Soare Brave

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

#ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC @bme_utd

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

#ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC @bme_utd

[ALLATRA @allatra_org]

What We Still Don’t Know About Microplastic Exposure | Dr. Shalini Prasad | ALLATRA GRC

Detecting micro- and nanoplastics is one of the greatest scientific challenges in environmental and biomedical research. As these particles become smaller, they become increasingly difficult to identify, measure, and distinguish within complex biological and environmental systems. Developing reliable detection technologies is an essential step toward understanding where these particles are found, how they interact with living systems, and how future monitoring strategies can be improved.

In this episode of the ALLATRA Global Research Center Podcast, Dr. John Ahn speaks with Dr. Shalini Prasad, Professor and Department Head of Bioengineering at The University of Texas at Dallas. A pioneer in biosensors, electrochemical diagnostics, and nanotechnology, Dr. Prasad explores how advances in biosensing, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and materials science are opening new possibilities for detecting micro- and nanoplastics in water, food, biological fluids, and environmental samples.

The conversation highlights the science behind next-generation detection technologies for micro- and nanoplastics, exploring the engineering principles, analytical challenges, and emerging approaches that could improve future environmental and biomedical monitoring.

In this episode:
-Why detecting nano-sized plastics remains one of the key analytical challenges
-How electrochemical impedance spectroscopy can identify micro- and nanoplastics
-Why particle size, charge, and morphology influence biological interactions
-Emerging biosensor technologies for environmental and biomedical monitoring
-From laboratory research to real-world applications: what it takes to commercialize scientific innovations
-Future opportunities for large-scale monitoring of micro- and nanoplastics

#ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC @bme_utd

[ALLATRA @allatra_org]

What We Still Don’t Know About Microplastic Exposure | Dr. Shalini Prasad | ALLATRA GRC

Detecting micro- and nanoplastics is one of the greatest scientific challenges in environmental and biomedical research. As these particles become smaller, they become increasingly difficult to identify, measure, and distinguish within complex biological and environmental systems. Developing reliable detection technologies is an essential step toward understanding where these particles are found, how they interact with living systems, and how future monitoring strategies can be improved.

In this episode of the ALLATRA Global Research Center Podcast, Dr. John Ahn speaks with Dr. Shalini Prasad, Professor and Department Head of Bioengineering at The University of Texas at Dallas. A pioneer in biosensors, electrochemical diagnostics, and nanotechnology, Dr. Prasad explores how advances in biosensing, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and materials science are opening new possibilities for detecting micro- and nanoplastics in water, food, biological fluids, and environmental samples.

The conversation highlights the science behind next-generation detection technologies for micro- and nanoplastics, exploring the engineering principles, analytical challenges, and emerging approaches that could improve future environmental and biomedical monitoring.

In this episode:
-Why detecting nano-sized plastics remains one of the key analytical challenges
-How electrochemical impedance spectroscopy can identify micro- and nanoplastics
-Why particle size, charge, and morphology influence biological interactions
-Emerging biosensor technologies for environmental and biomedical monitoring
-From laboratory research to real-world applications: what it takes to commercialize scientific innovations
-Future opportunities for large-scale monitoring of micro- and nanoplastics

#ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC @bme_utd

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

August 29, 2026 | Natural Disaster Summary

[ALLATRA @allatra_org]

August 29, 2026 | Natural Disaster Summary

Mohan, Yunnan | China - Torrential rainfall caused massive flooding in Mohan, Mengla County, after 187.5 mm of rain fell within 24 hours. Powerful floodwaters inundated streets, swept away vehicles and debris, and reached the roofs of homes in some areas. Authorities evacuated 2,226 people from 502 households, while more than 1,500 military personnel, police officers, rescuers, and emergency workers were deployed. An emergency was also reported at the Yantan Reservoir in Molun village, although there was no independent confirmation that a water release contributed to the flooding.

Himachal Pradesh & Uttar Pradesh | India - Heavy rainfall triggered landslides and flooding in several areas. In Parwanoo, Himachal Pradesh, a landslide blocked access to Taksal village, disrupted traffic on the highway toward Shimla, and delayed trains on the Kalka-Shimla railway. In Uttar Pradesh's Chitrakoot district, the Mandakini River rose rapidly, prompting authorities to place 50 villages on high alert due to the threat of flooding.

Luzon | Philippines - Severe monsoon rains triggered widespread flooding and landslides across Luzon. According to the Office of Civil Defense, 32 people were reported killed, including 15 in Benguet Province and four in Rizal Province. Approximately 8 million people were affected, with more than 25,800 staying in evacuation centers. Major roads flooded in Metro Manila, the La Mesa Dam overflowed, and the Aquino Bridge in Tarlac City collapsed under powerful river currents. Infrastructure damage exceeded 6.11 billion pesos, while agricultural losses reached 2.32 billion pesos.

Republika Srpska | Bosnia and Herzegovina - A powerful thunderstorm brought destructive winds, heavy rainfall, and large hail to northern parts of the country. Wind gusts reached 71.6 km/h in Prijedor and 106.6 km/h in Laktaši. Egg-sized hail was reported near Kozarska Dubica, while numerous trees were brought down and vehicles and roofs were damaged in Prnjavor. In Lišnja, strong winds tore part of the roof from the Meša Selimović School.

Homs, Latakia & Idlib | Syria - Severe atmospheric instability produced sandstorms, thunderstorms, heavy rain, large hail, and powerful downdrafts across several parts of Syria. In Homs, a massive sandstorm turned the sky red and reduced visibility to near zero. Large hail in Slenfa damaged olive trees and crops, while thunderstorms caused power outages in Idlib Province. In the village of Al-Fua, a child was injured by a lightning strike.

The video was produced by ALLATRA volunteers based on open data and official sources.

#NaturalDisasterSummary #NaturalDisasters #ExtremeWeather #SevereWeather #Flooding #FlashFlood #Landslide #Monsoon #Thunderstorm #Hail #Sandstorm #HeavyRain #StrongWinds #Lightning #China #India #Philippines #BosniaAndHerzegovina #Syria #ALLATRA #ALLATRAClimate #ClimateCrisis

[ALLATRA @allatra_org]

August 29, 2026 | Natural Disaster Summary

Mohan, Yunnan | China - Torrential rainfall caused massive flooding in Mohan, Mengla County, after 187.5 mm of rain fell within 24 hours. Powerful floodwaters inundated streets, swept away vehicles and debris, and reached the roofs of homes in some areas. Authorities evacuated 2,226 people from 502 households, while more than 1,500 military personnel, police officers, rescuers, and emergency workers were deployed. An emergency was also reported at the Yantan Reservoir in Molun village, although there was no independent confirmation that a water release contributed to the flooding.

Himachal Pradesh & Uttar Pradesh | India - Heavy rainfall triggered landslides and flooding in several areas. In Parwanoo, Himachal Pradesh, a landslide blocked access to Taksal village, disrupted traffic on the highway toward Shimla, and delayed trains on the Kalka-Shimla railway. In Uttar Pradesh's Chitrakoot district, the Mandakini River rose rapidly, prompting authorities to place 50 villages on high alert due to the threat of flooding.

Luzon | Philippines - Severe monsoon rains triggered widespread flooding and landslides across Luzon. According to the Office of Civil Defense, 32 people were reported killed, including 15 in Benguet Province and four in Rizal Province. Approximately 8 million people were affected, with more than 25,800 staying in evacuation centers. Major roads flooded in Metro Manila, the La Mesa Dam overflowed, and the Aquino Bridge in Tarlac City collapsed under powerful river currents. Infrastructure damage exceeded 6.11 billion pesos, while agricultural losses reached 2.32 billion pesos.

Republika Srpska | Bosnia and Herzegovina - A powerful thunderstorm brought destructive winds, heavy rainfall, and large hail to northern parts of the country. Wind gusts reached 71.6 km/h in Prijedor and 106.6 km/h in Laktaši. Egg-sized hail was reported near Kozarska Dubica, while numerous trees were brought down and vehicles and roofs were damaged in Prnjavor. In Lišnja, strong winds tore part of the roof from the Meša Selimović School.

Homs, Latakia & Idlib | Syria - Severe atmospheric instability produced sandstorms, thunderstorms, heavy rain, large hail, and powerful downdrafts across several parts of Syria. In Homs, a massive sandstorm turned the sky red and reduced visibility to near zero. Large hail in Slenfa damaged olive trees and crops, while thunderstorms caused power outages in Idlib Province. In the village of Al-Fua, a child was injured by a lightning strike.

The video was produced by ALLATRA volunteers based on open data and official sources.

#NaturalDisasterSummary #NaturalDisasters #ExtremeWeather #SevereWeather #Flooding #FlashFlood #Landslide #Monsoon #Thunderstorm #Hail #Sandstorm #HeavyRain #StrongWinds #Lightning #China #India #Philippines #BosniaAndHerzegovina #Syria #ALLATRA #ALLATRAClimate #ClimateCrisis

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

#Nepal

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

#EnvironmentalScience #ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

Watch the full podcast: “The Scientific Challenge of Tracking Microplastics | Dr. Balaji Rao | ALLATRA GRC.”

#Microplastics #Nanoplastics #DrinkingWater #WaterQuality #PlasticPollution #EnvironmentalScience #ScientificResearch #ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC

[ALLATRA @allatra_org]

What do we mean by the physical attributes? The key physical attributes that we care about - we talked a lot about this - is the size. It is logical to infer that the smaller the size, the more widely they will distribute into the environment. The larger the sizes, they may not move through the environment as much as the smaller micro- and nanoplastics.

Then you talk about the density of those microplastic particles. The more dense they are - when we talk about sediment or aquatic environments - the chances are they would end up in the sediment. And then you may not be directly exposed to it, but those benthic organisms and the fish that feed in those ecological environments, they may start accumulating the micro- and nanoplastics. And if we eat those, you know, fish, then we would get indirectly exposed to the micro- and nanoplastics.

These less dense microplastics may end up directly in your drinking water sources, because they are basically floating in the water and they are easily moving across the water compartments, and eventually end up in drinking water sources. And some of these have been known to pass through the drinking water treatment systems, and they end up in your - you know, as you open the drinking water tap, they may end up in your drinking water as you consume the drinking water. So, that matters as well.

Then the chemical attributes matter too. In terms of chemical attributes, we talk about hydrophobicity of these plastics. And what we mean by that is - hydrophobicity is another term of indicating whether… how much it likes to stay in water as opposed to staying away from water, in very layman's terms. The hydrophobicity determines whether these plastics are sticky. They tend to stick with particles as they move through the environment, or they are less sticky and they tend to stay in the water. And as I mentioned earlier, they cause different sorts of transport through the environment and lead up to different kinds of exposure in the environment.

Recently, there's a lot of focus on the aging of these microplastics. One of the things that these microplastics - as they age in the environment, they undergo some physicochemical changes. Particularly, they start incorporating more, potentially, oxygen groups into their surface material, and they could change the charge of these microplastics, and that could change the behavior in the environment as they transport through these different environmental compartments. And so, all these attributes of micro- and nanoplastics matter.

' Dr. Balaji Rao, Assistant Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering at Texas Tech University.

Watch the full podcast: “The Scientific Challenge of Tracking Microplastics | Dr. Balaji Rao | ALLATRA GRC.”

#Microplastics #Nanoplastics #DrinkingWater #WaterQuality #PlasticPollution #EnvironmentalScience #ScientificResearch #ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC

[ALLATRA @allatra_org]

What do we mean by the physical attributes? The key physical attributes that we care about - we talked a lot about this - is the size. It is logical to infer that the smaller the size, the more widely they will distribute into the environment. The larger the sizes, they may not move through the environment as much as the smaller micro- and nanoplastics.

Then you talk about the density of those microplastic particles. The more dense they are - when we talk about sediment or aquatic environments - the chances are they would end up in the sediment. And then you may not be directly exposed to it, but those benthic organisms and the fish that feed in those ecological environments, they may start accumulating the micro- and nanoplastics. And if we eat those, you know, fish, then we would get indirectly exposed to the micro- and nanoplastics.

These less dense microplastics may end up directly in your drinking water sources, because they are basically floating in the water and they are easily moving across the water compartments, and eventually end up in drinking water sources. And some of these have been known to pass through the drinking water treatment systems, and they end up in your - you know, as you open the drinking water tap, they may end up in your drinking water as you consume the drinking water. So, that matters as well.

Then the chemical attributes matter too. In terms of chemical attributes, we talk about hydrophobicity of these plastics. And what we mean by that is - hydrophobicity is another term of indicating whether… how much it likes to stay in water as opposed to staying away from water, in very layman's terms. The hydrophobicity determines whether these plastics are sticky. They tend to stick with particles as they move through the environment, or they are less sticky and they tend to stay in the water. And as I mentioned earlier, they cause different sorts of transport through the environment and lead up to different kinds of exposure in the environment.

Recently, there's a lot of focus on the aging of these microplastics. One of the things that these microplastics - as they age in the environment, they undergo some physicochemical changes. Particularly, they start incorporating more, potentially, oxygen groups into their surface material, and they could change the charge of these microplastics, and that could change the behavior in the environment as they transport through these different environmental compartments. And so, all these attributes of micro- and nanoplastics matter.

' Dr. Balaji Rao, Assistant Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering at Texas Tech University.

Watch the full podcast: “The Scientific Challenge of Tracking Microplastics | Dr. Balaji Rao | ALLATRA GRC.”

#Microplastics #Nanoplastics #DrinkingWater #WaterQuality #PlasticPollution #EnvironmentalScience #ScientificResearch #ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

#EnvironmentalScience #ScientificResearch #ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

Watch the full podcast: “The Scientific Challenge of Tracking Microplastics | Dr. Balaji Rao | ALLATRA GRC.”

#Microplastics #Nanoplastics #PlasticPollution #EnvironmentalScience #ScientificResearch #ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC

[ALLATRA @allatra_org]

Some of the less obvious sources - I would say one of them that people might not think about is paper cups. So, you would think, what do paper cups have to do with plastic sources? It actually turns out that for paper cups to hold liquid, they need to have some sort of plastic lining inside those paper cups. Otherwise, they will not hold liquid. And so, those plastic linings could be made of a polyethylene type [of material], and they could leach microplastics, particularly if you put hot liquids such as coffee into these paper cups, and they could be leaching plastic materials into those liquids, and you could be drinking directly those microplastics as you have this coffee in these paper cups. So, these are less obvious sources.

Other less obvious sources are paints. We often don't think about microplastics when we talk about paints, but paints have a significant amount of microplastics in them. In fact, there's been a recent article that talks about how paints have been understudied as a microplastic source - even though they have percentage levels of microplastics, they is, kind of, manufactured to have microplastics, particularly water-soluble paints are manufactured to do that. And so, it's not inconceivable that during the application and during the normal aging process of this paint, and wear and tear, there would be a release of microplastics into the environment, which has not been properly accounted for.

- Dr. Balaji Rao, Assistant Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering at Texas Tech University.

Watch the full podcast: “The Scientific Challenge of Tracking Microplastics | Dr. Balaji Rao | ALLATRA GRC.”

#Microplastics #Nanoplastics #PlasticPollution #EnvironmentalScience #ScientificResearch #ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC

[ALLATRA @allatra_org]

Some of the less obvious sources - I would say one of them that people might not think about is paper cups. So, you would think, what do paper cups have to do with plastic sources? It actually turns out that for paper cups to hold liquid, they need to have some sort of plastic lining inside those paper cups. Otherwise, they will not hold liquid. And so, those plastic linings could be made of a polyethylene type [of material], and they could leach microplastics, particularly if you put hot liquids such as coffee into these paper cups, and they could be leaching plastic materials into those liquids, and you could be drinking directly those microplastics as you have this coffee in these paper cups. So, these are less obvious sources.

Other less obvious sources are paints. We often don't think about microplastics when we talk about paints, but paints have a significant amount of microplastics in them. In fact, there's been a recent article that talks about how paints have been understudied as a microplastic source - even though they have percentage levels of microplastics, they is, kind of, manufactured to have microplastics, particularly water-soluble paints are manufactured to do that. And so, it's not inconceivable that during the application and during the normal aging process of this paint, and wear and tear, there would be a release of microplastics into the environment, which has not been properly accounted for.

- Dr. Balaji Rao, Assistant Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering at Texas Tech University.

Watch the full podcast: “The Scientific Challenge of Tracking Microplastics | Dr. Balaji Rao | ALLATRA GRC.”

#Microplastics #Nanoplastics #PlasticPollution #EnvironmentalScience #ScientificResearch #ALLATRA #ALLATRAGRC

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

#alltra

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

#allatra

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

#allatra

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

Research, public awareness, and cooperation are important components of ALLATRA’s activities.

To learn more, visit https://t.co/yW32nH92z8 
#allatra

[Soare Brave @BraveSoare72]

#ALLATRA