Research by Berkeley Lab scientists could speed development of solar-fuel generators
Mimicking nature is not easy, but new insights by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) could help create a viable artificial system of photosynthesis. (more…)
Stanford, CA — Photosynthesis provides fixed carbon and energy for nearly all life on Earth, yet many aspects of this fascinating process remain mysterious. For example, little is known about how it is regulated in response to changes in light intensity. More fundamentally, we do not know the full list of the parts of the molecular machines that perform photosynthesis in any organism.
A type of single-cell green algae called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a leading subject for photosynthesis research. Despite its importance in the research world, few tools are available for characterizing the functions of its genes. (more…)
Arctic excursion explores how sea life copes with continuous winter darkness
When the North Pole tilts away from the sun during the winter, the Arctic region plunges into weeks of continuous darkness. The sun never peeks above the horizon, casting only a twinge of blue twilight at midday, and the moon dimly illuminates the landscape at night if conditions are clear.
People living in this “polar night” have adapted to the darkness using artificial light, but how ocean inhabitants cope remains to be seen. (more…)
A unique housing arrangement between a specific group of tree species and a carbo-loading bacteria may determine how well tropical forests can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to a Princeton University-based study. The findings suggest that the role of tropical forests in offsetting the atmospheric buildup of carbon from fossil fuels depends on tree diversity, particularly in forests recovering from exploitation.
Tropical forests thrive on natural nitrogen fertilizer pumped into the soil by trees in the legume family, a diverse group that includes beans and peas, the researchers report in the journal Nature. The researchers studied second-growth forests in Panama that had been used for agriculture five to 300 years ago. The presence of legume trees ensured rapid forest growth in the first 12 years of recovery and thus a substantial carbon “sink,” or carbon-storage capacity. Tracts of land that were pasture only 12 years before had already accumulated as much as 40 percent of the carbon found in fully mature forests. Legumes contributed more than half of the nitrogen needed to make that happen, the researchers reported. (more…)
Genome of “extremophile” red alga offers insights
In the movie Alien, the title character is an extraterrestrial creature that can survive brutal heat and resist the effects of toxins.
In real life, organisms with similar traits exist, such as the “extremophile” red alga Galdieria sulphuraria.
In hot springs in Yellowstone National Park, Galdieria uses energy from the sun to produce sugars through photosynthesis. (more…)
Berkeley Lab bioscientists and their colleagues decipher a far-reaching problem in computer simulations
Because modern computers have to depict the real world with digital representations of numbers instead of physical analogues, to simulate the continuous passage of time they have to digitize time into small slices. This kind of simulation is essential in disciplines from medical and biological research, to new materials, to fundamental considerations of quantum mechanics, and the fact that it inevitably introduces errors is an ongoing problem for scientists.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have now identified and characterized the source of tenacious errors and come up with a way to separate the realistic aspects of a simulation from the artifacts of the computer method. The research was done by David Sivak and his advisor Gavin Crooks in Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division and John Chodera, a colleague at the California Institute of Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) at the University of California at Berkeley. The three report their results in Physical Review X. (more…)
Two groups — clades — of grasses that once had a common ancestry diverged. The PACMAD clade was predisposed to evolve a more efficient “C4” means of photosynthesis than grasses in the BEP clade. In a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a Brown-led team pinpoints the anatomical differences between the clades that led to the PACMAD’s tendency toward C4.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Even on the evolutionary time scale of tens of millions of years there is such a thing as being in the right shape at the right time. An anatomical difference in the ability to seize the moment, according to a study led by Brown University biologists, explains why more species in one broad group, or clade, of grasses evolved a more efficient means of photosynthesis than species in another clade. (more…)
A multimedia feature published this week in the New York Times, “Pushing Science’s Limits in Sign Language Lexicon,” outlines efforts in the United States and Europe to develop sign language versions of specialized terms used in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The article shares newly defined signs for terms like “light-year,” “organism” and “photosynthesis.” It also describes a successful crowdsourcing effort started at the University of Washington in 2008 that lets members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community build their own guide to the evolving lexicon of science.
“It’s not a dictionary,” explained Richard Ladner, a UW professor of computer science and engineering. “The goal of the forum is to be constantly changing, a reflection of the current use.” (more…)
