At some point in the geologic history of this planet, primitive, unicellular organisms (prokaryotes) emerged and proliferated. These primitive microbes were able to harness the Sun’s energy and convert it to food. The metabolic “waste product” of this photosynthetic (light-making) activity–Oxygen (O)–filled the Earth’s atmosphere over the course of vast time scales. This is sometimes referred to as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). This geologically long event enabled the “explosion” of oxygen-breathing life forms in nearly every environment where [...]
In another addition to the “secret life” (and mysterious abilities) of plants, a recent study demonstrated that a native, perennial plant, The Great Lakes Searocket (Cakile edentula), responds to the presence of related and non-related plants differently.
It has been assumed for most of the history of micro-biological science that such micro-organisms are purely “reflexive”; they simply respond and adapt to external stimuli (such as exposure to chemicals, heat stress, or drugs). But research over he past 2 years by two different scientific teams (a Princeton team lead by Saeed Tavazoie, and, a team from the Weizmann Institute in Israel) is shaking up present understanding and over-turning basic assumptions.
Researchers in have discovered ancient, extremophile life forms that survive with neither light nor oxygen underground in Antarctica.
From the surface, the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Eastern Antarctica appears to be one of the most desolate places on Earth. And indeed it is. Apart from a few glaciers, the land is ice-free. No animals live here, and what few plants are able to are simple planktonic forms. But recently, a team of researchers have discovered evidence of a thriving community of extremophile microbes thriving several hundred feet below the barren surface.
Humans might have ushered Earth into the Anthropocene, but we’d be unwise to ignore the fact that we’re always going to be living in the Age of Microbes, according to a new article in Microbiology Today. “Microbes will continue as climate engineers long after humans have burned that [...]
By Philip Proefrock •
January 15, 2008
As you’ve almost certainly already heard by now, General Motors has announced a partnership with Coskata, Inc. to produce ethanol less expensively and without using food materials as feedstock for the process. This is exciting for a number of reasons. First of all, Coskata is close to completing a continuous demonstration stream at their laboratory. They also expect to have a pilot demonstration plant in place by the end of the year that will produce 40,000 gallons of ethanol. And later this year, they expect to announce the site for their first full-scale plant which will be capable of annual production of 100 million gallons of ethanol. The process also consumes less water resources (less than one gallon of water per gallon of ethanol produced) and delivers 7.7 units of energy per unit of energy used in the process.
The process relies on using anaerobic microbes that consume carbon monoxide and hydrogen and produce ethanol. Because the process uses specially bred strains of microbes, they produce ethanol exclusively, unlike other fermentation processes, which often produce a range of alcohols and which require further distillation. Furthermore, the flexibility of the Coskata process allows for other microbes to be used in the same process setup (or even a parallel setup). Other strains of microbes that produce other useful alcohols, including some used as precursors for plastic production, so that the same technology could be used in other applications to provide a petroleum replacement.
