Tuesday, January 13, 2009
I am so pumped! This has been the best day of my life. Today I got to be part of a research team conducting experiments that could help end the energy crisis. Even better than that, I collected a grub that had an enzyme in it that propelled ethanol production to a level the scientists at Oakridge National Laboratories had never seen before. Dr. Keller, our Host Researcher, told me this could change biofuels for the next ten to twenty years!
Dr. Martin Keller is one of the most amazing scientists I have ever met. Yesterday, he gave us a presentation on the basics of biofuels and the research and technology needed to make them a strong alternative to petroleum energy. His presentation was eye-opening, and his passion for the research he is currently conducting was contagious. By the time he finished, I could hardly wait for today to begin, even though I knew I would be standing knee-deep in alpaca poop one minute and collecting creepy, slimy, brown tree grubs the next minute.
When we arrived at his farm, Dr. Keller told us that he believes an enzyme needed to make it easier to break down biomass into simple sugars can be found in alpaca poop and grub guts. This enzyme would make biofuels more energy-efficient because instead of having to enrich the biomass many times, the process would simply include fermentation and would give biofuels more bang for the buck! Armed with that information, we were given buckets, nose plugs (not really), and gloves and sent out to "clean up the poop"—gather it into buckets, that is. Since buckets aren't really all that scientific, we transferred our "specimens" into clean, plastic lab bags, and tagged them for later research.
After collecting sufficient amounts of poop, the other Argonauts and I moved on to grub collecting. Armed with a giant saw, Dr. Keller split open a poplar tree and let us dig inside to find the grubs—and, boy, were they creepy. They had big, fat, slimy, brown caterpillar bodies with no eyes and mouths that looked like something out of an alien movie. With two sets of "jaws," each with its own set of "claws," boy, can these guys eat! It was at this point that I collected the grub that offered validation to Dr. Keller's theories. I am so glad I overcame my "fear" of these tree-eating (or is that man-eating) creatures and put one in my bag.
We recorded our observations in Dr. Keller's official research log and headed back to the lab. It was when I was recording my observations and collection procedures that I realized I was really conducting cutting-edge research. My entry went right next to Dr. Keller's notes from his last field study, conducted by himself and other noted scientists.
When we got back to the lab, we had to act fast. The other Argonauts and I learned how to create a self-sustaining environmental medium in which the microorganisms in the Alpaca poop would grow. Some of the microorganisms with which we were dealing were strictly anaerobic, meaning oxygen intolerant, so we used a vacuumed anaerobic chamber to move the microorganisms into the media. That was awesome. I love science!
Finally, it was time to dissect the grubs. I thought these things were creepy before, but from the minute the dissection began, I knew the creepy scale had just reached a new high! The minute I made the first incision, wood, ground up to the consistency of a liquid, spewed out. As startling as that was, the spewing liquid was a good sign because it demonstrated conclusively that this little grub had the enzymes with the potential to break up biomass and solve the energy crisis. Not such a good sign, though, was the fact that after I chopped off the grub's head, its mouth kept chomping for fifteen minutes, paying no heed to the fact that its body was gone. Being the only boy, I knew I was supposed to be the macho one, but there is no denying it, I was completely creeped out by the headless eating monster grub.
After completing the dissection, I took apart the gut of the grub and selected certain parts to put in a solution that would isolate the enzymes necessary to propel the process into the production of ethanol. After the microbes are isolated, they will be placed in a switchgrass medium being fermented by microorganisms. These enzymes will speed up the ethanol-making process and eliminate the need for enrichment. In fact, it turns out that the enzyme in my grub sped up the process at a level never-before seen by Dr. Keller and his associates.
This has been the most amazing day! I have been a part of conducting research that will help find an answer to clean energy alternatives while standing knee deep in alpaca poop and elbow-high in squishy grub guts. It doesn't get any better than this!
Q&A with Argo Joey:
What's it like to travel as an Argonaut?
This morning started, literally, before the sun came up. I woke up at 4:00am in New Jersey and boarded a plane to Detroit. I was at the back of the plane prior to take-off, thinking about the week ahead when one of the stewardesses came up to me and began visiting with me about my destination and my plans. After telling her about JASON and my missions, she was really interested and seemed to view me as some sort of celebrity. The next thing I knew, she had arranged for me to be bumped up to first class. "It is good to be an Argo," I thought as I sipped juice from a cocktail glass and munched on a banana and a churro.
How was it seeing your experimental results on the "Big Screen"?
The culmination of our efforts was finally visualized for us when we moved to another building on the laboratory complex. EVERST, the Exploratory Visualization Environment for Research in Science and Technology was a large room with an entire TV wall. This wall held an enormous TV comprised of many smaller TVs working together to form one gigantic picture. On this TV scientists can see their research come to life, and that's exactly what we did, in the biggest way imaginable. We saw the 3D images we had scanned earlier in the day appear before us on the screen. We could actually see the enzymes breaking down the switchgrass. It was incredible to watch microorganisms in a larger-than-life format.