Browsing by Author "Diana, Zoie"

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    20 Years of Government Responses to the Global Plastic Pollution Problem: The Plastics Policy Inventory
    (2020-05-15) Virdin, John; Karasik, Rachel; Vegh, Tibor; Pickle, Amy; Diana, Zoie; Rittschof, Daniel; Bering, Janet; Caldas, Juan
    Plastic pollution in the ocean is a global problem that requires cooperation from a wide range of groups (e.g., governments, producers, consumers, researchers, civil society). This study aims to synthesize the policy response of governments to the global plastic pollution problem, as a basis for more rigorous monitoring of progress (as called for in Resolution 4/6 of the 2019 United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) meeting) and to inform future public policies.
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    Annual Trends in Plastics Policy: A Brief
    (2022-02-23) Karasik, Rachel; Bering, Janet; Griffin, Madison; Diana, Zoie; Laspada, Christian; Schachter, Jonathan; Wang, Yifan; Pickle, Amy; Virdin, John
    In 2020, the Plastics Policy Inventory and accompanying report, 20 Years of Government Responses to the Global Plastic Pollution Problem, were published, providing a baseline for the trends in government responses to the plastic pollution problem, as well as highlighting some gaps. Since that time, momentum has grown toward negotiation of an international agreement as a collective response to the problem, even as governments and resources have been strained by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This first brief builds upon the 2020 report and baseline by adding new data on national policy responses to plastic pollution from 2020 and 2021. Assessment of the more up-to-date policy inventory suggests that the twenty-year trend of an increase in the number of national policies introduced to reduce plastic pollution has stalled. While additional data on national policies may subsequently become available to revise these estimates, if confirmed they would suggest a pause in government responses to the problem, coinciding with the pandemic (though we cannot show causality). Our goal is for this brief to be the first in a regular series of annual updates on the trends in government responses to the global plastic pollution problem.
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    Learning to glue underwater: Inspiration from the decorator worm
    (2016-04-28) Diana, Zoie
    The decorator worm, a sedentary predator, builds a micro-reef on the portion of its tube above the sediment, which attracts prey. When tube tops are clipped in the lab, the worm rebuilds compulsively. Glass beads and antifouling materials were used as decoration substrates to characterize bioadhesive biochemistry and adhesion to antifouling substrate. Decorator worm adhesive was largely proteinaceous with phosphate presence and a lack of glycoprotein. The Introduction explains the scientific context for studying natural underwater adhesives, including efforts to understand conserved molecular mechanisms in underwater adhesion to further fouling prevention on boat hulls or medical implants and biomimicking natural glues for industrial or biomedical applications. The Methods provides detailed steps to test decorator worm adhesive for protein, phosphoprotein, and glycoprotein presence. This section also provides details on how to make worms decorate with antifouling substrates. The Results section shows that decorator worm bioadhesive is highly proteinaceous and has higher phosphate presence in the tube as compared to glue on glass beads. The adhesive did not contain significant glycoprotein. The decorator worm adheres mixed ion exchange resin, synthetic ion exchange resin, strongly basic anion exchange resin, aminopropyl silane modified glass particles (.5-10 μm), imitation seagrass, plastic zip ties, iPhone cases, silicone, silicone infused with octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) and silicone infused with decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) to its tube. This report details findings on the decorator worm as a novel system for studying adhesive and antifouling materials: • Adhesive shows high protein content • Tube adhesive shows higher phosphoprotein than adhesive on glass beads • Adhesive shows little to no glycoprotein presence • Decorator worms adheres all materials tested to their tubes • Decorator worms relatively large size and readiness to adhere any material to the exterior tubes make them excellent candidates to testing antifoul release materials