Articles of the Week
Aquarium Water Research for Fish Enthusiasts
Categories: Tech, Education | Pubby Cash Received:
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The history of people keeping fish in aquariums has been over 4000 years, which can be traced back to the ancient China in royal families. Just like other pet animals, those people kept fish as a hobby or for ornamentation purposes. Experiences passed down from one generation to another with regard to the fish keeping techniques, such as when to change water and how to keep fish healthy. A business of raising fish in large scale was derived from it, as fish became a food and was found nutritious and delicious. This is called aquaculture. Aquaculture and ornamental fish keeping mainly differ in two aspects: (1) Fish health and welfare are not that much cared by the fish farmer compared to the fish enthusiasts maintaining their aquariums at home; and (2) Fish farmers care most about the payback - the time required to recover the cost of investment by fish production, while the fish enthusiasts do not have such a concern. However, they do have one belief in common: the water quality needs to good. Water for fish is just like the air for human. Poisonous air can kill a human, and poisonous water can kill a fish. As science and technologies greatly advanced since the 20th century, people have spent a significant amount of efforts investigating the health and welfare of human - for sure this is of the most importance because we are the humans. However, less efforts have been spent on fish health and welfare and there are a lot of questions remain unknown. For example, what water is considered as poisonous for fish? For humans, we have investigated thousands of water quality parameters and defined the threshold values above which are considered poisonous. Do we have such threshold values for fish keeping in aquariums and aquaculture? For humans, we know we could be sick under certain atmospheric conditions such as breathing in carbon monoxide, pm2.5, organic chemical vapors, and so on and we understand the mechanisms how they affect our body. For fish, do we know if fish shows symptoms of side swimming (fish swims tilted on its side), rapid swim velocity and deformities, what are the correlated water quality parameters? For humans, we know we have medicines to treat our illness and have environmental engineers to maintain our living environment. For fish, do we have medicines to treat fish illness and have experts to design water treatment systems to maintain a healthy water environment for aquariums and aquaculture? The answers to the latter questions regarding fish are generally no. Due to this huge research gap, I have started developing a line of research from perspectives of an environmental engineer on investigating how water quality parameters are changed as aquarium water ages and what could be the water treatment technologies that can be applied to aquariums and aquaculture to achieve a goal of balancing treatment effectiveness, water footprint, and economic savings. My first manuscript on this topic will be submitted for journal publication soon. ... Read more
Wildfires: How They Form, and Why They're so Dangerous
Categories: General | Pubby Cash Received: 0
Each year, wildfires run through California while burning land and killing people. It is important to understand how wildfires work since they affect our health and the environment. Three things are needed for a fire to burn: fuel, oxygen, and heat. Dry weather can turn a small fire into a big fire and so can strong winds. The big fires can last for months which can burn lead to a lot of areas being burned. As the Earth becomes hotter, lightning becomes more common and lightning also causes fires. Wildfires help some forests since they get rid of small shrubs on the ground. Then, more sunlight can reach the ground making other plants grow. Sometimes, fire is a good thing since it can cause good changes. It can clear out the old plants to make way for new things.... Read more
Coronavirus Coloring Book
Categories: Education | Pubby Cash Received: 0
There is a new coloring book called Learn about the coronavirus and it teaches kids about the coronavirus. People can also download the book for free instead of buying it. The coronavirus is a new illness that is also known as COVID-19. Since there is no treatment yet for the illness there is a lot of uncertainty right now. The virus has affected children across the world so now many are out of school. Their daily lives have been changed which can cause stress. The creators wanted to make a book to help children understand and help them adjust. The coloring book has facts about the coronavirus that will clear up misunderstandings about it. The team also made a book for older children which has more details about COVID-19. Well, that is it for this article and I hope you learned something new.... Read more
Building a High Performance, Low Budget Gaming PC: 2 - Your Most Important Decision
Categories: Tech, YouTube | Pubby Cash Received: 0
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A New Vision for Farming
Categories: General | Pubby Cash Received: 0
Programs like Geneva Peeps are working to combine farms and solar panels and Geneva Peeps is a community egg cooperative. Forty families in a New York community work together and care for the chickens. These birds live under solar panels that use sunlight and turn it into electricity. They also serve as protection from sun, rain, and hawks. This is a new idea that combines farming and solar power. They can raise crops or livestock and produce electricity from sunlight at the same time. Animals can help solar panel fields sine their manure helps the soil. However, it doesn't work as well with some animals like goats since they could chew up the wires. Also, some farmers are planting crops near them since it can help the plants got more fruits. Well, that is it for his article and I hope you learned something new.... Read more