Genes may travel from plant to plant to fuel evolution: study

The evolution of plants and animals generally has been thought to occur through the passing of genes from parent to offspring and genetic modifications that happen along the way. But evolutionary biologists from Brown University ...

Garbage bug may help lower the cost of biofuel

One reason that biofuels are expensive to make is that the organisms used to ferment the biomass cannot make effective use of hemicellulose, the next most abundant cell wall component after cellulose. They convert only the ...

Popping the Cork on Biofuel Agriculture

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified a novel enzyme responsible for the formation of suberin -- the woody, waxy, cell-wall substance found in cork. ...

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 ...

Role of light in the enzymatic breakdown of plant biomass

It is well known that light stimulates the breakdown of plant material and other biomass in nature, but it has not been clear exactly how. Recently, researchers at NMBU have uncovered possible explanations. Their latest findings ...

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