Swords to plowshares: Engineering plants for more biofuel sugars

(Phys.org) —Xylan is a polysaccharide composed of pentoses – five carbon sugars – that represents a double-edged sword for advanced biofuels. On the one hand, as the world's second most abundant source of biomass after ...

Genes allow bacteria to mess with mercury, study finds

By identifying two genes required for transforming inorganic into organic mercury, which is far more toxic, scientists today have taken a significant step toward protecting human health.

Plant organ development breakthrough

Plants grow upward from a tip of undifferentiated tissue called the shoot apical meristem. As the tip extends, stem cells at the center of the meristem divide and increase in numbers. But the cells on the periphery differentiate ...

Scientists decode watermelon genome

Are juicier, sweeter, more disease-resistant watermelons on the way? An international consortium of more than 60 scientists from the United States, China, and Europe has published the genome sequence of watermelon (Citrullus ...

Engineering plants for biofuels

With increasing demands for sustainable energy, being able to cost-efficiently produce biofuels from plant biomass is more important than ever. However, lignin and hemicelluloses present in certain plants mean that they cannot ...

Some cells don't know when to stop

Certain mutated cells keep trying to replicate their DNA—with disastrous results—even after medications rob them of the raw materials to do so, according to new research from USC.

Scientists focus on quorum sensing to better understand bacteria

The relatively new field in microbiology that focuses on quorum sensing has been making strides in understanding how bacteria communicate and cooperate. Quorum sensing describes the bacterial communication between cells that ...

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