New method knocks out yeast genes with single-point precision

How do you make yeast work harder? Not to make bread, but in processes that yield chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Industries currently use a yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. They'd like it to work better. The answer ...

New study explains antibiotic resistance in apple, pear disease

When humans get bacterial infections, we reach for antibiotics to make us feel better faster. It's the same with many economically important crops. For decades, farmers have been spraying streptomycin on apple and pear trees ...

Genetics may lie at the heart of crop yield limitation

You might think that plants grow according to how much nutrition, water and sunlight they are exposed to, but new research by Dr Nick Pullen and a team from the John Innes Centre, UK shows that the plant's own genetics may ...

Modifying cell wall can increase bacterial lipids

If you want to create sustainable biofuels from less and for less, you've got a range of options. And one of those options is to go microbial, enlisting the help of tiny but powerful bacteria in creating a range of renewable ...

Fungi tweaked to boost industrial enzymes

Filamentous fungi produce powerful enzymes that break down tough plant material that can be used for biofuels and other industrial processes. But the enzymes often work too slowly for industrial use and the fungi are difficult ...

Scientists discover RNA modifications in some unexpected places

The so-called central dogma of molecular biology—that DNA makes RNA which makes protein—has long provided a simplified explanation for how genetic information is deciphered and translated in living organisms.

Sending algae into space to probe plants in extreme environments

It may sound like the opening scene in a low-budget science fiction movie: Scientists send algae into space—some of it mutant—to see if it will grow. But an Agricultural Research Service scientist and an international ...

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