Hurricane Maria Destroys Puerto Rico's Science Programs Then Presents Unusual Research Opportunities?

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists

The devastation caused by Hurricane Maria is still being revealed nearly a year and a half after the storm ripped through the island.  Of course, anyone who has lived through a disaster like this will tell you that the island will probably never recover.  Not to mention that the loss of life can never be replaced.  With that being said, any community (or island) must find the courage to recover and re-establish life as it were if possible.  

Under normal conditions, agencies such as FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) would provide sufficient funds to help the island start the journey toward recovery.  Unfortunately, we do not live in normal conditions at the current moment under the current administration.  Funding agencies are being stressed beyond reach for existing funds and when this occurs, areas like scientific research usually suffer the most. 

How Did Maria Impact Science?

At the very least, the lightest impact (which actually may not be true due to PTSD), the lab members may undergo treatment to make sure that there are no residual medical issues after a storm has hit the island.  Of course, if you have no laboratory staff: graduate students, undergraduate students, postdoc's, professional researchers -- then you have no lab.  Meaning, all the best equipment can occupy the lab, but without scientists to run and monitor the instruments, then there is no lab.



The second critical component of any scientific laboratory are the scientific instruments and infrastructure in which these along with the supplies (beakers, tubing, cell cultures, glove boxes, etc.) needed to conduct good/sound science.  This is sometimes the perceived most critical component of any scientific laboratory.  Although, I would argue that the scientists which occupy any laboratory are the most critical components to any scientific instruments.  I have yet to see any scientific instrument just start collecting data by itself without any scientist's intervention/initiation.

A recent article in 'The Scientist' titled "Science in Puerto Rico Still Recovering After Hurricane Maria" details some of the disastrous consequences to a scientific laboratory after a storm of a magnitude such as Hurricane Maria.  The human damage alone can be irreplaceable not to mention the buildings and local municipal utility grid.  And when the destruction to the infrastructure is considered, parameters such as mold and water damage can set a laboratory recovery back several months to years:

Giray’s lab is among 14 or so in the Julio Garcia Diaz biology building, which was among those severely damaged, particularly as it was already undergoing roof repairs when the storm hit. Water seeped in through the roof and windows, damaging costly research equipment, furniture, and lab materials. Toxic mold thrived in the moist, hot climate, creating hazardous conditions that made the building uninhabitable. Power outages cut off researchers’ freezers and fridges, destroying precious genetic and tissue samples for good. The damages are estimated to range from $250,000 up to $2.5 million dollars per lab in that building, says Giray, a behavioral biologist whose main focus is honeybees.

Even more important are samples which are collected outside of the laboratory or purchased for several thousand dollars which are sensitive to temperature/humidity/vibrational fluctuations:

Some of the casualties from the hurricane are less easy to restore: “Collections take much longer time and may never be replaced,” says Giray’s colleague Riccardo Papa, who lost almost all of his DNA samples documenting the diversity of butterflies across South America when his lab’s –80 °C freezer lost electricity. Papa, an evolutionary biologist, didn’t have a lab again until a week ago, and until recently has been meeting with his students and postdocs at coffee shops or places around campus to discuss research. He has been able to do some experiments and genetic analyses in another building. Repairs are still underway for the damaged insectary, in which his team raises butterflies.

Research must go on.  With or without the infrastructure.  Here in California, after the Northridge Earthquake in 1994, FEMA set up temporary 'mobile homes' to serve as both classrooms and temporary offices along with laboratories in certain circumstances.  To hear that 'group meetings' were still being held at coffee shops is a testament to the pace of recovery.  In a majority of cases after a disaster, classroom recovery comes first, then eventually research laboratories.  Although, it is worth remembering that each research laboratory group is made up of students and research professors who take years (applying for individual grants/writing publications) to acquire the appropriate funding to purchase research scientific instrumentation.  Therefore, to put a price on the total loss in the event of a disaster like Hurricane Maria proves extremely difficult.



The total cost to a researcher is really unknowable for years to come.  Some researchers never recover and decide to shut down their laboratories after such a storm.  Which leaves current graduate students without an end in sight to their degrees (M.A. and PhD).  Additionally, staff (professional researchers) might quickly find themselves out of work and have to leave regions like Puerto Rico and find work elsewhere.  Which means transplanting their families and children's education to a different geographical location.  The cost can be severe not just to the researcher themselves.



More can be written in future articles on this theme of disasters and research laboratories.  Either together or separately.  The total cost to a geographical location from a disaster such as Hurricane Maria can only be estimated at the beginning (a very rough approximation).  The price tag evolves over time with the disbursement of emergency funds by organizations such as FEMA along with other federal organizations or the Congress.  The terrible destruction to a scientific institution is terrible to say the least.  Restoring science should be a high priority among others on the island of Puerto Rico.

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3 very interesting research projects for Fluid Dynamics Research

Source: Termoflow

Have you ever been on the road inside a small car only to be passed by a large semi-tracker truck?  Further, as you are passed, the driver experiences a lateral (right or left) push from the trucks passing?  This push is the wind flow which is being pushed to the side by the diesel truck's inefficient air flow.  One major consequence of this inefficient air flow is the production of wind resistance (or a drag force) -- which drives down the miles per gallon (fuel efficiency) a given vehicle can get.



All vehicles suffer to some extent from the inefficient air flow surrounding a vehicle.  Some more than others.  Although, a large (and I mean large) amount of interest has been devoted in the form of research to minimize (and improve) air flow across a given object (to generalize it).  For those who are unaware of the study of 'Fluid Dynamics', the following can serve as an introduction:

In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including aerodynamics (the study of air and other gases in motion) and hydrodynamics (the study of liquids in motion). Fluid dynamics has a wide range of applications, including calculating forces and moments on aircraft, determining the mass flow rate of petroleum through pipelines, predicting weather patterns, understanding nebulae in interstellar space and modelling fission weapon detonation,

Fluid dynamics offers a systematic structure—which underlies these practical disciplines—that embraces empirical and semi-empirical laws derived from flow measurement and used to solve practical problems. The solution to a fluid dynamics problem typically involves the calculation of various properties of the fluid, such as flow velocity, pressure, density, and temperature, as functions of space and time.

Before the twentieth century, hydrodynamics was synonymous with fluid dynamics. This is still reflected in names of some fluid dynamics topics, like magnetohydrodynamics and hydrodynamic stability, both of which can also be applied to gases.[1]

With the working introduction given above, the study of 'fluid dynamics' is now more comprehensible.  Still, the variety of projects which the study of fluid dynamics covers is incomprehensible.  Nearly any given situation which involves moving parts different mediums can be understood and broken down into a research project categorized under fluid dynamics.  Why?  Chances are that there is a 'fluid' or  lubricant involved in the workings.



Further, as highlighted below, most objects which move through the world can be understood at the level of a project under the category of fluid dynamics.  The video below highlights 3 research projects that are share the field of fluid dynamics research:

Amazing to say the least.  I love really interesting research project.  Of course, I love to learn just about anything.  The first project which is being tackled by Marguerite Matherne a graduate student studying in Dr. David Hu's lab at Georgia Tech.  Her project involves looking deeper into the process of transporting pollen back to the beehive by bees.  Pollen is composed of proteins which would not normally just adhere to one another.  Therefore, the bee needs to suspend the pollen into nectar to form a suspension.



What properties of this suspension allow the bee to transport the 'maximum' amount of pollen back to the beehive?  The viscosity of the suspension needs to be just right in order to complete the journey (and not fall apart).  Although, the drag force of the shaped pollen cannot exceed the force exerted by the bee in flying back to the beehive.  Otherwise the trip would be impossible.  As shown in the video, the research covers these parameters along with others relevant to the process.  Nevertheless, the project is unique and important to the survival of the bee population -- not to mention helping humans with fruit crops by spreading pollen among crops.



The second research project which was developed by and carried out by Dr. Giorgio-Serchi at the University of Edinburgh -- is devoted to understanding the forces (fluid dynamics) generated by sea creatures resulting in movement across a given area.  How do the framework of the structure interact with the fluid to produce forward movement?  If we could see at the molecular scale, the picture might be much greater in difficulty, therefore, making models (using computer simulations) is suitable for a research project at the moment.



Last but not least, researcher Daria Frank is working with Dr. Paul Linden at Cambridge University to better understand oil plumes.  Specifically, as in the case of the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill, the oil disperses in a plume with an initial angular momentum (angular momentum due to the Earth's spinning around an axis).  The project is to characterize the parameters of the rising oil plume and compare those parameters to a storm passing over the Earth's surface.



Comparing an oil spill -- a swirling plume (in the presence of water -- fluid) versus a storm -- a spinning top (fluid is air).  What are the differences?  What are the similarities?  The information gathered will better place the oil/gas industry in a better position to combat challenges -- especially in the face of a disaster.

4 Accessible Examples

Shown below are 4 different examples of research projects which would be encompassed under the category of fluid dynamics research.  The examples are very accessible to each of us, since each represent real life examples frequently encountered in society.  As you progress through the examples, think of questions that you would ask regarding the dynamics surrounding the object's environment.


Example 1: Fluid flow around a race car:

Source: Rodrigonemmen

What are the most relevant methods for dealing with fluid dynamics surrounding the air flow of a car?  How do magnetohydrodynamics figure into the solution?  How do different materials play into the dynamics of air flow across a car?  What about the development of heat spots across a vehicle?  What type of instabilities contribute to turbulent air flow across a car?  What type of equations are necessary to model the air flow?  Partial differential equations?  In order to understand the system better, the solutions involve introducing a method which is a combination of methods. 



Example 2: Fluid flow through an human artery

Source: Di Cardilogy

How does the flow of blood through the vessels of arteries and blood vessels affect the dynamics inside of the heart during a cardiac cycle?  How does the build up of plaque on the side of an artery wall contribute to turbulent flow within the artery?  How does the plaque weaken the artery wall leading to atherosclerosis?  What are the overall dynamics of the arterial system?  How does one build up site of plaque contribute to overall flow within the entire system?  These are a just a few of the questions being entertained by such researchers in the field of fluid dynamics in medicine/engineering.



Example 3: Fluid flow around a bicycle

Source: Insightreplay

What are relevant parameters for cyclists?  Weight of the bicycle?  Weight of the cyclist?  If you shave your leg and arm hair, does that really cut time off of a ride?  What about body shape?  What about the shape of the frame?  Is there an optimal shape of each component which will result in reducing air flow across the system?  These are just a few questions that the cycling industry has had to deal with over the years.  Fluid dynamics could certainly contribute to answering a few of them.



Example 4: Fluid flow around a golf ball

Source: Symscape

Most of us at one point or another have seen a game (or part of) of golf on the television or screen of a smart device.  What are the relevant parameters which play greatly into reducing the turbulence of air build up behind the ball?  In a previous blog post, I show how the 'dimples' on the surface of golf balls play a tremendous role in reducing the drag force on the golf ball.  Golf ball companies are very interested in reducing drag force overall to any degree.  Golfers dream of having complete flight stability during a game to better place their ball in a desired location.




Overall, these 4 examples serve us well in introducing the field of fluid dynamics.  Now, as each of us carry on in our busy days, feel free to pause a moment and look around yourself at your environment.   Find an example where the field of fluid dynamics could make a change -- a positive one.  There are many examples, each of us must be willing to think critically about the underlying parameters which dictate the performance and/or operation of a given phenomena.  Enjoy!



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