Environmentally-Conscious Scientific Field Research

One "newsmakers" blurb in particular from last week's issue of Science (Vol. 315, No. 5817, 09 March 2007) stood out to me. It was about how Taranjit Kaur, a pathobiologist at Virginia Tech, is working to reduce the ecological footprint of her own research.

(Consider this a nice and brief addition to the ecological footprint-related posts Dave and I have added to the site over the past months, but instead of Tom Cruise, or me, it's about ecologically conscious scientific practice, maybe more like this.)

Here's the full text of the story:

PACK 'N PLAY. While studying to diagnose disease in chimpanzees, Taranjit Kaur, a pathobiologist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, wondered whether there was a way to reduce the environmental impact of her research. With the help of architect colleague Matt Lutz, she's come up with an answer: the world's first fully collapsible, mobile laboratory.

The two-story facility can hold laboratory equipment on the bottom floor, including computers, microscopes, and a refrigerator, and four researchers on the second floor. It's made of fiberglass rods and sliding aluminum panels that lock into place. The lab will be deployed this summer in Tanzania, where Kaur's group is establishing a health-monitoring program for chimpanzees.

A Virginia Tech website provides more detail. The lab is call PLUG (Portable Laboratory on Uncommon Ground), is "is a building capable of resolving the combined situation of field-ready research laboratory with comfortable living accommodation in remote and environmentally sensitive locations." Below is the outer layer, a light-weight tent canopy:

The next image shows the interior, which offers "loft-style quarters and securable lab space":

Altogether, this fits into the category of reducing the ecological footprints of workspaces, but in a different sense than usually considered. Instead of individual consumer choices or more broadly conceived organizational directives, that is, this one is about the place of scientific field research itself. They're keeping the "field" visible and ecologically respected.