Bluegill Fish Monitor Water Supplies for Terrorist Attack

Maryann Mott
for National Geographic News

September 28, 2006

The common bluegill fish is being used to protect public drinking water for millions in the United States from terrorists and accidental contamination.

An automated machine developed by the U.S. Army uses bluegills—a hardy species about the size of a human hand—to continuously monitor water quality in New York City; San Francisco, California; and Washington, D.C.

Unlike current humanmade sensors, bluegills can respond to a wide range of chemicals and provide rapid detection of developing toxic water conditions.

The Army system, for example, can quickly detect toxic materials such as cyanide, organic solvents, and pesticides.

(Related: "Loons Sound Alarm on Mercury Contamination" [May 2003].)

"It's definitely gone well beyond the 'canary in the coal mine' aspect," said Tom Shedd, a biologist with the U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research in Fort Detrick, Maryland, who co-invented the system. Miners once used the health of canaries to monitor for the presence of deadly methane gas.

"It's a high-tech technology that has been brought to this new millennium because of advanced hardware and software capabilities."

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, federal law has required nearly all communities to assess the vulnerability of their water systems to terrorism or other intentional acts that would disrupt delivery of safe and reliable drinking water.

Tank Monitors

The Army started development of its early-warning system—now sold under the commercial name 1090 Intelligent Aquatic BioMonitoring System—about six years ago, Shedd says.

The system works by monitoring the behavior of eight bluegills that swim freely in tanks where dechlorinated water flows at reservoirs or treatment plants.

Electrodes mounted in the aquarium monitor the fishes' respiratory behavior.

Complex software then analyzes the fishes' actions in reference to tank conditions such as temperature, acidity, and dissolved oxygen levels.

When an abnormality is detected in at least six of the fish, the computer calls or emails the technician on duty.

"It gets a human involved right away," said Bill Lawler of Intelligent Automation Corporation (IAC) in Poway, California.

The private company developed the system's software and sells the unit at a starting price of $45,000 (U.S.).

IAC says there's no humanmade sensor available that can measure toxicity harmful to humans in the same manner as bluegills.

The fish were chosen because of their commercial availability and an established database on their response to toxins.

To keep the fish from being stressed or sick, they "work" for two weeks. Then the bluegills get a break and are fed brine shrimp to keep them "happy."

Sensitive Species

Lawler says bluegills are highly attuned to water quality changes.

During routine cleanings in the New York City and San Francisco reservoirs, the fish caused an alert after divers kicked up sediment about 40 miles (64 kilometers) away, he says.

And in New York City bluegills detected a diesel leak before it got out of control.

"There's a lot of emphasis on their ability to deter terrorism, but they are also doing a lot in terms of potential watershed monitoring and accidental chemical spills in source water," Lawler said.

Under a pilot project with the U.S. Army, bluegills have monitored New York City's drinking water since 2002.

The biomonitoring unit is currently on loan from the government, but plans are underway to purchase and expand the system, says Ian Michaels, a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, which supplies water to nine million people.

"We considered it to be worth investigating as an additional layer of security," Michaels said, adding that other tests—literally tens of thousands every year—are also performed to ensure safe drinking water.

Just One More Tool

The push for aquatic biomonitoring first took place in Europe about 20 years ago after a major chemical spill in Switzerland, according to Shedd, the Army biologist.

In addition to fish, other aquatic creatures such as clams and daphnia are used as indicators of chemical changes (see fish photos, profiles, and more).

"It's just recent that the U.S. has become interested in this capability," Shedd said.

"It's one tool in an arsenal of tools to monitor for water quality and to protect surface waters," he added.

"It's not a stand-alone technology. It's a complement to the current technology we already have out there."

Best Inventions of 2013 as reported in Time Magazine

Here is very interesting list of inventions that some of you may have read in the media ranging from the edible like cronut to science-fiction type solutions like the edible password.

Check out this link to see the list compiled by the people at Time Magazine

http://techland.time.com/2013/11/14/the-25-best-inventions-of-the-year-2013/

Here is a sample:

After watching the Air Force win plaudits for its MQ-1 Predator drone, the Navy is upping the unmanned ante by developing the carrier-based X-47B. Unlike the 1-ton Predator, with its four-cylinder, 115-horsepower engine, the 20-ton X-47B is powered by the same jet engine used on fighters of similar size. It’s projected to carry 4,500 lb. (2,040 kg) of weapons, compared with the Predator’s paltry pair of Hellfire missiles. A special bonus: an X-47B fleet would have a greater range than piloted planes, keeping the mother ship farther from shore-based enemy defenses.

Online education is a good idea but the guidance of teachers is still core to the design of any such system.

The key to the digital education revolution

Online education is a good idea. But the guidance of teachers is still core to the design of any such system.

 

Published on Oct 26, 2013

SILICON Valley is abuzz with investments in education start-ups. The National University of Singapore has also just announced that it plans to put many of its courses online.

But whenever there is potentially disruptive innovation of the kind we’re witnessing in education today, there will inevitably be a period of experimentation and uncertainty.

Indeed, it is not always clear what works and what doesn’t.

Fortunately, there are some models worthy of serious study. Moocs (massive open online courses) are a good example.

Massive online courses

COURSERA, the immensely popular Mooc launched last year, offers an online library of college courses taught by professors from top universities.

Since its inception, a staggering 4.7 million students worldwide have signed up to view lectures. Coursera is partnered with 87 leading academic institutions such as Stanford, Duke and Yale, and boasts over 400 courses in seven languages.

Using a combination of video lectures, online quizzes, homework assignments<NO1>,<NO> and forums, courses are interactive and provide the student with grades, feedback and the ability to collaborate with peers. The best part: It is absolutely free, and a certificate costs only between US$30 and US$100 (S$37 and S$123). By comparison, an Ivy League university course costs thousands of dollars and was previously only available to the fortunate few admitted to the university’s gilded halls.

Yet a growing number of critical observers feel that Moocs are ineffective platforms for education. Providers acknowledge that about 90 per cent of those who take Moocs never watch all the lectures, seldom do the homework and don’t debate projects on the forums. They resemble couch potato auditors more than serious students. However, the mathematics is impressive even at a 10 per cent completion rate. For Coursera, this means that about 470,000 students have benefited from its offerings, a number far higher than most universities can teach in decades.

Over half of Mooc students come from growth markets such as Brazil, China and India. For that twenty-year-old in Bangalore sitting at his computer after working 10 hours at a call centre, Coursera is an unprecedented opportunity to learn from the best and compete in the global workforce. He will quickly become your or your child’s competitor.

College and career

PARENTS of school children beware: Universities will increasingly take Mooc results into account in judging applications. For the first time this year, admission forms at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have space to list the Moocs and associated grades that applicants have taken. When facing the choice to study hard to get 10 A*s on the GCSE or to get nine A*s and do well on one college level Mooc, the applicant who wants to stand out on a college application will choose the latter combination. Admissions officers will value the college-readiness of a high school student that excelled at a Mooc taught by a highly regarded professor. These courses are harder than the GCSE and underscore exceptional talent in a particular field such as Robotics or Art History.

If the first wave of disruption in education is the prevalence of high-quality online courses and the decoupling of physical campuses from course work, then you might not be surprised when young people begin to ask: Why should I apply to college at all?

The “unbundling” of the college degree is the most radical revolution in the nature of education. We will soon consider a university certificate alone to be a second- best assessment of a student’s skills. Instead, as LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman describes it, the future of education will be a “fully networked certification platform”. Scores from a variety of online courses offered by Moocs, employers and universities will be collated and augmented with your social influence, portfolio of projects, recommendations from colleagues and clients and work experience. The result will be a much more accurate picture of your true capabilities and value in the job market.

A company housing a person’s “digital lifelong diploma” will collect and format all digital education activity, creating a seamless picture for employers.

Employers already agree that college assessments are poor indicators of performance at work. Google, for example, recently revealed that it gives grade point averages (GPAs) increasingly lower weight in assessing candidates. High GPAs and job success have shown little correlation.

Given the media coverage and investments from venture capital firms, colleges are enthusiastically jumping onto the e-learning bandwagon. But teaching effectively using web and mobile delivery is a skill that most colleges sorely lack. The result is that the “online” version of the course is nothing more than a collection of lecture videos and materials. Somehow, in all the rush to adopt new technologies, the tendency is to underestimate someone who is still core to the success of the education revolution: the teacher.

Flip teaching model

THE most effective digital learning model for colleges and schools is the flip teaching model. This involves students receiving instruction at home through online lectures, and then attempting homework in class where the teacher can mentor and aid them. They can also collaborate with other students. The instructional tools used at home are modular and interactive to aid knowledge retention. The focus is on mastering the content through constant practice quizzes.

In addition, educational systems such as Knewton Adaptive are capable of personalising the teaching and quizzes by identifying a student’s weaknesses and strengths while tracking skills development.

Khan Academy, which offers online courses for millions of school-going children, has been particularly adept at creating a system of learning that in corporates the flip teaching model. It has been piloted in California and now increasingly across the US (80 schools in Idaho just signed up for Khan Academy courses).

The best part of this model is its blended learning approach, involving a combination of class mentoring with virtual instruction. This allows the teachers to focus on student learning rather than lecturing.

But let’s not forget that Mr Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, came to the public eye for one reason: he is an exceptionally gifted teacher.

The courses he videotaped from his closet and put on YouTube were even watched by Mr Bill Gates when he wanted to teach his son maths.

The lesson is that whenever online and mobile courses are introduced in colleges or schools, teachers must be given sabbaticals to rework their current approach into the flipped teaching model. At North Carolina State University, for instance, prospective teachers can now take the Flipped Classroom Training Programme, a trend that will be increasingly favoured by schools and parents alike.

The blended and flipped teaching models represent the future of education. But in order for it to be done well, colleges should take the opportunity to work with their own teachers and outside experts to create classes that produce measurable improvements in school performance.

stopinion@sph.com.sg

The writer is CEO of Urban Intel, a digital platform for professional skills development.

Innovations for Third World Countries

Here are innovations that are making a difference in various parts of the world

1. The Socket Ball, a power-generating football invented by two Harvard students which stores energy when kicked about. A 30-minute game produces enough energy to light up a lamp for three hours, bringing light to communities without electricity.
2. Hippo drum, a rotating 90-litre plastic drum, which women could roll on the ground when fetching water from distant wells, a daily chore for many, rather than having to bear the load on their shoulders or heads.
3. Focusspecs, the nifty adjustable glasses which help address the problem of myopia in poor countries. They have lenses that can be moved along frames by turning a dial. This brings better vision to places where people do not have ready access to ophthalmologists. 

Source : 2013 Impact Journalism Day 

Technological innovations inspired by nature

Here is a link that shows how

1) Bees inspire Harvard researchers to come up with a robotic version that can be used in search and rescue operations
2) Porcupine's quills that inspired that idea for less painful injections or an alternative to hypodermic needles
3) Shark suits that was inspired by animals that swim unharmed around sharks like the pilot fish, etc.
4) Armadillo that inspired electric-powered cars that fold itself that save space when parking.

Tech from Nature - source: The Sunday Times (20 October)