and restrictions may also impact the project. These governmental forces will need to be studied up front in the feasibility study.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Watching TED – Dr. Quyen Nguyen – Color coded surgery
http://www.ted.com/talks/quyen_nguyen_color_coded_surgery.html
In this presentation, Dr. Quyen Nguyen demonstrated and discussed how a molecular marker can make tumors light up in neon green, showing surgeons exactly where to cut.
In this fascinating conversation, Dr. Nguyen talked about the surgeons’ special relationship with light: They need lights in order to perform operations. In ancient time, skylight was important. In modern time, operating rooms have specialized lights which mimic natural lights.
This ‘relationship’ with lights brought the surgeons to other kinds of lights – lights that can allow them to see what they currently don’t see. Dr. Nguyen is talking about the magic of fluorescence light and how it can be used to color code organs, nerves and rumors in order to assist in surgery.
She has demonstrated several cases, from cancer tumors that turn florescent green, to nerves that turn florescent white. The tool for identifying cancer tumors is a protein molecule, developed by Dr. Roger Chen (who went on to win the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2008) and his team, that when injected into the veins of someone who has cancer, the cancer parts will be lit up with green fluorescent color. With the help of Dr. Chen and his team, Dr. Nguyen discovered another protein molecule that turns nerves to florescent white. These molecules help guide surgeons in what to destroy and what to preserve.
The Cancer Journal for Clinicans statistics for 2011 put Cancer as one of the most major public health problems in the United States and many other parts of the world with one in 4 deaths in the United States is due to cancer. Many of us are either cancer patients or have family members or friends with cancer and we know how difficult or impossible it is to get rid of it even with multiple surgeries. This is because the surgeons never know what they have to remove and whether they have removed enough. In addition, the cost for chemotherapy, drugs and cosmetic surgeries post cancer surgeries can be horrendous. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, one in five patients is not able to get necessary cancer treatment in time or at all because of the high cost. Imagine with this technology, the surgery will be so précised and much more affordable that more lives will be saved. Imagine with this technology, molecules can be used as a vehicle to deliver drugs directly to the cancer cells. That's even better than surgery! Imagine with improvement, they can invent different colors for different types of cancer so that treatment can be done even more precisely and more effectively!
In the final note, Dr. Nguyen leaves us with the following final thought:
“Successful Innovation is not a single break through. It’s not a sprint. It’s not an event for a solo performer. It’s a team sport, it’s a relay race. It requires one team for the breakthrough and another team to get the breakthrough accepted and adopted. And this takes the long term steady courage of the day in day out struggle to educate, to persuade and to win acceptance.”
In the comments section, one has left his final thought:
“This is presented in a very humble way.
But to me this is ground breaking.
It made me physically shake.”
And I concur!
In this presentation, Dr. Quyen Nguyen demonstrated and discussed how a molecular marker can make tumors light up in neon green, showing surgeons exactly where to cut.
In this fascinating conversation, Dr. Nguyen talked about the surgeons’ special relationship with light: They need lights in order to perform operations. In ancient time, skylight was important. In modern time, operating rooms have specialized lights which mimic natural lights.
This ‘relationship’ with lights brought the surgeons to other kinds of lights – lights that can allow them to see what they currently don’t see. Dr. Nguyen is talking about the magic of fluorescence light and how it can be used to color code organs, nerves and rumors in order to assist in surgery.
She has demonstrated several cases, from cancer tumors that turn florescent green, to nerves that turn florescent white. The tool for identifying cancer tumors is a protein molecule, developed by Dr. Roger Chen (who went on to win the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2008) and his team, that when injected into the veins of someone who has cancer, the cancer parts will be lit up with green fluorescent color. With the help of Dr. Chen and his team, Dr. Nguyen discovered another protein molecule that turns nerves to florescent white. These molecules help guide surgeons in what to destroy and what to preserve.
The Cancer Journal for Clinicans statistics for 2011 put Cancer as one of the most major public health problems in the United States and many other parts of the world with one in 4 deaths in the United States is due to cancer. Many of us are either cancer patients or have family members or friends with cancer and we know how difficult or impossible it is to get rid of it even with multiple surgeries. This is because the surgeons never know what they have to remove and whether they have removed enough. In addition, the cost for chemotherapy, drugs and cosmetic surgeries post cancer surgeries can be horrendous. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, one in five patients is not able to get necessary cancer treatment in time or at all because of the high cost. Imagine with this technology, the surgery will be so précised and much more affordable that more lives will be saved. Imagine with this technology, molecules can be used as a vehicle to deliver drugs directly to the cancer cells. That's even better than surgery! Imagine with improvement, they can invent different colors for different types of cancer so that treatment can be done even more precisely and more effectively!
In the final note, Dr. Nguyen leaves us with the following final thought:
“Successful Innovation is not a single break through. It’s not a sprint. It’s not an event for a solo performer. It’s a team sport, it’s a relay race. It requires one team for the breakthrough and another team to get the breakthrough accepted and adopted. And this takes the long term steady courage of the day in day out struggle to educate, to persuade and to win acceptance.”
In the comments section, one has left his final thought:
“This is presented in a very humble way.
But to me this is ground breaking.
It made me physically shake.”
And I concur!
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Reading the Horizon Report
Reading the Horizon Report
The report highlights six of the fifty emerging technologies with considerable potential for teaching, learning and creative inquiry. For the near term, electronic books and mobiles are moving closer to mainstream adoption for educational purposes. Modern electronic readers support note taking, research activities, and social interaction while mobiles, which are the preferred tool for Internet access for most, are capable computing and learning devices. For the next two to three years, Horizon sees the emerging of augmented reality and game-based learning. These exist in popular culture, and have already made their appearances on a number of campuses. With the advance of hardware, software and network communication, these technologies are being integrated into course works and many institutions have already used the potential of ‘games for learning’ to foster collaboration, problem-solving, and procedural thinking. Looking to the far-term horizon, which is four to five years from now, it is speculated that gesture based computing and learning analytics are garnering significant interest and exposure. Gesture-based computing moves the control of computers from a mouse and keyboard to the motions of the body via new input devices such as Kinect, SixthSense, and Tamper. With learning analytics, data of student engagement, performance and progress are gathered and analyzed in order to revise curricula, teaching and assessment in real time.
The technologies described are very interesting. During Christmas time, I got the firsthand experience with gesture-based computing via a Kinect/Xbox game called Dance Central, in which,the Kinect technology reads the player's moves as he dances according to the dance routine playing out for him and judges how well he does it compare to his competitor. It was one of the most fun times for our family gathering. I think the combination of augmented reality technology and gesture-based computing can make classroom teaching and presentation fun and natural (as opposed to point and click).
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