I was not even close to feeling confident yesterday, but I am now. After reviewing all the material I feel set. I know what I'm talking about and I'm fully backing up my idea until the end. All my hesitation is gone, but I'm still very anxious. I've done tons of reserch on this so I'm just a little stressed that I may forget something important. I probably won't though, at least I hope not. I'm probably going to talk the most about the global carbon dioxide cycle so I can prove to people that this will not throw off the ecology. I think my finish will be really well done though- well I hope. *gulp*

Not good! Not good at all! I realize today that the project is due tomorrow!! I can't beleive I forgot but I thought there was still one more week before break! What is wrong with me?! Here I was still thinking about changing my idea...! I'm sticking with using measured amounts of nano-silver to eliminate portions of methanogen populations for every particular area. My newest idea additon will be to take cultures of microorganism life from the soil every so area, a kilometer squared I'm thinking, and from that data find out how deep are the microorganisms. That's the zone the pipet will have to penetrate and contaminate. I'm also a little worried I may just have to write down how much nanosilver will be needed per sq. ft. which means I have to know how many methanogens there are and just how many methanogens won't be needed (in other words find out what percentage of methane is produced but not cosumed). -That makes me awfully nervous.

So my advisor emailed me back- with some dissapointing news. I had hoped that
he would say that methanogens are vital because of the elimination of carbon
dioxide from the ecosystem, but he didn't. It turns out there's this whole
'global carbon dioxide cycle' that methanogens play a huge part in. The
methanogens decompose plant matter and throw some methane out. Anaerobic
bacteria at the topsoil -yes apparently there are other microorgansims
(vulnerable to nanosilver) in the topsoil and the methanogens are actually below
the topsoil- convert the methane ito carbon dioxide. The vegetation convert the
carbon dioxide to oxygen. But some of them methanogens' methane pass into the
atmosphere- enough to be a BIG global warming player. So i feel really pissed
:/. Oh yea and he said if I took out the methanoges all human life and other
life forms would cease to exist and isn't that just great! :(. I'm learning a
lot, though, about universal  ecology, but I want my idea to be somewhat
productive.


So here are my small adaptation possibilities: place the pipet a little bit
further into the ground in areas where there is no oxygen and pump in
nano-silver. It should probably manage to get the methanogens. Than, assuming
the methanogens are exterminated, we could cross our fingers and hope for the
best! I'm not a big fan of that idea so here is a better one- elinate a small
portion of methanogens to equalize the ecosystem. The problem is in that some of
the methane passes the aerobic microorgaisms. If we kill just enough methanogens
in an ecosystem to equalize the ratio of methane to aerobic microorganisms, then
there won't be anymore escaping methane (theoretically at least). After all the
goal of this is to help the ecology not hurt it! This led me to my next
question, do silver ions get taken up after killing a cell? I can't get a direct
answer from anywhere but this diagram led me to beleive that,yes, nano-silver
gets used up when killing a cell. This is good news, because the amount of the
silver pumped in can be measured to kill the right amount of methaogens to
equalize the ratios.


I have a few more far more radical changes that I'm thinking about. They are
1. converting excess methane to carbon dioxide then to oxygen and 2.  using
existing nanotechnology which harness methane as a biofuel on the wetlands,
something that has never been done before. I haven't done any research on this
but when I do I'll add another post.

So I feel like I'm pretty far behind on this project. I haven't thought about
it much at all this last week. I haven't gotten around to doing more of these
posts, nevermind the project plan.


The procedure on doing this is my biggest concern, next to how methanogens
are vital to the ecology. My advisor warned me that nano-silver might be a
potential threat to other life forms. My resarch tells me that nano-silver is
mostly only harmful to prokaryotes, and there shouldn't be much of those around
the methaogens seeing as methanogens are extremeophiles! Methanogenisis (Spelled
that wrong) is a anaerobic process that takes carbon dioxide-on top of other
compunds- and leaves methane- on top of other compounds. So I figure if we
pinpoint the general area the methaogens are then we can inject the nano-silver
in to exterminate the population. I've done research on a kind of pump that
would be efficent in distributing the nano-silver but I really couldn't find
something ideal. So I thought about it and I figure a giant pipet is what I
really need. the pipet should be stuck a few inches to the ground and pumped,
releasing a stream of nano-silver particles into the topsoil. If the pipet had
several different tubes leading out of it a large enough area will be
contaminated pretty quickly. The waterlogged ecosystem will do the rest to
spread it around. My advisor was not too descrptive of how the heck methanogens
might hurt the global ecosystem, but I HOPE it has to do with carbon dioxide.
Methanogens eliminate carbon dioxide from the planet and that may be the
ecological role he was referring to. If so, I'd be delighted because I'm not
worried about that. Accoriding to my sources methane is way worse of a
greenhouse gas than methane. So the fact that there'd be more carbon dioxide is
not a bad thing! Methane is so much worse than carbon that I'd still be greatly
improving the global situation.


I'm going to ask my advisor about what EXACTLY is their 'vital' role. I'm a
little nervous becaus eI might just have scared him away by asking for more
help. I'm going to email him; I hope he actually replies.

Instead of worrying and stressing out, I guess I'll
have to go determined and set to develop it best I can.  My scientist named one
more ecological concern, "you never know what nano-silver will do to life in the
wetlands that is so important to many species that reproduce there.."  I'll
admit that I can never try know before doing it but I can try to eliminate most
concerns. Methanogens are archaebacteria so they live in situations where other
species can't survive. So I'll have to pump nano-silver into those areas
specifically. Plants and fungi and other eukaryotes aren't typically affected by
nano-silver, which helps. I'm going to research what typically species exist in
the wetlands, and find ways to isolate methanogens

So  far I've been the most worried about how the
ecology will be affected. Now I find out that its true- destroying methanogens 
would equal ecological disturbances on a large scale.  My scientist advisor told
me:"to reduce from wetlands is definitely NOT not a good way to do it. Methane
producing bacteria are important microbes for the overall ecology of wetlands
which are very fragile environments of great importance to the global ecology."  
I'm thinking about changing topic but I'm way too commited to this. I guess I'll
just have to list ecological disturbance as a drawback- a big one

So from the first day my teacher told me to be aware of the ecological impacts possibly. I kinda shrugged it off at first but ow that I keep thinking about it I get more and more nervous...I mean what if I find out it'll be terrible in execution? Do I pick another topic or what?
So becuase I'm so worried I emailed a scientist yesterday. He helped me out last year and he works with methanogens. But I immediatley got a reply saying he was on vacation and it would be quite some time before he could reply. I don't know when he can, so I'm just going to go out there and email a ton of guys I guess. I'm dreading the replys though *gulp*

All right so after some research into the ecological roles of methanogens, they
do not  seem to be altogether too ecologically vital in the wetlands and the
rice paddy fields. Their primary role seems to be methanogenesis, the very
process that must be stopped. My doubts on their ecological importance have
not been fully assured so I better find an advisor...and
quick!

So far I believe the topsoil is the area with the
methanogens but I'm not 100% positive.
Pumping nano-silver into
the waterlogged wetlands seems to be the best way. This
way I avoid the floor of the wetlands which is probably teeming with aerobic life.
methanogens are anaerobic so I'm guessing I should bury the pump an inch or two
into the ground and pump. I'm not sure whether to allow the nano-silver to
spread deeper or spread wider.
Here are a few pictures-