A summer with toads and nano-bubbles!!!

Submitted by Hilary Marrero on 1 August 2015 - 12:05am

This summer 2015 has been one like no other. Having the opportunity to work on a summer research program in a good university like the UPRM and contribute to the scientific knowledge in my island is something great that has no price. During 10 weeks I worked in a mechanical engineering laboratory on the “Permeability measurements of nano-bubbles through the urinary bladder of Bufo marinus toad”. The goal of the research was to detect and determine if air nano-bubbles diffuse through the urinary bladder from a donor chamber to a receiver one. Some recent studies have indicated that air and oxygen nano-bubbles enhance the growth of fishes, plants and mice.

Reconfigurable and Multifunctional Soft Materials REU– UPRM

Submitted by Hilary Marrero on 27 June 2015 - 8:27pm

Nano-bubbles are air or other gas bubbles immersed in water with a diameter of approximately 150-200 nm. During the last years, they have been studied due to their great number of applications in the areas of Alzheimer disease, cancer, cleaning agents, drug delivery and gene delivery. In the same way, bubbles are the cause of decompression sickness (DCS). This sickness is related to persons working on submarines, high altitude works and more commonly, divers. When a person is diving deep and then goes up suddenly to the surface, bubbles are formed in their tissues due to the change from high pressure to low pressure. These ones can block the flow of blood in the vessels and produce a gas embolism. During this summer, I am working in Dr.