
New tools for the IMG/M analysis system
Microbial response to the thawing Arctic
The frozen Arctic soils keep an estimated 1,672 billion metric tons of carbon out of the Earth’s atmosphere, more than 250 times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions attributed to the United States in the year 2009. Rising global temperatures have led to increasing concerns on the potential impacts of thawing permafrost upon the carbon… [Read More]
A metagenomic approach to analyzing rice endophytes
During the call for 2012 proposals for the DOE JGI’s Community Sequencing Program, one of the areas of focus researchers were asked to consider was that of plant-microbe interactions. Microbes that live in plants or in the rhizosphere where plant roots and soil interact can play crucial roles in plant health. This is of particular… [Read More]
Tension wood study helps tailors bioenergy feedstock
UV treatments for contaminated MDA reagents
Fungal enzymes to improve biomass pretreatment processes
Many of the enzymes currently being used in the pretreatment processes for cellulosic biofuels production come from species that thrive at temperatures comfortable to humans (68°F-95°F). To speed up this process of converting polysaccharides to fermentable sugars, a goal driven by the nation’s Renewable Fuels Standard requirement that calls for the annual production of 36… [Read More]
Structural Analysis of Cow and Hoatzin Microbial Communities
High-temperature enzymes for biomass breakdown
To overcome the challenge of breaking down cellulosic biomass for commercial biofuel production, which involves the application of high temperatures, a team of researchers including DOE JGI’s Martin Allgaier, now at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany, and Phil Hugenholtz, now director of the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics at the University… [Read More]
Capturing carbon in the dark ocean
Using single cell genomics, researchers identified bacteria in the “twilight zone” that are involved in capturing carbon. [Read More]