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Imagine a world run by aquatic plants, maybe even the tiniest ones in pond scum.
Yes, pond scum. You know, that green film that forms on top of the water?
The film has tiny critters called phytoplankton, one of many kinds of algae
that exist on our planet.
And they are an extremely important food source for a lot of life on this planet,
whether they are tiny, single-celled plants or meters long like kelp.
They’ve also served as food for thought for some scientists, inspiring them
to use algae to improve upon many of our everyday products.
From sunscreen to oil, let’s take a look at five products that are in development
that use algae as a muse.
Humans aren’t the only ones that need to use sunscreen as protection
from the Sun’s rays.
Even those that rely on the Sun for their food need to protect themselves from it sometimes.
Algae spend a lot of their time soaking up ultraviolet rays, because the Sun
is what helps drive photosynthesis.
Without it, these tiny plants wouldn’t be able to create their food.
But too much of something isn’t great either; like with us humans,
soaking up a lot of sunlight can damage the DNA of these microscopic plants.
So algae produce their own sunscreen, as a way of keeping themselves safe
from being damaged by too much Sun exposure.
And researchers are drawing inspiration from the chemicals that algae produce
to shield themselves, in order to make a better, less damaging alternative
to oxybenzone, a common active ingredient found in sunscreen.
Oxybenzone works really well as a Sun protectant,
but it can be bad news for the environment.
In ocean ecosystems, it’s been shown to cause stress to corals, making them
more susceptible to bleaching and causing irreparable damage to their DNA.
But algae can provide an alternative.
They produce all sorts of chemicals, like some amino acids and carotenoids,
that researchers are currently experimenting with to produce a safer alternative to oxybenzones.
Not only that, but they are also pretty good at absorbing UV rays,
and some may even prevent DNA damage, instead of causing it.
But there are still some hoops to jump through before sunscreens made
with compounds derived from algae make it on the commercial market.
Like, there aren’t a lot of these chemicals present in a single plant,
so harvesting them requires a lot of algae.
Not only does this make it expensive, but it could also
negatively impact algal populations.
Researchers are aware that the harvest has to be done in a sustainable way,
where the benefits outweigh the costs.
Or maybe it’s just the case that they need to isolate which chemical is best
and attempt to make it synthetically.
Still, algae-inspired sunscreens have a lot of promise, and it wouldn’t be too
surprising to see them adorning shelves in the next few years,
once all the kinks have been worked out.
Not only do algae produce their own sunscreens, but they also work to keep
themselves from being infected by the billions of bacteria that live in the ocean.
Some algal species have the super-cool ability to produce a chemical that
keeps the bacteria from forming a biofilm, a thin layer of interconnected cells,
on the algae.
Researchers have found that the red algae known as Delisea pulchra
doesn’t have biofilms coating its surface like other algae species.
That’s because it produces a substance that disrupts individual bacterial cells’
ability to talk to each other.
And if they can’t communicate with each other, they can’t coordinate
and form a biofilm on the algae.
This particular chemical also keeps bacteria from producing an enzyme
that breaks down certain types of antibiotics.
Now researchers are trying to harness those same chemicals produced
by the red algae to make self-cleaning surfaces, or at the very least,
surfaces that stay cleaner for much longer than they currently do.
This coating could then be applied to any surface, including clothing and money,
which would work to stop the growth of bacterial film in the same way
that it works in the algae.
And the company has already reported that in trials,
this chemical appears to work on not only bacteria but also fungi.
While we don’t have self-cleaning money yet, it’s definitely in the works,
thanks to the incredible resiliency of an unassuming plant.
Another super useful thing that algae produce are oils and fatty acids.
These fats are produced by the algae during the photosynthesis process,
but accumulate in the individual cells when the algae are stressed out,
like when nutrients become scarce.
They store these fats up, in order to have an energy reserve to tap into
until the stressful conditions pass.
And now algae are being tapped commercially for their fatty acids,
as a potential alternative to palm oil and coconut oil.
Palm oil is used in a lot of everyday products, but it’s a particularly
controversial source of oil.
The harvesting process is driving deforestation and causing the extinction
of several species in the forest where the oil gets harvested from.
So finding a non-controversial alternative is necessary to protect these vital ecosystems.
And that alternative might just be algae.
For one, algae don't take up as much space, and harvesting them
for their fatty acids doesn't lead to deforestation like palm oil.
Currently, the major hurdle is the expense.
It's more expensive to process the oils extracted from algae than palms,
which is why palm oil is still more enticing to producers,
despite the havoc it wreaks on nature.
But with more research trials and better technology,
researchers could make progress in the right direction.
Another, less conventional use of those oils produced by algae are lenses!
Specifically, night-vision goggle lenses.
Cameras that work in the dark have a lot of uses, everything from the military
to security systems to wildlife tracking cameras.
But current infrared night-vision lenses are pretty expensive,
and the images they produce aren’t the best quality.
And the main reason they’re expensive is because when you switch to night vision
you need to also change the focus of the lens, kind of like changing lenses
in a regular camera to focus on something that’s far out or closed up.
Plus they need to be able to hold their shape as their focus is changed.
This ability is what makes them so expensive.
But to make lenses with algal oils you need a process known as
inverse vulcanization, which is a pretty cool process in and of itself.
Normally polymers are made from petroleum-based products.
But the inverse vulcanization process avoids petroleum products altogether.
It takes sulfur, an unwanted byproduct of refining petroleum,
and heats it up to make polymers.
And because algal oils are made up of long chains of carbon atoms,
their length helps make the newly formed polymer stable and stretchy.
Because night-vision cameras are widely used in so many situations,
there is a high demand for their lenses to be made from commonly available,
cheap materials that can provide a better user experience.
So using a more flexible product can drop the cost of the lens,
while still hanging on to its ability to focus.
And harnessing products naturally produced by algae may be just the trick
to attaining lower-cost, flexible lenses.
So far, we’ve learned that algae have a lot of tricks up their … cells?
They can produce their own sunscreen, antibiotics, and fats.
Oh, and they can make their own food plus at least half of the oxygen on this planet.
Now that’s some amazing skills for anything, let alone a plant!
When did you last make your own food and the air that you need to breathe?
But it doesn’t end there!
Researchers are looking to harness the photosynthetic abilities of algae
to create photosynthetic skin grafts.
They’re combining algae with fibrinogen, a collagen-like protein.
This combination creates a material with the photosynthetic qualities of algae
and the strength of the protein.
And thanks to the plant part of the material, this product not only uses
photosynthesis to feed itself, it produces oxygen in the process.
Which is exactly why researchers hope to be able to use this material
for a skin graft.
They see these types of grafts as a big improvement over regular skin grafts,
because they can produce oxygen.
This means that the photosynthetic graft could be applied to tissues,
even if there was a lack of proper blood flow to that area.
These types of grafts could also be used to keep organs alive during organ
transplant procedures, because they would supply a source of oxygen to the organ
while it was in transport and disconnected from any sort of blood source.
And researchers have already found some success with a rudimentary version
of this, at least in rats.
They stored the transplanted organs in gas-permeable bags containing live
algal cells, which increased the rats’ recovery and survival after surgery.
And trials in mice have shown success with their bodies' acceptance of the grafts.
Not only did the mice immune systems not reject the algal cells,
but the part-plant and part-animal tissues began to bond better,
a process often referred to as a chimera.
Also, a very recent trial in humans has found that these types of grafts
have promise, in that the patient's bodies didn't reject them, although that’s
as far as researchers have taken it so far.
There's a lot more work to be done to see if these types of grafts are going to be
more beneficial in the long run over more traditional skin grafts,
but they certainly do hold a lot of potential.
There are already quite a few products that involve algae already on the market.
Carrageenan, a red algae extract, is in everything from ice cream to toothpaste.
And there’s already been a flurry of work around creating biofuels
from the oils produced by algae.
But I think that it’s safe to say these algae-inspired products are taking things
to the next level.
From sunscreen to photosynthetic skin-grafts and everything in between,
with a little more work and a lot of innovation,
Beyonce’s song may soon need a new verse.
Who runs the world? It’s algae. Algae runs the world.
But something that shouldn’t run the world is carbon emissions,
and today’s sponsor Wren can help with just that.
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Wren searches around the globe for promising projects, getting data on the ground
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Like protecting the Amazon using high-tech video and satellite imagery
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And as always, thanks for supporting SciShow.
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