Sweetgrass Chemicals That Keep Mosquitoes At Bay Revealed - http://clapway.com/2015/08/19/sweetgrass-chemicals-that-keep-mosquitoes-at-bay-revealed123/

Researchers have successfully identified the chemical reason for why sweetgrass keeps pesky bugs at bay. They plan to present their results this Thursday at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Sweetgrass has been used for years to ward off insects

Native to North America, sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) is a folk-remedy for biting insects, mainly mosquitoes. It gives off a sweet odor and acts as an insect-repellant at once. In addition to being bothersome, insect bites could cause serious, even life-threatening damage. Insects like mosquitoes act as vectors for diseases like malaria and dengue fever. Scientists have long believed that the components that give it the sweet smell could actually be the ones repelling insects.

Chemicals were extracted from sweetgrass using steam

Similar to a process used in making perfumes from flowers, researchers used a method called steam distillation to extract the chemicals in grass that give off the odor. This process involves passing steam though the plant material, and then cooling the temperature to help condense it into a liquid. The liquid then separates into water and oil; the oily fraction is retained as it contains the volatile ingredients of interest. The scientists then tested whether the sweetgrass oil actually worked. They filled a vial with a red colored substance that looks like blood to bait the mosquitoes. The vial was then covered with a thin membrane and laced with either the sweetgrass oil, other extracts of sweetgrass obtained without steam distillation, the gold standard of insect repellants called N, N-diethyl-m-toluamide (DEET) or the solvent alcohol as the negative control. The mosquitoes could either take a bite at the membrane or not. They were then squished onto paper in order to see if they drew ‘blood.’ When counted, they found that the membrane laced with sweetgrass oil had the least bites, matching that of the gold standard.

Chemicals in sweetgrass identified

Upon finding that the sweetgrass oil repelled mosquitoes, scientists wanted to find out what chemicals exactly caused this effect. They separated the oil into 12 sub-fractions, and zeroed in on the components of three of the most effective. Using analytical techniques like Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Mass Spectrometry (MS), they identified the active components to be coumarin and phytol. Coumarin is an ingredient found in insect-repellant and other skin products. Thanks to the study, we now know the scientific basis for this folk-remedy.

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Nature is perplexing and holds many mysteries. See more of it using the Atmoph window:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD63kwQuZ2I

Sweetgrass Chemicals That Keep Mosquitoes At Bay Revealed

Pacific Ocean"s Monster Net -- The War on Trash in Hawaii - http://clapway.com/2015/06/08/pacific-oceans-monster-net-the-war-on-trash-in-hawaii-123/

Oil isn’t the only thing contaminating the ocean these days. Recently a net weighing in at 11.5 tons was dragged out of the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii proving that the War Against Trash is more crucial than previously thought.

The Pacific Ocean’s Monster Net

This “monster net” was first spotted in the Pacific Ocean 2013 and was just considered a legend among those working for Hawaii’s Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. This first sighting occurred with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on a coral reef in the outskirts of Hawaii’s Pearl and Hermes Atoll.

“Parts of it were snagged on the sea floor. A giant tree twisted in its mass, and a green sea turtle, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, was injured and snared in its folds,” reported National Geographic.

The Dangers of the Net

The divers, alone, were not capable of removing this mass. So, they returned to land and a few days later went out with a research team to further assess the damage done by this monster net. During those three days, the net killed three coral reef sharks, making this a more deadly scenario than previously thought.

The research team attached a GPS tracker to the net, and then they retreated to land to organize an excavation of this monster net. Things did not go as planned, because within a few weeks’ time, the net shed the GPS tracker and evaded surveillance of ocean cleanup teams; thus, the net was viewed as a legend among those who worked in ocean cleanup.

Although the net eluded capture for quite some time, that didn’t slow down researchers and activists, adamant about cleaning up the ocean and raging a “War on Trash” in Hawaii’s water and reefs.

In September, 17 NOAA members embarked on a 33 day cleanup in the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii’s coral reefs. Although their sole mission was not the “monster net”, they kept their eyes peeled for anything that might lead them to finding the infamous danger.

Trash For Days, Weeks, or Months?

Four days into their mission, NOAA members spotted the net, and they were in awe at what they saw. The net was 30ft. long and 8ft. wide. It was so full of trash that it stuck out one foot above the water. It took researchers and volunteers three days to drag this monster net, weighing 11.5 tons, from the depths of the ocean. Now, they are assessing the damage done to the reef and the wildlife of the area.

This is not the first cleanup resulting in monstrous findings of trash and litter in the coral reefs surrounding Hawaii, and it definitely won’t be the last. It isn’t enough to do cleanups, however, to completely win the “War on Trash” we have to stop the hazards at the source.

Protect, protect, protect:

Pacific Ocean"s Monster Net -- The War on Trash in Hawaii