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Self-Destructing Bacteria Create Better Biofuels
MikeChino writes "Researchers at Arizona State University have genetically engineered cyanobacteria to dissolve from the inside out, making it easy to access the high-energy fats and biofuel byproducts located within. To do this they combined the bacteria's genes with genes from the bacteriaphage — a so-called 'mortal enemy' of bacteria that cause it to explode. Cyanobacteria have a higher yield potential than most biofuels currently being used, and this new strain eliminates the need for costly and energy intensive processing steps."
>poof<
If the bacteria explodes, the biofuel will burn.
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Just imagine getting infected with bacteria of this kind:
"Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Your illness, should you decide to accept it, will be a nasty flu bug. This bacteria will self-destruct in ten seconds."
Have we ever had exploding bacteria before?
Plants are the most efficient at collecting solar energy.
I would expect in the future some kind of battery cells which directly interface with a massive array of plant-emulating light absorbing complexes which produce a voltage from sunlight.
Though in the Wikipedia I see (see 'photosynthesis') that this process converts light into energy with an efficiency of 3-6%, while solar panels have 6-20%, I believe that it might reach a point where mass production of hybrid organo-metallic devices can be achieved
At the end we will have plants at home which instead of producing sugars, will have an electric plug. They part in the plant where electricity is produced will be called iPod.
Plants are the most efficient at collecting solar energy.
I'm not sure that's the case, but what plants are, is cheap.
-jcr
Never sent roses, have you?
No wonder you never get laid.
Could we have a human variant of this please -- I would like to feed it to bankers so that the money contained inside them would come spewing out and available for the rest of us.