Is space really the final frontier, or are the greatest mysteries closer to home?  In cosmology, dark matter is said to account for the majority of mass in the universe, however its presence is inferred by indirect effects rather than detected through telescopes. The biological equivalent is “microbial dark matter,” that pervasive yet practically invisible… [Read More]

Despite advances made in the fields of DNA sequencing and analysis, researchers have barely begun to scratch the tip of the iceberg in cataloging the planet’s microbial diversity, mainly because only a minute fraction of the millions of species of microbes have been cultured in the laboratory. In marine as well as terrestrial environments, the… [Read More]

To World War II soldiers, “The White Cliffs of Dover” was a morale-boosting song that lifted spirits in dark times. To geographers, the white cliffs mark the point at which England is closest to continental Europe. To scientists, the white cliffs are towering structures made of the chalky, white shells that envelop the single-celled photosynthetic… [Read More]

With the publication last year of its strategic plan, “Forging the Future — A Ten-Year Strategic Vision” the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) has positioned itself to provide the most current technology and expertise to their users so that they can address pressing energy and environmental scientific challenges. An important early… [Read More]

The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) is among the world leaders in sequencing the genomes of microbes, focusing on their potential applications in the fields of bioenergy and environment. As a national user facility, the DOE JGI is also focused on developing tools that more cost-effectively enable the assembly and analysis… [Read More]

Rapidly growing trees like poplars and willows are candidate “biofuel crops” from which it is expected that cellulosic ethanol and higher energy content fuels can be efficiently extracted.  Domesticating these crops requires a deep understanding of the physiology and genetics of trees, and scientists are turning to long-domesticated fruit trees for hints. The relationship between… [Read More]

From the stockings decorating mantles to the new outfits in display windows calling to shoppers, cotton is woven into the fabric of the holiday season. For bioenergy researchers, however, fiber composition matters more than color and texture as each cotton strand is composed of more than two dozen coils of cellulose, a target biomass for… [Read More]

One of the first chemical reactions children learn is the recipe for photosynthesis, combining carbon dioxide, water and solar energy to produce organic compounds. Many of the world’s most important photosynthetic eukaryotes such as plants did not develop the ability to combine these ingredients themselves. Rather, they got their light-harnessing organelles—chloroplasts—indirectly by stealing them from… [Read More]

For architects, “form to function” means designing a building that best serves its intended purpose. For genomics researchers, the term could be applied to the ongoing transition from not just studying the genetic code of an organism, but also understanding what roles those genes play in the biology of the organism that encodes them. Several… [Read More]