No More Excuses to Not Love Your Garage
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BY C A R R I E M C C O N K E Y, C A R R I E M C C O N K E Y.C O M
ESPITE THE BIG role your garage plays in your everyday life, it often receives little attention. This underrated room contains valuable floor space, witnesses your comings and goings, and serves as a significant entryway into your home. Why not make it a place you love? Here are three great reasons to upgrade your garage today: 1. No More Squandered Square Footage Your garage is one of the largest rooms in your home, and it’s often the most cluttered and underused. Get items off the floor and out of your way with convenient overhead storage, and add slatwall to store things large and small within reach. 2. No More Cold Mornings Are you tired of scraping frost off your vehicle parked outside because the garage is full of things, some that may not really matter? Free up space for yourself, and your car, by organizing garage necessities with cabinetry made-to-measure in East Tennessee available in more than 50 finishes, including glossy acrylic. 3. No More Unchecked New Year’s Resolutions If you can’t find a place in your home to get that new hobby under way, why not consider your garage? Epoxy polyaspartic flooring offers a safe, durable, and beautiful foundation for years of enjoyable activities, and custom countertops with LED lighting provide the perfect setting to let your creativity flow. There are no more excuses for not loving your garage! Give yourself extra living space to enjoy this winter, and every season, throughout 2024. Call our team at Designer Garages for a no-hassle, free estimate, and let our talented designers help you add value to your home today.
To view our flooring, slatwall, cabinets, and more, visit the Closets by McKenry/Designer Garages booth at the 2024 Dogwood Arts House & Garden Show February 9th - 11th at the Knoxville Convention Center, or stop by our Open House in our 2,000-squarefoot West Knoxville showroom February 17th from 10 am to 2 pm.
Designer Garages 201 Center Park Drive, #1070 Knoxville, TN 37922 865.268.4868 DesignerGarages.com
Science, Not Science Fiction
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Switchgrass Will Break Down Explosives
HE UNIVERSITY of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA) researchers have received a $12 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract to bioengineer plant-microbe communities that will clean soil contaminated by the explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT) and report when it is no longer present. The four-year project is part of DARPA’s Ceres program to develop novel solutions to remediate contaminated soil without the high costs of traditional cleaning processes. For 60 years, DARPA has been working with innovators inside and outside of government on revolutionary concepts to make seeming impossibilities into practical capabilities. Researchers will bioengineer switchgrass, a plant species native to North America, to work harmoniously as “beacons” and “cleaners.” Beacons will serve as a reliable indicator of TNT in the soil, the plant turning red when it is present and green when the soil is no longer contaminated. Cleaners will physically break down explosives, restoring damaged ecosystems without extensive involvement by on-site personnel. Both plant-microbe communities will be developed to have an increased resistance to toxic materials
24 EVERYTHING KNOXVILLE February 2024
secreted by explosives, as well as genetic traits limiting reproduction for easier removal following the remediation process. The project’s plant research will be conducted at the UT Center for Agricultural Synthetic Biology (CASB) by a team led by its co-directors Neal Stewart and Scott Lenaghan. Professor Jennifer DeBruyn will also lead a team to perform microbial ecology research studying interactions within different contaminated environments. The microbial synthetic biology research will be performed by teams at MIT and PSU, who will be working to genetically engineer microbes to possess the traits necessary to report and eliminate explosives. Neal Stewart, the project lead, says that switchgrass already has an expansive root
system required to cover polluted areas and is a widely adaptable perennial grass that should work in a range of ecosystems. “Because plants are self-sustaining and do not require maintenance or mechanical parts, they will provide a safe way to restore damaged environments and previously uninhabitable areas without expensive equipment or prolonged human involvement,” he said. “We are excited to see the positive impact this new project will have across the world,” said Scott Lenaghan, co-lead of the project. “To many people, thinking of plants as functional, effective tools that can enhance our safety is like something out of science fiction. But by using existing plant biological traits and their relationship with soil-based microbes, we can develop plant communities that benefit us in ways we never thought possible.” The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture is comprised of the Herbert College of Agriculture, UT College of Veterinary Medicine, UT AgResearch, and UT Extension. Through its land-grant mission of teaching, research, and outreach, the Institute touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. to Tennesseans and beyond. For more information, visit utia.tennessee.edu.