How’s this for innovative: A Berkeley Lab-led team hopes to engineer a new enzyme that efficiently converts methane to liquid transportation fuel.
“There’s a lot of methane available, and we want to develop a new way to harness it as an energy source for vehicles,” says Christer Jansson, a biochemist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division who heads the effort. (more…)
Knowing the temperatures that viruses, bacteria, worms and all other parasites need to grow and survive could help determine the future range of infectious diseases under climate change, according to new research.
Princeton University researchers developed a model that can identify the prospects for nearly any disease-causing parasite as the Earth grows warmer, even if little is known about the organism. Their method calculates how the projected temperature change for an area would alter the creature’s metabolism and life cycle, the researchers report in the journal Ecology Letters. (more…)
A surprising number of microorganisms – more than 100 times more kinds than reported just four months ago – are leaping the biggest gap on the planet. Hitching rides in the upper troposphere, they’re making their way from Asia across the Pacific Ocean and landing in North America.
For the first time researchers have been able to gather enough biomass in the form of DNA to apply molecular methods to samples from two large dust plumes originating in Asia in the spring of 2011. The scientists detected more than 2,100 unique species compared to only 18 found in the very same plumes using traditional methods of culturing, results they published in July. (more…)
Using new lensless imaging platform, team observes rare helical movements
A team of researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has, for the first time, directly recorded the three-dimensional helical swimming patterns of human sperm cells.
The team, led by Aydogan Ozcan, associate professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering, developed a novel lensless computational imaging platform that accurately tracked more than 24,000 individual sperm cells in a large volume. This involved observing the individual rotations of each sperm cell, including helical movement patterns, rotation speed, and linear and curved distances traveled. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Living in the guts of worms are seemingly innocuous bacteria that contribute to their survival. With a flip of a switch, however, these same bacteria transform from harmless microbes into deadly insecticides.
In the current issue of Science, Michigan State University researchers led a study that revealed how a bacteria flips a DNA switch to go from an upstanding community member in the gut microbiome to deadly killer in insect blood.
Todd Ciche, assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, has seen variants like this emerge sometimes by chance resulting in drastically different properties, such as being lethal to the host or existing in a state of mutual harmony. Even though human guts are more complex and these interactions are harder to detect, the revelation certainly offers new insight that could lead to medical breakthroughs, he said. (more…)
Any disintegration of skin or rupture of the skin’s surface is literally known as skin infection. Normally, different types of microorganisms are responsible for various skin conditions or skin infections. Usual infection-causing pathogens are bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites.
A pathogen from a particular category of microbes causes a particular type of skin disease. Ringworm, impetigo, folliculitis and cellulitis are most common skin conditions. Impetigo is sort of a very dangerous skin ailment that leads to very complicated stages further. Let’s find out what is Impetigo and symptoms to identify Impetigo. (more…)
For the first time, researchers have analyzed the multitude of microorganisms residing in the human gut as a complex, integrated biological system, rather than a set of separate species. Their approach has revealed patterns that correspond with excess body weight.
The senior author of the paper, Elhanan Borenstein, assistant professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington, said, “Our research introduces a novel framework, applying systems biology and in-silico (computer) modeling to study the human microbiome – the complex ensemble of microorganisms that populate the human body – as a single cohesive system.” (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— For the first time, the chemical “fingerprints” of the element mercury have been used by University of Michigan researchers to directly link environmental pollution to a specific coal-burning power plant.
The primary source of mercury pollution in the atmosphere is coal combustion. The U-M mercury-fingerprinting technique – which has been under development for a decade – provides a tool that will enable researchers to identify specific sources of mercury pollution and determine how much of it is being deposited locally. (more…)
