Author: Jess T.
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Winter Things
At present, my friends are planning the million ways to spend their tax refunds. I’m here wondering why I decided to volunteer over winter break when I could be basking in the post-tax-refund glory. I might have started off break in bed eating pizza and binge watching all of the new shows on Netflix, but […]
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Desert Island
If you’re ever stuck on a desert island and have the chance to bring three things, don’t fret about potable water. Save your three wishes for a designer bikini, Netflix, or something more worth your while. According to Water Conditioning & Purification Magazine, activated carbon from coconut hull is a more efficient filter than activated […]
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Grad School Purgatory
Since urban dictionary doesn’t quite spell it out for you, I will: This is when applications have been completed and sent, but there is neither an acceptance nor rejection from anyone. There is little to no knowledge of when an answer will arrive, if ever. This is grad school purgatory.
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Blowing Bubbles
Did you know that bubbles can clean water? Specifically, dissolved air flotation (DAF) and ultrasound are two methods of making water safer with bubbles. DAF can be used to replace sedimentation in municipal drinking water treatment. Large particles are typically settled out using gravity, but with DAF, bubbles are produced by an oxygen tank pumping […]
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Passive Acoustic Monitoring
The following article deviates from my conventional posts about homemade water treatment, but it is an important issue in the environmental realm- and could give scientists a clearer picture of endangered species. “Within the field of cetacean research, a passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) system can be defined as a set of acoustic and electronic devices aimed at detecting and tracking marine […]
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Greenwashing
All Natural. Organic. Eco-friendly. Green. Farm Fresh. These are the sexy buzzwords that draw us in to products that unscrupulously exploit our desire to go green. The FDA doesn’t regulate these terms, and they are often nothing more than just words. “Green” products contain the color green on the packaging. “Farm fresh” covers essentially any meat […]
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How Clean Can UV?
“UV radiation affects microorganisms by altering the DNA in the cells and impeding reproduction. UV treatment does not remove organisms from the water, it merely inactivates them.” – Water Research Center For the longest time this summer I worked on a machine that performed persulfate-ultraviolet oxidation, but I really had no idea what it was. Looking […]
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Interview: Michael Oppenheimer
Recently I had the unique opportunity to interview renowned climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. We met at the Hubbard Brook Annual Conference following his motivational speech. Dr. Oppenheimer is not only a professor of Geo-Sciences and International Affairs at Princeton, but also is a former member of the Environmental Defense Fund, and has an active role in […]
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Hubbard Brook
On Sunday night we arrived back at the University from our trip to Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire. There were around a hundred researchers who attended the annual conference there. And let me tell you, not a single one wasn’t in shape. The mountain was steep, with an occasional dirt path leading the […]
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Energizing a Continent
In my last post I mentioned non-profit and for-profit business ventures around the world with a mission to improve society and the environment. It would be naïve to say that the driving force in business is to benefit others. So what is driving entrepreneurs to Africa? An article recently featured in The New Yorker called “The Race to Solar-Power Africa” says […]
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