9 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2022
    1. We introduce the use of a specific suite of parameters and protocols that greatly improves the agreement among pipelines developed by diverse organizations.

      From reading the paper it seems like this was done on samples where the SARS-COV-2 in the sample is likely to be genetically uniform. Have you done this at all on samples such as those from wastewater or sewage or environmental swabs where there are likely to be many different variants within a single sample?

  2. Jun 2022
    1. Sewage sludge is commonly used on agricultural land as a sustainable and renewable source of fertiliser throughout European countries, in part due to EU directives that promote the diverting of sewage sludge away from landfill and incineration and towards energy production and agriculture.

      This EU directive led to the spread of the unintended consequence.

    2. the team estimate that microplastics removed from raw sewage at wastewater treatment plants go on to make up roughly 1% of the weight of sewage sludge, which is commonly used as a fertiliser on farms across Europe.

      This case illustrates the potential unintended consequences from attempting to do good.

      This is a classic example of how progress traps occur.

      Capturing nutrients in waste water closes a nutrient waste loop and seems a good example of applying circular economy thinking.

      HOWEVER, at the time the decision was made to process sewage sludge into fertilizer ignored the relationship of sludge to microplastics was unknown or insufficiently explored. After the decision was made, the practice was adopted across many countries in the EU. After years of practice, the new knowledge reveals that there has been years of silent microplastic contamination. To fix the solution will require another solution, perhaps even more complex..

      This illustrates the danger of applying circular economy techniques when the waste stream is not fully characterized.

  3. Apr 2022
    1. Brianna Wu. (2021, June 5). MRNA is unbelievably fragile. The enzymes that degrade it are literally everywhere. That’s why they had to develop specialized lipid nanoparticles to deliver it. It would last two seconds in a sewer system. Also, it gets separated from the delivery system after it’s injected. Https://t.co/35dZ6r6UAq [Tweet]. @BriannaWu. https://twitter.com/BriannaWu/status/1400998163968933888

  4. May 2021
    1. Peccia, J., Zulli, A., Brackney, D. E., Grubaugh, N. D., Kaplan, E. H., Casanovas-Massana, A., Ko, A. I., Malik, A. A., Wang, D., Wang, M., Weinberger, D. M., & Omer, S. B. (2020). SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in primary municipal sewage sludge as a leading indicator of COVID-19 outbreak dynamics. MedRxiv, 2020.05.19.20105999. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.19.20105999

  5. Oct 2020
  6. Sep 2020
  7. Jul 2020