It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
BIOFAIR roadmap for an integrated biological and environmental data network
Community-led initiative addresses data fragmentation in the biodiversity sciences
The Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN), in collaboration with the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), has developed a comprehensive roadmap toward an integrated biological and environmental data network. The initiative, known as the Building an Integrated, Open, Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (BIOFAIR) Data Network project, addresses the urgent need to connect fragmented data held in biodiversity collections and other biological and environmental data repositories to tackle pressing societal challenges, including biodiversity loss, climate change, invasive species, and emerging public health threats.
The project, described in a recent article in the journal BioScience, was underpinned by extensive community engagement with ecological, climate, environmental, genetic, health, biodiversity informatics, and federal stakeholders. Through six virtual listening sessions, project organizers engaged 199 stakeholders representing 142 organizations, followed by a workshop with 75 participants affiliated with 110 organizations and initiatives. The collaborative effort developed five cross-cutting themes to guide data integration: stocktaking and gap analysis, technological capacity building, best practices and standards, education and training, and community building.
"Biodiversity collections, including over a billion specimens in the United States, offer unparalleled information for understanding evolution, biological processes, and biodiversity responses to environmental change," the authors explain. Uniting species occurrence data from collections with other data sources related to their biology, interactions with other organisms, and their physical environment will require thoughtful community coordination, they say, but the benefit to science could be massive: "An integrated data network... could enable transformative research across biology, ecology, public health, and environmental science." Such infrastructure could support forecasting biodiversity changes, predicting invasive species distributions, and informing public health policies in response to newly emerging diseases.
The project's organizers emphasize that success depends on both technical infrastructure and large-scale community action, stressing that building the BIOFAIR Network will require "an inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable community of data providers, managers, and users that can integrate across technical, educational, and policy boundaries to support collective data sharing."
Funded by the National Science Foundation (DBI award no. 2303588), more information on the BIOFAIR Data Network project can be found at https://bcon.aibs.org/biofair.
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and 8 Rivers have patented a system that leverages fluctuations in energy demand by using liquid oxygen storage (LOX) to make power plants more cost-effective and efficient. The researchers are considering incorporating it into the Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) Demo pilot plant at SwRI’s San Antonio headquarters to make the facility even more fuel efficient.
SAN ANTONIO — October 15, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and 8 Rivers have patented a system that leverages fluctuations in energy demand by using liquid oxygen storage (LOX) to make power plants more cost-effective and efficient. To accomplish this, the Institute modified a recently developed power cycle, the Allam-Fetvedt Cycle, which combusts fuel, like natural gas, using an oxygen and carbon dioxide mixture to allow complete carbon capture, producing minimal greenhouse gas emissions.
The Allam-Fetvedt Cycle requires high-purity oxygen separated from air, which is mostly nitrogen and trace amounts of other gases. This separation process is energy-intense and consumes 10% of a power plant’s output.
“Our idea is to generate oxygen during off-peak hours, when electricity is less expensive because demand is lower,” said SwRI Institute Engineer Dr. Jeffrey Moore, one of the new system’s inventors. “The oxygen can then be stored in liquid form and then converted back into gas for use in the plant later. This boosts plant output while lowering operating costs.”
To ensure that a power plant utilizing this technology would be profitable, SwRI conducted a techno-economic analysis, modeling both plant performance and hour-by-hour costs over a full year. Studies by Princeton University and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory showed that current price volatility for electricity will continue to increase as more forms of renewable energy come online, indicating that the economic benefits of the application will persist or grow in the future.
“The data show that in some regions prices may stay low for weeks, then spike for long periods, depending on renewable penetration. Right now, the grid is about 10–15% renewables. If that rises to 30%, the problems associated with fluctuations in wind and solar energy production will be exacerbated, making energy storage critical for overall grid reliability,” Moore said. “Currently, there’s no large-scale energy storage system on the grid, though research is underway. This oxygen storage system is one way to effectively store energy, by generating liquid oxygen when power is cheap and using it later when prices are higher.”
The researchers are also considering incorporating it into the Supercritical Transformational Electric Power (STEP) Demo pilot plant at SwRI’s San Antonio headquarters. It’s one of the largest demonstration facilities in the world for supercritical carbon dioxide power generation. Adding LOX and the Allam-Fetvedt cycle to STEP would make it even more fuel-efficient.
“The components of this system are very mature,” Moore said. “Air separation and liquid oxygen generation have been around for decades. That’s what got us to the moon. We’re putting these tested individual pieces together at larger scales, to reach greater heights in clean energy production and improving net present value of the plant.”
For thousands of years, people in the Andes have chewed the leaves of the coca plant to stave off hunger, treat altitude sickness, and sustain energy. Yet under international law, this ancient crop is treated as harshly as cocaine and fentanyl. Now, scientists say it’s time to end that contradiction.
A new international perspective published in Science argues that scientific evidence clearly supports the coca leaf as a benign, useful, and culturally paramount crop plant that should be removed from the list of Schedule I substances – where it currently appears alongside cocaine and fentanyl – under the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
“Coca’s record of safe use and cultural importance stands in stark contrast to the harms of purified cocaine,” said lead author Dawson M. White, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. “Recognizing this difference is essential for evidence-based policy and for aligning with the goals expressed by South American communities most affected by prohibition.”
The analysis arrives at a pivotal moment, as the World Health Organization (WHO) is currently reviewing the legal status of coca. An expert report compiled by the WHO confirms both the lack of harm from the coca leaf and the tangible harms caused by its prohibition. The WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) will meet in Geneva from October 20–22, 2025, to formalize a recommendation to the United Nations (UN) Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
“This meeting is a rare opportunity for the WHO and UN to correct a classification rooted in colonial bias and outdated science,” said White.
The authors draw on evidence from anthropology, evolutionary biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, economics, and the social sciences to distinguish the coca plant from its purified alkaloid, cocaine. The findings also point to the need for long-overdue reform of global drug policy, highlighting that coca has been cultivated for more than 8,000 years and safely used as a mild stimulant, medicine, and ritual element across more than 100 cultures.
The research also references a coordinated pronunciamiento from coca producer and consumer communities supporting petitions by Bolivia and Colombia. The document – signed by traditional coca producers, Indigenous representatives, and allied organizations – urges the WHO to recognize coca’s cultural, medicinal, nutritional, and social value; to reject its stigmatization based on cocaine use; and to recommend its removal from international control lists.
“Efforts to reform coca policy must begin with the people who know the plant best,” said Claude Guislain of the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund. “Indigenous peoples cultivate sophisticated knowledge systems that have used coca to sustain balance within their communities and territories for millennia. Our role has been to walk alongside them – to amplify their voices and help ensure that international policy reflects the realities they live and defend.”
“The coca leaf is not a narcotic, but a sacred and nutritious plant with deep cultural roots,” said Ricardo Soberón Garrido, former President of DEVIDA, Peru’s National Commission for Development and Life Without Drugs, which coordinates the country’s drug policy and coca-development strategies. “De-scheduling coca would uphold Indigenous rights and align global policy with modern science.”
In addition, the paper reviews findings from the WHO’s Critical Review Report on Coca Leaf (2025), which concludes that traditional uses pose no significant public-health risks.
The study finds that removing coca from the list of controlled substances would correct a long-standing scientific and legal misclassification. “Such a change would recognize the rights of Indigenous and other coca-growing communities while allowing for evidence-based regulation informed by traditional knowledge,” said White.
The authors also note that de-scheduling coca could enable medical research on its diverse bioactive compounds and create new, sustainable economic opportunities in rural regions. They emphasize that the ongoing WHO review offers a rare and timely chance to align international drug policy with science, justice, and cultural reality —allowing the global community to understand and benefit from the coca plant responsibly.
Many of the co-authors first met at the Wisdom of the Leaf summit in Urubamba, Peru, hosted by the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy, which released a short film from that meeting.
In a Policy Forum, Dawson White and colleagues argue that international drug policy must distinguish between the coca leaf – a sacred plant long cultivated in South America – and its purified chemical derivative, cocaine. The World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) is now reassessing the plant’s status, which, according to the authors, presents a rare opportunity to realign global drug policy with scientific evidence and Indigenous rights. Currently, the coca bush is classified under international law as a Schedule I drug, a group that also includes cocaine and heroin. While these drugs have a well-documented history of addiction and harm, the coca leaf has served for millennia as a mild, nonaddictive stimulant and an important element of Andean and Amazonian cultural life. Moreover, research in both biological and social sciences confirms the coca leaf’s safety and cultural significance, underscoring its profound difference from cocaine. Under the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, all species of the coca genus were indiscriminately banned, effectively criminalizing the traditions and livelihoods of more than 11 million Indigenous and mestizo people. This legal framework not only stigmatized cultural practices but also stifled scientific study of the coca plant. Given the ECDD’s forthcoming recommendation, White et al. call for a reevaluation of the plant that recognizes traditional use, alongside scientific evidence, which could lead to more just and robust policies that respect both cultural heritage and scientific understanding. “Descheduling coca would correct a long-standing scientific and legal misclassification, uphold the rights of Indigenous and other coca-growing communities, and enable evidence-based regulation informed by traditional knowledge,” write the authors.
