Transcendence in Barcelona at Gemma UPC and Universitat Autònoma

“…[S]tart transcending, and what you find is that life gets better. It’s the key for human beings and it’s absurd that everyone isn’t transcending everyday. It’s what we’re supposed to be doing. And you grow fast, evolving fast towards enlightenment.”
-David Lynch

Barcelona Cathedral

After talking to Eberhard about anammox processes in Switzerland, I contacted Albert Guisasola to tell him about what was happening in Switzerland. If you remember, Albert is the person from EU-ISMET that was interested in finding a graduate student to help him grow microoganisms capable of the anammox process. After sending the email, I told him that I’d be in the area and asked if I could come by and check out the lab. He and his former advisor and current collaborator Juan Antonio Baeza said they would be more than delighted to show me around GENOCOV/ Gemma UPC.

Albert and Juan are involved in far too many research projects for me to show them all here so I’ll focus on their nitrogen removal system using anammox bacteria. Albert and Juan are currently involved in a large scale nitrogen removal process that minimizes the requirement for electrons from reduced organic compounds that are called either chemical oxygen demand (COD) or biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). These terms derive from the fact that we measure the amount of electrons in a compound by measuring the amount of oxygen required, or demanded, to oxidize the electrons in the compound. What does this mean? What this means is that their nitrogen removal system uses reduced nitrogen species like ammonia and oxidized nitrogen species like nitrate to remove themselves. As shown in a previous blog, by using anammox bacteria, nitrogen removal can occur without needing extra electron donors. 

NH4+ + NO2- --> N2 (gas) + 2H2O

We consider the generation of N2 gas to be a safe end product to nitrogen removal since it is mostly inert, has no impact on greenhouse gases, and makes up about 78% percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. The advantage here is that the COD and BOD that would be removed in a traditional wastewater treatment plant for nitrogen removal remains in the wastewater. Usually, this would be considered a bad thing because the whole purpose of a wastewater treatment system is to remove everything: nitrogen, carbon, etc… However, by adding a MXC after the nitrogen removal process, all of the COD and BOD can now be captured as current rather than lost to nitrogen removal. This process also has the advantage of lowering aeration costs at the wastewater treatment plant which are currently over $60 billion of the ~$120 billion cost of wastewater treatment in the USA annually (2-3% of all USA electricity usage) (U.S. Wastewater Treatment 2016 and Electricity Use 2013.

​Another interesting project taking place at GENOCOV/ Gemma UPC is MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) - a European Project to build a closed life support system for the purpose of generating and regenerating materials in space. Here, they are focusing on the production of algae and other photosynthetic microorganisms for the purpose of oxygen regeneration and the production of useful organic molecules resulting from carbon fixation during photosynthesis. From their web page:

​“[MELiSSA] aims to produce food, water, and oxygen for manned space missions where otherwise these supplies would result in a tremendous cost. Therefore, the life support system has to be increasingly regenerative. The project targets to ease human exploration of the Solar System, but can also serve current global challenges as waste recycling, water provision, food production in harsh environmental circumstances, [etc]... A system as complex and extended as the MELiSSA loop requires a multidisciplinary approach. Scientists and engineers from different domains work together to reach the target of a robust closed loop system, and to implement the generated knowledge in our daily life.

In the MELiSSA loop, many scientific domains are involved: for example micro-biology investigates the physiology of the micro-organisms and molecular biology studies the micro-organisms. Numerous engineering disciplines are involved for process design and development, leading to different generations of hardware.

​[Three primary goals of this project are:]

1. Develop the technology for a safe and reliable closed loop regenerative Life Support System (LSS) for sustained human presence in space: on the Moon (e.g. a manned lunar outpost) or Mars.
2. Generate knowledge on bio-processes & coupled systems.
3. Use the developed know-how via technology implementation, knowledge transfer, and education.”

​The same evening, I visited the lab of Jaume Puigagut, an up-and-coming professor in the field, at Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya. I met Juame and his post-graduate student Marco Hartl over dinner at EU-ISMET 2016 in Rome. During our time together, we discussed the political aspects of the field and of science in general. Jaume was the first professor to ask me to present about the philosophy of #ScienceTheEarth rather than the electrochemistry of my graduate research. Juame describes himself as a ‘non-traditional’ professor and mentor and makes a concerted effort to have his students engage in independent thought rather than traditional lectures followed by tests. Since Juame is a relatively new professor, he has not yet set-up his lab space and thus I have no pictures of reactors to show.

​Marco Hartl is a postdoc from Vienna, Austria that was involved in a major wetlands project in Nimr, Oman. In a company called BAUER Nimr LLC, he was employed to develop a wetland system to clean up oil contaminated water from Petroleum Development Oman. His project focusses on incorporating microbial electrochemical cells (MXCs) into constructed wetlands (MET-lands). Constructed wetlands are useful for treatment of wastewater since they do not require the large overhead costs of conventional wastewater treatment plants. Constructed wetlands function by providing a ‘natural’ wastewater treatment process that relies on developing fields of plants to filter wastewater as it passes through gravel and root systems. The function of a wetland is to remove reduced organic compounds including BOD and COD. By adding a microbial electrochemical cell, the removal of COD and BOD may be enhanced since we are providing anode respiring bacteria with the oxidant they need to breathe as they consume the waste.

After the presentation we got some chow at a local hotdog stand... and heard a Beautiful Barcelona train song...

#ScienceTheEarth. Why? Everywhere I go people ask me why

What’s it all about?

Are you looking to collaborate? Grants? Money?
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I bet you have something in mind and you’re just waiting to tell everyone. A big secret. I can’t imagine you have no plan. 

These are all things I’ve heard during the first half of my world travels for #ScienceTheEarth. As if there must be some ‘big reveal’ at the end or if this was really a question of who was going to get a rose or a reward or some kind of grand prize. Perhaps at the end you’ll find out I’ve really been dead the whole time or this has all been some kind of dream. Maybe the God of the Machines will explain it all away!

The answer is that the ‘why’ in #ScienceTheEarth is not a tagline, it’s not a simple phrase; it’s not something you can or cannot buy. #ScienceTheEarth is about the expansion of the human mind, the elevation of the self, the realization of place within the cosmos, within the world. #ScienceTheEarth is about the realization of humanity, of a globalized world, of our trajectory towards the infinite; transcendence. It is the realization that the occupants of our Earth can no longer perceive themselves as passive reactors and must necessarily realize themselves as positive actors. #ScienceTheEarth is about empathy.

When I look to people on planet Earth I see a populous, young and old, which is eager to bring about positive change in their communities. I see an immense amount of energy, of optimism, and a willingness to do genuine work to bring about a bright and prosperous future. I see a populous disillusioned by matters as they are now, looking for an answer or a way to break through- to make the Earth a place where their kids can thrive, where they can thrive.

#ScienceTheEarth is a narrative of global collaboration to bring about positive social change. Every day, all around Earth, scientists, artists, engineers, NGOs, and businesses are working together to solve major issues like how we can provide access to clean drinking water to the most impoverished, the most vulnerable populations in the world. How we can provide them with vaccines or prevent treatable illnesses like diarrhea from being theleading cause of death for children under five in India. It is my hope that through this narrative, people start to understand their place in the world and the role they can be playing to bring about the social justice they desire. To channel all of this positive youthful energy constructively to a build the Earth it is we want to see.

Without a means through which to channel our energy, without a direction, it easy to become disillusioned; to feel helpless in a world that has no greater expectation for you than to simply react. From the first day we step into a classroom, to the day we graduate college, we are indoctrinated to believe that we are meant to be little more than passive reactors. History is taught to us as dogma, science is taught to us as history; in art class we learn to color in the lines, to draw with perfect three-dimensional perspective. We are taught the right answers. Then we are taught to regurgitate those answers. If we are good at following the pattern the system has established, then we succeed in that system. If we do not want to color in the lines, then we literally fail at that system. And if we fail at that system it is very difficult to succeed within it. 

To elevate the human mind, to see beyond that system, is thus made an act of protest. But we must ask ourselves if we agree that our current system is working for us or if our current system is failing fundamentally. We must ask ourselves if the best way to move forward is to simply be told the right answer or if we must protest to find the right answers for ourselves. Ought we be empirical thinkers, ought we to learn by observation, by exploration, by communication? Ought we to learn in our fullest capacity via experience? Should not we learn using our greatest human faculty? Our cognition. The evolutionary consequence of a prefrontal cortex is to contain the ability to think in abstractions and to realize those abstractions by transferring them from the philosophical mind into the tangible Earth. As humans we have the power, we have the will to create something from nothing- to find solutions, to actualize our reality, with the mere utterance of an idea and the transference of that idea into a physical action.

#ScienceTheEarth is about that realization. What is my definition of science? Science is the human faculty to think in abstractions in order to realize a physical reality that is beyond the status quo of the 'here-and-now'. To think scientifically is to fully realize the faculty of your mind. To science is to think. And thinking is step one to bringing about the social change you want to enact in the world.

Step one is to think. And step one is hard. We are not raised to think. We are raised to listen, to obey, to repeat. We are not raised to understand, we are raised to follow. We are bombarded daily with this realization. We shop for food not because it satiates our hunger, but because it makes us ‘smile.’ We are led to believe that purchasing cereal is going to cure breast cancer or help us build community. We are convinced that we will somehow be able to enact real social change by following the same patterns our ancestors did 10,000 years ago. But we must step outside the zeitgeist within which we were indoctrinated and we must ask ourselves, “what do I think?” To bring about the social change we want to see we must self-actualize, and to self-actualize we must be willing to take the risk to perceive the Earth and ourselves outside of our social framework. We must allow ourselves to look past our biases, our cognitive schema- we must look beyond the childhood trauma that was the indoctrination we received to listen and obey. 

And this journey does not come lightly. To put oneself outside of their current framework, to ask oneself ‘really, who am I?’- one must question all notions they have of self- all they have come to define as their ‘identity.’ And to do this may feel suicidal because to really ask ‘who am I?’ we must be willing to completely tear down ourselves- we must be willing to “put it all out on the table.” This is something we are not accustomed to doing. It seems a lot easier to purchase that cheese burger today, to find happiness and community in a purchase, than it seems to stop and ask ourselves ‘really, what is it that makes me happy?’

​And for this reason, so many remain complacent. We buy in. We perpetuate this system- this system that generates us to serve as slaves, to consume, to find happiness through externalities. Rather than question what it is that makes us satisfied, we are told that we are satisfied, and we go on believing it because we perceive the chronic ignorance of the self on a daily basis an easier task than the acute dismantling of the self that is required to self-actualize. But our innate desire to neglect this acute pain while still yearning for some seemingly unattainable future happiness is not sustainable. And we can feel it. We must commit ourselves, we must assess ourselves, we must perceive ourselves as positive actors- we must confront ourselves. We must transcend. 

There is an underlying distress in the Earth. One which is born of a disillusioned populous, born into a system in which they feel helpless- born into a system that educates them to believe they are helpless. This distress in becoming more cognizant every day and for this the system is beginning to crack. The comfortable and complacent world which we were led to believe would be waiting for us if we played by the rules is falling apart; people are losing their trust, losing their faith. And as this happens, it becomes difficult to be a genuine educator and communicate to your audience that you have all the right answers. It becomes difficult to continue the indoctrination. It is difficult to advocate a system that has failed its occupants empirically- and the audience knows that.

And when we reach this truth, when we deconstruct everything and come to this realization, how is it the people are going to react? When we get to this realization, we must take action, and that action can either be catabolic or anabolic. And a catabolic reaction should not come as a big surprise. It is very easy to confront this system and realize how it has affected you as an individual and seek to destroy this system with signs, with protest, with gestures, with dynamite, with guns, with flames and airplanes. Why do we keep turning weapons against our neighbors? Do we know our neighbors? Do we know ourselves? Why do we despise our culture so much we literally seek to blow it up? When a system fails, a catabolic reaction is a natural consequence of that failure. The Weather Underground came from Students for a Democratic Society; al-Qaida came from the allied Afghan forces. It is not sustainable spiritually, emotionally, environmentally… to pretend we can remain complacent passive reactors- we must partake in anabolic alternatives.

#ScienceTheEarth is about the realization of the self. It is about understanding yourself within the cosmos so that you can be a positive social actor. #ScienceTheEarth is the anabolic response to a system in distress. Young people and old people alike are realizing that the system in which they were indoctrinated is in distress because they themselves are in distress within it. How then can we be positive social actors to confront that system in distress and bring about the social change we desire? #ScienceTheEarth is about understanding your role in the anabolic social change the Earth requires. Rather than rebel against a system by blowing it up, we are rebelling against the system by building anew. Rather than working entirely despite the system, we are formulating ways to build a new one within that system; to empirically question what works and what does not, and to test new hypothesis to move that system forward. If we want a functioning democracy that enacts positive social change, we must be positive social changers within that democracy. It starts with a scientifically literate public- it starts with a public that thinks- it starts with an individual understanding themselves for their own sake in order to offer their best selves to the Earth for society’s sake.

For #ScienceTheEarth to be a success, we must obtain that forbidden knowledge that we are convinced is only for a select few. We must stop asking ourselves what we can do to stop the Earth’s problems and rather what we can do to start the Earth’s solutions. And for this to occur, we must harness our greatest asset: our ability to think.

​Science is my vector to start this dialogue. The practice of science, true science, is what brings about new ideas, new inventions, new and intuitive ways to anabolically construct a more sustainable Earth. I could just as easily spread this message as a missionary or a monk. I could travel from place to place, visiting monasteries and mosques and churches. This could very easily be #FaithTheEarth if religion were my vector. So why is it that I, a scientist, believes that a journey to religious institutions could be just as beneficial as a journey to scientific ones? Because the journey is not about the practice of institutionalized science. The journey is about our human compassion- the journey is about empathy. The journey is about our ability to speak with one another, to express our ideals and ideas, and to move forward together based on our common understanding. It is about the idea that our empathy for one another is ultimately what defines our humanity. 

It is essential that we take time to reflect. And to never stop moving forward.
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The Earth is at your fingertips. And it is your choice what you do with it.