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The Sci-Files is hosted by Mari Dowling and Dimitri Joseph. Together they highlight the importance of science, especially student research at Michigan State University.
WDBM East Lansing.
Mari Dowling:Welcome to the Sci Files, an Impact 89 FM series that explores student research here at Michigan State University. We're your co hosts, Mari Dowling.
Dimitri Joseph:And Dimitri Joseph.
Mari Dowling:Next, we have Md Fyaz Sadiq here with us to describe his research. Hi, Faias. Thank you for joining us. Could you just give us an intro as to what your research is?
Md Fyaz Sadiq:I'm a 4th year PhD student in the department of civil and environmental engineering. And right now, as you know, we have lot of pavement damages like potholes, cracks, and especially now during spring in the month of, month of March, April, we have more these damages. We are working on solving these problems.
Mari Dowling:Okay. Very cool. How are you looking at solving this pothole issue? That's clearly a big problem in Michigan.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:1st, getting the solution at this, we need to know that why the problem is. So how these potholes are formed during winter months when we have freezing temperature, there is soil. Build our own waste, we have soil. And those soil have water. And when the freezing temperature touches those water, it converts to ice.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:And when water converts to ice, our pavement feels itself dry. So it pulls more water from the groundwater table as water gets frozen, water keeps coming. So we have lot of water into our pavement. Now what happens during the springtime? Temperature increases from the top.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:Those ice are getting melted. But below it is still frozen. So the melted water doesn't have any path to go because underneath it is still ice. So those places at the top are saturated with water. So if a truck goes above those spots, those spots have weak spots, water is our life, but it's the main problem or the main enemy for our roadways.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So if it hits those weak spots, we have damages in the pavement as potholes and cracks. We are working on 2 solutions. One solution is using the wicking fabric to remove the water. So if I ask about what is the wicking fabric, maybe you will also love to wear the wicking cloths during summer when you are running or jogging because what this wicking does is that it sucks the sweat from our body and it dries fast. So you feel comfortable and we want to give that comfort to the old pavement also.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So we are installing the wicking fabric just above our, soil layer. So if there is a rainfall or if there is the water that is coming during this peak, the wicking storage stays installed there. So it takes out or the sucks the water and takes the water outside of the pavement. So in this way, we have a dryer pavement. The other solution I was talking about to you was that if we can stop the water during the, freezing month, the water that is coming from the ground water table.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:For that, we are making the soil water repellent or or hydrophobic. So how this water repellency concept comes? The first thing is that maybe you will be wondering that how ducks remain dry during rainfall or when they are in the pond. So this secreted oily substance, which makes their feather water repellent. Similarly, leaves.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So if their water droplet falls, it is water repellent or hydrophobic. So water droplet cannot pass through, it just falls down. Similar concept we're using that, we're making the soil water repellent or hydrophobic. So we are mixing the soil with the water repellent chemical. And if water comes from the groundwater table, it will stop that flow.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So we'll not have lot of water into our pavement. And in this way, our pavements will remain dry. We will have good strength, and we'll have long lasting and durable
Dimitri Joseph:pavements. Just to summarize what you've explained, potholes come from natural changes in temperature through the seasons where ice is thawing, and there's a layer of water at the top near the the asphalt. You propose 2 options to change this occurrence of more potholes. 1 is with a a wicking substance that can absorb the water from the streets. And the second option was to prevent the water from coming up to the asphalt.
Dimitri Joseph:Okay. So we have 2 options. Now I'm curious to know how you would implement either of these techniques or approaches into an asphalt or street that's constantly being run over.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So we're installing both of these solution around 2 feet below from the surface of the road. So on the soil. So actually the soil is the main thing which is carrying all the load. Although we have in the top that the asphalt layer, all the loads are finally going to the soil.
Dimitri Joseph:Just take a step back. Could you just break down to me what are the layers in the street?
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So at the top, we have the asphalt ropes, and below it, we have gravels, and below it, we have the soil. All these layers are taking the load. And finally, the most important thing is the soil below it because at first, asphalt takes the load. It transmits to the rocks, and then it transmit to the soil. Mhmm.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So soil is the final component which is taking the load. If you, for example, maybe if you see the road construction, you'll see that at first there is soil and they are compacting with the rollers. So that's the reason that the soil is very important. If you want to construct a roadway, which was previously agricultural land, that's very bad for the roadway because that has very organic component. And organic components are organic soils are very bad for the roadway.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So these factors are very important while designing a roadway. Although we see only the top Yeah. That there is pothole, but it's mainly coming from the bottom. There's layers. Interesting.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:Yeah. It's
Mari Dowling:much more complicated than it seems.
Dimitri Joseph:Yeah. Now back to the question, let's focus on the the wick absorbing. What are the approaches to implementing that?
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So, we already implemented it in the Minnesota road research facility. So the way we implement it is that since, for example, if you want to, rehablet the pavements, 43% of Michigan roads are in poor condition. So now you need to be have let the pavement. So you need to remove all these layers in the top. So now when you are in the soil level, just on the soil, then you need to put those gravels.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So before putting those gravels, we'll just lay the fabric and above it, you will put the gravels. So just this. Then if water comes, there is that wicking fabric which will take the water and the wicking fabric is exposed to the sides and it takes the water outside of the pavement. Is this an expensive technology to to apply? So, that's, what we have currently we are working on, observing the life cycle cost that how it performs in terms of cost in 20 years.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:Okay. Initially, obvious, there is a plus cost because normally, suppose if we only construct the road with soil, rocks, and asphalts, there is a cost. Now we are adding a component, the wicking fabric. So now what we are doing is that the cost analysis. Okay.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:The normal pavement will last 10 years and pavement with this wicking fabric will last 20 years.
Dimitri Joseph:Yeah.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So what is the cost difference? The initial cost that was added, is it kind of because of this 20 years lifetime, are we getting the gain? Maybe we are getting the gain Yeah. Of 5 years.
Dimitri Joseph:I see the beauty in it. Because I I asked that question because recently, I believe in, somewhere in in Southern Michigan, it was, some local town. They had to they were repairing a bridge, and there was a lot of controversy in how much money was allocated towards repairing that bridge. But like you just said, sometimes the the cost is a lot less than it seems because of the long term the longevity of the product compared to the previous standards.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:Yeah. Exactly. That's very important. And kind of the DOTs are very interested on this. As I mentioned that for the water repellent ones, we had first constructed it into the dark roads, in the gravel roads 2 years before.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:Last year, we also constructed in the asphalt road in the Minnesota Road Research Facility. So why I'm mentioning the Minnesota Road Research Facility? Because there is only one of its kind in the whole US. So they have 4 miles of roads just for research. And those roads below it is filled with sensors.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:They have more than 20,000 sensors below the road. And what they do is that they construct the roads once in 5 years, and then they open it for live traffic. So during that construction, they have a diversion road. So through that, the live traffic goes, but then the construction is done. For example, they constructed it last 2 years before.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:There was a diversion, and now they open it for live traffic. And routinely, maybe once in 4 months, they stop the traffic flow and again divert the traffic so that they can do the testing and how it's performing. Obviously, there are sensors. Sensors are telling you the performance, but also in terms of steepness. If you impact a load, how is the settlement in that road?
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So they do that test and close the road for 1 week. Cool. Then yeah.
Dimitri Joseph:So, you know, this you're a civil engineer and you have a completely different lab experience where your lab experience are the actual roads of 4 miles of road and you're pretty cool of your your model system. Correct?
Md Fyaz Sadiq:Yeah. Because, for example, you can show your performance in the lab, but how it performs in the field, that's the important thing. You in the lab, everything is controlled. Environment is controlled, but how it performs when it is exposed to the real environment. There are a lot of factors coming.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:Water table up, some place the water table down, freezing temperature, actual freezing temperature. For example, maybe last week, we had suddenly negative temperature and next day jumped out. So kind of you don't consider these factors in the laboratory that this can vary that much. So when it is exposed to the real environment, then you can see the effect. Does it really perform?
Md Fyaz Sadiq:So till now, based on 2 years data, it's performing really well.
Mari Dowling:Thank you so much for that overview on your research. Hopefully, we can hear more because it's really cool how, as Dimitri said, we can learn that there's different kinds of research that's not just in a lab, but also takes account for all those real life variables and factors that we experience in something like a road.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:Thank you. Thank you.
Mari Dowling:Our next interviewer is Mark Friedman. Hi, Mark. Thank you for joining us. Could you give us a little bit of an overview of what your research entails?
Marc Freidman:Yeah. Sure. Thank you.
Md Fyaz Sadiq:Good to
Marc Freidman:be here. My research involves fungi. Most of my work focuses on ectomycorrhizal fungi, which are a classification of fungi that live in the soil and form a symbiotic neutralistic relationship usually with specific plant species, most often trees. So the way this relationship works, the mycelium, which are the cells of the fungi, will go into the root tips, but they do not penetrate the cell walls. So that's the difference between ecto and endo.
Marc Freidman:But these ectomycorrhizal fungi, they they put their mycelium in, they grow out into the soil, these little, strands of filament into the soil, and they end up doing nutrient exchange with these trees. So the trees which are photosynthetic are capable of producing sugars through photosynthesis, and they feed these fungi food, in the form of sugar. And fungi, they go out into the soil and they bring in things like water, in times of drought. They can bring in other nutrients that the trees require. So there's this back and forth between 2.
Marc Freidman:Now, the way I see it and some of the evidence I've heard, it's kind of a bit of a it's not so peaceful, like, they're getting along but there's still kind of that battle, you know, like who gets the last chip in the bag kind of thing. Mhmm. Now something I've heard recently in in regarding the truffles, they try to get as much sugar from that tree as possible even if that means pumping in calcium.
Dimitri Joseph:You mentioned truffles, and I know that truffle farming is a very lucrative field. Could could you give us a little bit of an idea about truffles and what makes them so rare and expensive?
Marc Freidman:Absolutely. That's a great question. So truffles are the fruiting body of these ectomycorrhizal fungi. What happens is as these organisms are in the soil, connect to these trees, over time they need to somehow spread their spores. They need to reproduce.
Marc Freidman:Most fungi that grow above ground have mechanisms of dropping or shooting their spores that will get carried either by air or by water and those spores will land on media that they could eventually germinate in. But truffles, specifically the the Tuber genus, I'll talk about those because there are different types of truffles. Tuber genus, they're believed to have evolved. They used to be cut fungi back in the day so they were open and above ground and over time they closed in on themselves. And now they're filled with all their spores.
Marc Freidman:But because of that, they can't spread their spores. So now they kind of operate like the fruit of a tree. So think of an apple tree. Right? This tree produces this apple.
Marc Freidman:It's bright colored. It smells nice. And it the purpose is for an organism to come to eat the apple and to spread those seeds. And that's how truffles work. So the ectomycorrhizal fungi that are in the soil, when they're mature, they'll go out, they'll mate with another mating type of the same species, and they'll produce this truffle, this fruiting body.
Marc Freidman:And that truffle is filled with millions of spores. But because it's underground, things aren't gonna see it. So the organism had to evolve a way for animals to find it, and that's why they smell so good. So they developed this great smell, this aroma, to attract animals. And that's how we find truffles.
Marc Freidman:That's what we look for. We look for where the animals have been digging. So we look for little holes in the ground and as we'll get down, we'll smell a little bit. Now we usually smell like
Dimitri Joseph:And and and with that being said, the fungi that you study are rare. Could you give us a little bit more insight about the unique features of the fungi that you study and some of the interesting features of what makes the fungi actually rare?
Marc Freidman:So that's an interesting question. So the rarity of it is a little bit difficult to really know simply because they might be there and we just don't know it. Okay. So there might be more truffles than you realize. We find truffles.
Marc Freidman:We find them in in different areas you would not expect. I'm not gonna reveal those truffle spots. We find them in locations that you would never even think truffles would be there.
Dimitri Joseph:What what is your research?
Marc Freidman:So I I have a I'm on a few different projects. My truffle related work, one research project I did was looking at pH. So, so when we do find truffles so again, talk about the rarity and and the value of truffles. Why are truffles so expensive? They're expensive because they have such a unique flavor and because they're typically difficult to find.
Marc Freidman:So previously in Europe where is the the main element of truffle culture, where it really came from, People would have to go out into the wild, we'd have to dig up truffles, and they were difficult to find. Over time, they started to use pigs to to smell the truffles, but I heard, and and don't quote me on this, but I heard it was only female pigs in heat that were capable or or most likely to find these truffles. Because apparently, that some of the truffles gave off some sort of aroma or or something that mimic the pheromone or smell of a male pig, but I'll double check that. Either way, people started losing fingers to the pigs because the pigs want the truffle so bad. If they tried to take the truffle, sometimes the pig would bite the fingers off.
Marc Freidman:So they shifted over to dogs. So dogs become the new mechanism for finding and hunting these truffles and in Europe over time develop ways of cultivating them. So Tuber Milanesporum known as the French black truffle or the paragold truffle, that's a widely cultivated truffle now throughout Europe. Now the Italian white truffle, the most extensive truffle, Tuber Magnatum, that one they have not had good success cultivating and that's why it's the most expensive because individuals have to go out into the forest and hunt for them. They're doing research on how to grow them and and apparently, there was a paper that came up recently saying they figured it out in France, but I don't know how large scale it is yet.
Marc Freidman:Here in the US, people have been trying to grow truffles, but we're having difficulty. Partly because our soils and our environment just might be a little too different than Europe to grow the European truffles. So where some of my work comes in, we're looking at the native truffles. We do work with the European and Chinese truffles as well from, you know, truffles from Asia. But we're a little more focused or at least we're most excited about the North American truffles.
Marc Freidman:So 2 of the main ones would be tuberlionei, although there's a multiple closely related species that are often referred to as tuberlionei, also sometimes called the pecan truffle. It's often found grown naturally in pecan orchards. And then there's tuber canaliculatum called the Michigan truffle. So some of the research I'm doing is is focused on that.
Dimitri Joseph:Are you looking into cultivating them or improving their growth? What exactly do
Marc Freidman:you do? We wanna cultivate them. We think there can be a lot of benefits not only to being able to produce this this item, this high value culinary item, but it could also be co cropped in a variety of different types of trees. So as far as states, I believe Michigan is the largest producer of chestnuts in the United States. There's also pine nuts, the Chinese pine nut.
Marc Freidman:Pinus armandii is a great host of truffles. Pecans are a great host of truffle. Christmas trees can be used to host truffles. So there's a lot of different things that are related to Michigan industry. People are already growing these trees.
Marc Freidman:Why not inoculate those root systems first and you get a double crop? Mhmm. You get, you know, the the tree crop as well as a below ground crop of the truffle. Mhmm. Now depending on how you manage the system, it might not be as efficient, you know, you may have to focus on one to the other.
Dimitri Joseph:And have you found any other techniques to optimize grown truffles on on these trees?
Marc Freidman:So that's what one of my projects entails. The problem is because we don't find a lot of these Michigan truffles, we don't have a lot of spores. We don't have enough to make a lot of trees. So the alternative method that we're trying is to use the mycelium. So by culturing from the tissue of the truffle itself in a sterile environment, we can grow large amounts of this mycelium that we're working on trying to inoculate trees with.
Marc Freidman:So I was trying to optimize this system by looking at the ideal pH that would maximize the growth of this mycelium in vitro, meaning in glass. So, the research that I was sharing today, that showed that across 3 different isolates of tuber canaliculatum, Michigan truffle, pH 7 prior to autoclaving the media was the ideal pH for that maximum mycelial growth.
Dimitri Joseph:In this abbreviated conversation, you've given us an enough, Mark, for us to understand the best ways to grow truffles.
Mari Dowling:Thank you for coming to interview with us, and we look forward
Md Fyaz Sadiq:to hearing more in the future. Yes. Thank you, Molly.
Marc Freidman:Appreciate it.