In Illinois, since 2007 corn ethanol production has doubled and there was also a sharp upturn in corn prices between 2008 and 2012. However, a newly released article in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics finds no evidence to support earlier concerns about large indirect land use change effect of corn ethanol causing expansion in […]
In Germany, researchers from Ulm University engineered Pseudomonas putida KT2440 as microbial biocatalyst for the utilization of xylose and arabinose in addition to glucose as sole carbon sources. What they found was surprising in that both recombinant strains were able to grow on xylose as well as arabinose with high cell densities and growth rates […]
In Canada, a University of Saskatchewan (USask) research team’s quest to extract protein from more than a billion liters of annually produced wastewater (called thin stillage) at Saskatchewan’s ethanol plants has yielded something far more valuable—a compound used in many countries to slow cognition loss in Alzheimer’s patients. That compound is glyceryl phosphoryl choline (GPC) […]
In Wisconsin, a new study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, unveils a biosensor that may light the way to the best microbial candidates for biofuel production. In search of the best biofuel-producing microbes, scientists may need to make millions of variants via genetic modifications. But only a handful of these variants are […]
In the Netherlands, Wageningen University & Research is working within the CropBooster-P EU project on a roadmap to make agricultural crops future-proof. These crops should have a significantly higher yield, combined with an optimal use of water and minerals. And, of course, the crops should also have the highest possible nutritional value and quality. Ultimately, […]
In Louisiana, new research on the U.S.’s most economically important agricultural plant — corn — has revealed a different internal structure of the plant than previously thought, which can help optimize how corn is converted into ethanol. Researchers at Louisiana State University are the first to investigate an intact corn plant stalk at the atomic […]
In Germany, an international research team has elucidated the structure and mode of action of the photosynthetic complex I. The membrane protein complex plays an important role in the electron transport processes in photosynthesis. “The results close one of the last major knowledge gaps in the understanding of the photosynthetic electron transport pathways,” said the […]
In Pennsylvania, in discovering a mutant gene that “turns on” another gene responsible for the red pigments sometimes seen in corn, researchers solved an almost six-decades-old mystery with a finding that may have implications for plant breeding in the future. The culmination of more than 20 years of work, the effort started when, in 1997, […]
In India, researchers from the National Chemical Laboratory have developed a new zeolite catalyst that can speed up the production of furfural from agricultural waste biomass without having to pass through traditional intermediate steps that are time consuming and costly. Ethyl levulinate which is produced from furfural is a key product of biorefineries, so finding […]
In Wisconsin, researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, recently published a paper in the journal mSystems in which they analyzed the makeup and metabolic activity of a mixed microbial community within a bioreactor. By doing so, they’re edging closer toward engineering such a community to optimally generate particular products—an outcome that would boost […]
