Tag: JGI
Hidden Giants in Forest Soils
Characterizing the diversity of microbial cells in a handful of soil is so complex it was considered impossible. To date, only a small fraction...
How Fungal Enzymes Break Down Plant Cell Walls
The Science Inside cows, goats, and other ruminants, fungal enzymes break down plant matter and extract nutrients. These enzymes essentially overcome a major bottleneck in...
To Find New Biofuel Enzymes, It Can Take a Microbial Village
A new study led by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), based at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), demonstrates...
New Technology Illuminates Microbial Dark Matter
The Science At Stanford University, researchers have used a new microfluidic analysis system to extract 29 novel microbial genomes (the complete set of genetic material)...
Tiny Green Algae Reveal Large Genomic Variation
The Science Although they are invisible to the unaided eye, tiny green algae calledOstreococcus play a big role in how carbon, including carbon dioxide (CO2),...
A Whole-Genome Sequenced Rice Mutant Resource for the Study of Biofuel...
Rice is a staple food for over half of the world’s population and a model for studies of candidate bioenergy grasses such as sorghum,...
The Rise of Giant Viruses
The Science The number of microbes in, on, and around the planet is said to outnumber the stars in the sky. The number of viruses...
Uncovered: 1000 New Microbial Genomes
The number of microbes in a handful of soil exceeds the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, but researchers know less about...
Finding A New Major Gene Expression Regulator in Fungi
Just four letters – A, C, T, and G – make up an organism’s genetic code. Changing a single letter, or base, can lead...
Discovered: Novel Group of Giant Viruses
Viruses have a ubiquitous presence in the world. Their population is estimated to be 1031, 10 times greater than the nonillion (1030) of microbes...
New CRISPR-Cas, Gene Editing Systems, Discovered in Vast DNA Sequence Dataset
The Science Knowing the extent of microbial diversity, especially gene editing, can help scientists solve energy and cleanup challenges. Using large amounts of genetic data,...
Hydraulic Fluids Hospitable for Microbes
The Science Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is the industry standard for removing hydrocarbons from shale formations, which provide one-third of natural gas energy resources worldwide. The...
Seeking Structure With Metagenome Sequences
For proteins, appearance matters. These important molecules largely form a cell’s structures and carry out its functions: proteins control growth and influence mobility, serve...
Tracking Antarctic Adaptations in Diatoms
Diatoms are a common type of photosynthetic microorganism, found in many environments from marine to soil; in the oceans, they are responsible for more...
Engineering a More Efficient System for Harnessing Carbon Dioxide
Despite the vast diversity of organisms on the planet that express enzymes for the conversion of carbon dioxide into such organic compounds as sugars...
How Fungi Help Trees Tolerate Drought
The mutualistic relationship between tree roots and ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi has been shaping forest ecosystems since their inception. ECM fungi are key players supporting...
