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1st AGYA Science Comic: „The Rise of the Incredible Salty Salicornia Power Plant“

  • January 2018
DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.18899.48162
  • Conference: Picture it! The Potential of Halophytes in Bioenergy Production
Authors:
Jan Friesen at Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung
Jan Friesen
Skander Elleuche at EUROIMMUN Medical Laboratory Diagnostics AG
Skander Elleuche
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Abstract

This comic by authors Jan Friesen and Skander Elleuche together with illustrator Tyasseta and colorist Siloy explains the use of halophytes for bioenergy and is based on the review article: A. Debez*, I. Belghith*, J. Friesen*, C. Montzka*, S. Elleuche* (2017) Facing the challenge of sustainable bioenergy production: Could halophytes be part of the solution?. Journal of Biological Engineering 11(27). doi: 10.1186/s13036-017-0069-0. (* equal contribution)
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The AGYA Science Comic is based on
the article:
“Facing the challenge of sustainable
bioenergy production: Could
halophytes be part of the solution?”
by A. Debez, I. Belghith, J. Friesen,
C. Montzka, S. Elleuche (2017)
Journal of Biological Engineering
11 : 27. DOI 10.1186/s13036-017-0069-0
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This is a publication of the Arab-German Young
Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) at the
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and
Humanities (BBAW) and at the Egyptian Academy of
Scientic Research & Technology (ASRT) with the
nancial support of the German Federal
Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
All rights reserved.
Authors: Jan Friesen, Skander Elleuche
Illustrations: Tyasseta & Siloy
Editing: Ahmed Debez, Carsten Montzka,
John Toland Van Stan
Layout: berbach GmbH, Agentur für Design
und Medien
The Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences
and Humanities (AGYA)
at the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie
der Wissenschaften
Jägerstraße 22-23
10117 Berlin, Germany
agya@bbaw.de
+49 30 20370-669
www.agya.info
facebook.com/AGYA.info AGYA_events
1514
Science Jinn – Your Majesty has called for me?!
Sultan – My dearest Science Jinn, what I hold here in my hands is
the rst volume of our AGYA comic series “The HALOPHYTE tales”.
Science Jinn – Our rst science comic episode! Your
Majesty knows how much I love science!
Sultan – Do you remember that I asked four outstan-
ding young scholars from the Arab-German Young
Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) to
develop a concept of how to generate green energy
from halophytes growing in hot, aridic and salty
environments?
Science Jinn – Is Your Majesty talking about the review article in
which they explain how to identify halophytes, which are salt-
loving plants and how to determine their growth behavior with
regard to their nutrient requirements and soil conditions?!
Sultan – Indeed, they …
Science Jinn – …also mapped for Your Majesty the climate and
potential arable lands, where these survival artists do not
compete with edible food crops. Wheat and corn are usually not
able to grow on salty soils, so we can spare land intended for
agriculture. Right?
Sultan – Very good, little Science Jinn. And do you remember
what they found out? Can we process plants that are rich in salt
for the production of biofuels?
Science Jinn – For sure, Your Majesty. The smart scientists said
that such plants must be physically or chemically pretreated to
release long starchy sugar chains from the inner cell walls. These
chains will be biologically processed to produce small sugar
molecules. In a reactor, the molecules can be directly converted
into biofuels. But there is a problem: Because there is high salt
concentration in the reactor, corrosion must be prevented. This
also means that the biocatalysts, which are either microbial
enzymes or the microbes themselves, must withstand the high
salt concentration.
Sultan – Did my four scientists suggest a possible solution in
this regard?
Science Jinn – Your Majesty’s four scholars proposed to identify
salt-loving microbes that thrive in the saltiest environments on
our planet including the Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea.
Sultan – I am proud of my four AGYA scientists who found such
a smart solution! Could you explain to our readers, who or what
is AGYA again?
Science Jinn – AGYA was established in 2013 as the rst bilateral
young academy worldwide. The Academy brings together Arab
and German scholars from all disciplines to face shared challen-
ges and develop solutions through research cooperation. Your
Majesty can nd information on all the AGYA members on
www.agya.info.
Sultan – Let us now plan for the next AGYA Science Comic …
Download a digital version of this science comic on
www.agya.info
The 1 st AGYA Science Comic
The AGYA Science Jinn reveals how it came all about…
My dearest Science Jinn,
this is great news: The
first volume of the AGYA
science comic is out!
Yay!
It is my task to
translate the latest
scientific findings
into words that are
easily understood
by everyone.
... halophytes and bioenergy [25,26] (Figure 1). Our methodology is flexible and the presented framework can easily be adapted to convert scientific publications from different disciplines into a comic format. ...
... In our example [26], a sultan and a "science jinn" (Figure 3) were developed to build a pair of friendly but contradicting buddies. The sultan is a well-tempered and a wise ruler of a fictitious, Arabic realm. ...
... It is intended to serve as a step-by-step instruction for scientists that want to communicate their output in a different format. This subjective methodology is based on our personal experiences and has been developed during the production of our science comic [26]. In the meantime, this methodology has been successfully applied to produce a new comic "Urban forestry-Taming Precipita," [31] based on a recent book chapter [32] (Figure 7). ...
Communicating Science through Comics: A Method
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 2018
Scientists are trained to tell stories, scientific stories. Training is also needed to comprehend and contextualize these highly nuanced and technical stories because they are designed to explicitly convey scientific results, delineate their limitations, and describe a reproducible “plot” so that any thorough reenactment can achieve a similar conclusion. Although a carefully constructed scientific story may be crystal clear to other scientists in the same discipline, they are often inaccessible to broader audiences. This is problematic as scientists are increasingly expected to communicate their work to broader audiences that range from specialists in other disciplines to the general public. In fact, science communication is of increasing importance to acquire funding and generate effective outreach, as well as introduce, and sometimes even justify, research to society. This paper suggests a simple and flexible framework to translate a complex scientific publication into a broadly-accessible comic format. Examples are given for embedding scientific details into an easy-to-understand storyline. A background story is developed and panels are generated that convey scientific information via plain language coupled with recurring comic elements to maximize comprehension and memorability. This methodology is an attempt to alleviate the inherent limitations of interdisciplinary and public comprehension that result from standard scientific publication and dissemination practices. We also hope that this methodology will help colleagues enter into the field of science comics.
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