NIST suggests new purity test for biotech products

To avoid contaminating their experiments, biomedical researchers want to know that the scientific products they buy are pure. But how pure does something need to be to really be pure? Using a new test, scientists at the Institute ...

Search for better biofuels microbes leads to the human gut

Scientists have scoured cow rumens and termite guts for microbes that can efficiently break down plant cell walls for the production of next-generation biofuels, but some of the best microbial candidates actually may reside ...

Defining function from "genomic dark matter"

Functional annotation allowed researchers to identify biomass-degrading enzymes in the 35 percent of genes in a genome that are considered "genomic dark matter."

Plants' oil-desaturating enzymes pair up to channel metabolites

Plant scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have found that certain enzymes responsible for desaturating fatty acids, the building blocks of oils, can link up to efficiently pass intermediate ...

Missing link in plant immunity identified

After a 30-year search, scientists have uncovered how an enzyme critical to plants' rapid immune response against microbes is activated.

Boosting crop yields in Australia

Andrew Hansen grows wheat, barley, canola, and oats on his farm at Coomandook in South Australia, where his family has farmed the land for more than 60 years. But now the family's way of life is threatened.

Rotation-resistant rootworms owe their success to gut microbes

Researchers say they now know what allows some Western corn rootworms to survive crop rotation, a farming practice that once effectively managed the rootworm pests. The answer to the decades-long mystery of rotation-resistant ...

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