Wheat straw, the dried stalks left over from grain production, is a potential source of biofuels and commodity chemicals. But before straw can be converted to useful products by biorefineries, the polymers that make it up ...
Materials Science
Feb 17, 2021
2
1106
Understanding how plants respond to stressful environmental conditions is crucial to developing effective strategies for protecting important agricultural crops from a changing climate. New research led by Carnegie's Zhiyong ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Feb 11, 2021
0
59
To arrive at Nunavut, turn left at the Dakotas and head north. You can't miss it—the vast tundra territory covers almost a million square miles of northern Canada. Relatively few people call this lake-scattered landscape ...
Environment
Feb 6, 2021
4
136
Michelle O'Malley has long been inspired by gut microbes. Since she began studying the herbivore digestive tract, the UC Santa Barbara chemical engineering professor has guided several students to their doctoral degrees, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 1, 2021
1
43
If you asked people which group of animals is the most abundant on earth, hardly anyone would know the right answer. Ants? Fish? No, and not humans either. The answer is nematodes, also known as roundworms. Four out of five ...
Ecology
Jan 14, 2021
0
780
The genetic material of plants, animals and humans is well protected in the nucleus of each cell and stores all the information that forms an organism. For example, information about the size or color of flowers, hair or ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 11, 2021
0
38
A multi-institutional research group led by two Penn State faculty members has identified, for the first time, how cellulose crystals orient themselves relative to the cell wall in plants, with potential implications for ...
Materials Science
Nov 18, 2020
0
472
A horrifying insect soap opera with vampires, mummies and infant-eating parasites is playing out on the stems and leaves of live oak trees every day, and evolutionary biologist Scott Egan found the latest character—a new ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 26, 2020
0
35
Plants interact with certain microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, in mutually beneficial ways that scientists are only beginning to fully understand. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National ...
Biotechnology
Sep 1, 2020
0
230
Examining the structure of a sunflower stem as it matures can help both the plant scientist and biomaterials engineer. That's the premise that Anamika Prasad, an assistant professor in South Dakota State University's Department ...
Biotechnology
Jul 24, 2020
0
152
