Bio-Based Ideas

Today, I wanted to experiment with a more free-form way about little science factoids that may seem surprising. Today: Schematic of a cell membrane. Source: http://library.thinkquest.org/ Did/Do you know…what cell membranes are made off? If you go back to your high school or basic college biology class, you may recall a picture showing that cell membranes are made off phospholipids. All major examples taught in class – from animal, plants and microbial cell membranes to organelle membranes such as mitochondrial or ER membranes. The arrangement of phospholipid layers made complete sense: the lipid hydrophobic tails would be hidden within the bilayer of phospholipids while the polar hydrophilic heads would be facing the aqueous environment. For some reason, my brain made the connection: ALL membranes consist of phospholipids, but are they? Apparently, this is not so when it comes to membranes of photosynthetic membranes according to the article titled “What Can Plant Model...

What was done? I came across an interesting article yesterday titled “Biodegradation of Physicochemically Treated Polycarbonate by Fungi” published in Biomacromolecules. What this group essentially did was to isolate fungi from the environment by exposing them to conditions in which plastics were the only source of food. The group basically identified three fungi ( Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Engyodontium album  and Pencillium spp. ) , and characterized some of the parameters by asking basic questions about: Efficacy changes when fungal isolates were exposed to certain pre-treatments (either heat or UV light). Growth of biomass (how much the fungi grew during this time) How much extracellular protein was secreted and a crude determination of the class proteins released Loss of mass of the piece of plastic Changes in physical, chemical and surface properties. Why is this important? I asked myself the same question until I realized what plastic they were working with: Bi...

Introduction: Today's post comes again from the famous TED series of talks. This is a great forum because many of the brightest heads come together at these talks to exchange the best ideas. If you want to learn more about what TED talks are, go here . Today's chosen video was just recently posted. Anthony Atala presents his institute's work on growing new organs. Without further ado:

Introduction: With some frequency, I want to introduce really good and inspirational videos without my own comments because the messages of these videos are much better than what I could say. Today's video posts without my comments comes from TED talk series. Sylvia Earle's TED Prize wish is to protect our oceans. Without further ado:

I found these news rather intriguing: According to "Forschung Aktuel" [1],  a German-based science radio news show, there is a research group in Germany that is trying to develop an integrated 2-step biogas reactor. Normally, this would not be really that big of a news but what they use as a source for biogas generation and how they do it is very intriguing. In the quest for renewable non-fossil-based resources, cellulose, the sturdy sugar based plant material, is often considered the holy grail for energy generation as it is in this case. The question is how to generate energy efficiently from cellulosic containing material because as mentioned in a previous post , it is difficult to break down cellulose into usable sugar molecules using traditional mechanical and chemical processes. For this reason, research scientists have looked to nature like the gut of termites and other wood-eating insects, and in this case the stomach of the cow for inspiration on how to break down ...

Introduction I was recently asked why this site is called "Bio-Based Ideas". So I thought I would give a brief answer before leading into today's post. There are several reasons for naming this site the way it is. For one, having been trained as a biologist, I write what I know and am interested in. Naturally, many of the posts discussing ideas come with a biological slant. I wanted to make that clear in the title of the blog. But "bio" also comes from Greek meaning "life". And just as life organically grows and evolves, the posts here are meant to capture the richness of diversity of ideas. Lastly, it is my personal belief that the richness of biological ideas will have an increasing impact on our societies especially in this century. And so today with the last post on directed evolution in mind , I want to discuss: What is the bio-based economy? There are two basic ideas the bio-based economy relies on. 1.) Transition to biobased, renewable r...

Introduction In my previous posts, I have talked about ways of using different microorganisms to produce different things that are of use to humans. Two specific examples were diesel from fungi, or oils from algae. There are many other examples, some of which I hope to cover in my future posts. At the current time, the main challenge to many of these by-products is that they are not produced at efficiencies and quantities that allow for economical use. So how would you make fungi produce more biodiesel? How would you make the breakdown of cellulose happen faster? How do you increase oil production in algae? Although each of these questions, involves a deep understanding of complex cellular networks, at the base of each of these problems is a protein that carries out a given task. Increasing efficiencies of these proteins can help to increase the yields of the desire products. Today, we will look at one way, how proteins can be "engineered" by asking: What is Directe...