A team of researchers led by Loretta Roberson of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, has installed the first seaweed farm in Puerto Rico and U.S. tropical waters. The research array furthers the design and development of a system for offshore cultivation of tropical seaweeds to support large-scale production of biomass for biofuels and other valuable bioproducts.
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IMAGE: A Rutgers study finds that symbiotic bacteria that colonize root cells may be managed to produce hardier crops that need less fertilizer. view more
Credit: Rutgers University-New Brunswick
New Brunswick, N.J. (May 12, 2021) - A Rutgers study finds that symbiotic bacteria that colonize root cells may be managed to produce hardier crops that need less fertilizer.
The study appears in the journal
Microorganisms.
Bacteria stimulate root hair growth in all plants that form root hairs, so the researchers examined the chemical interactions between bacteria inside root cells and the root cell.
They found that bacteria are carried in seeds and absorbed from soils, then taken into root cells where the bacteria produce ethylene, a plant growth hormone that makes root cells grow root hairs. When the root hair grows, it ejects some of the bacteria back into the soil, then the remaining bacteria in the root hairs replicate and trigger a growth spurt every 15 minu
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NEW YORK, May 12, 2021 A new Computer Aided Design (CAD) platform for whole genome design is being launched by two pioneers in the world of biotech:
Genome Project-write (GP-write) and
Twist Bioscience
(NASDAQ: TWST). The technology is expected to open up new frontiers in genome research with real world applications to advance development of therapeutics and solutions for environmental health.
The CAD technology will be an important development along the path to more facile writing of genomes, by eliminating a host of barriers that hinder genome design. Current platforms can be limited to small-scale changes in bacterial systems. The GP-write CAD will allow scientists to scale to other species with larger genomes. It will also automate workflows to enable collaborative efforts critical for scale-up from designing plasmids (kilobases) to whole chromosomes (megabases) across entire genomes (gigabases).
When investigators in the UK recorded the calls of migratory birds called thrushes at night, they found that call rates were up to five times higher over the brightest urban areas compared with darker villages.
Credit: Eirikur Sigurdsson
In a recent article in
Sustainability, scientists from Reykjavik University (RU), the University of Gothenburg, and the Icelandic Meteorological Office describe their finding of microplastic in a remote and pristine area of Vatnajokull glacier in Iceland, Europe s largest ice cap. Microplastics may affect the melting and rheological behaviour of glaciers, thus influencing the future meltwater contribution to the oceans and rising sea levels.
This is the first time that the finding of microplastic in the Vatnajökull glacier is described. The group visualised and identified microplastic particles of various sizes and materials by optical microscopy and μ-Raman spectroscopy.