On May 11, 2017, NASA astronaut and microbiologist Kate Rubins, the first woman to sequence DNA in space, gave a talk about “Science in Extreme Environments” at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Among the anecdotes she shared about living and working in space for nearly 4 months was one on how mundane bench tasks…
Fungal Enzymes Team Up to More Efficiently Break Down Cellulose
Collaborative science initiative enables resolution of fungal protein complexes. One of the biggest barriers in the commercial production of sustainable biofuels is to cost-effectively break down the bioenergy crops into sugars that can then be converted into fuel. To reduce this barrier, bioenergy researchers are looking to nature and the estimated 1.5 million species of…
Finding A New Major Gene Expression Regulator in Fungi
Researchers report prevalent DNA base modification in the earliest fungal lineages Just four letters – A, C, T, and G – make up an organism’s genetic code. Changing a single letter, or base, can lead to changes in protein structures and functions, impacting an organism’s traits. In addition, though, subtler changes can and do happen,…
May 11: Doing Science in Space
With the topic “Doing Science in Space: At 17,500 miles per hour and 250 miles up,” NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins will be speaking at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) on Thursday, May 11, 2017. A livestream of the talk will be available for Berkeley Lab staff here. This visit is co-hosted by the Molecular Foundry and the…
A Gene that Influences Grain Yields in Grasses
Genetic screen identifies mutations that impact green foxtail panicle formation. The Science Through deep sequencing of the model grass green foxtail (Setaria viridis), researchers pinpointed a gene critical for the development of flowers that give rise to the grain. Using this information, a homologous gene in maize was identified as playing a similar role highlighting…
Brian Hedlund, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
How long have you collaborated with the JGI and on which projects? I’ve been working with the JGI for about ten years now. To date, all of our work has focused on some aspect of life in terrestrial geothermal springs, mostly Great Boiling Spring in northeast Nevada. These projects have included work on both microbial…
Discovered: Novel Group of Giant Viruses
Giant viruses appear to have evolved from smaller viruses (not from cells) based on presence of nearly complete set of translation-related genes. Viruses have a ubiquitous presence in the world. Their population is estimated to be 1031, 10 times greater than the nonillion (1030) of microbes on the planet—a figure that surpasses the number of…
Speciation Driven by Alleles Adapted to Local Conditions
Genome sequence analysis provides first evidence that linked, locally adapted alleles exist first, and subsequently are captured within a new, selectively-favored inversion. The Science A team of scientists investigated the pathway by which chromosomal inversions – in which a segment of the chromosome was removed, flipped and then re-inserted – contribute to speciation in nature….
Grasses: The Secrets behind Their Stomatal Success
Finding a grass gene impacting stomatal morphology underscores importance of developing mutant gene index. The Science The evolution of adjustable pores, stomata, allows plants to control the amount of CO2 that enters the plant and water that escapes by modifying the stomatal pore size. Plants have evolved two kidney shaped guard cells that swell to…
New Software Tools Streamline DNA Sequence Design-and-Build Process
Improve on existing biological computer-aided design and manufacture (bioCAD/CAM) tools The Science Synthetic DNA allows scientists to expand the breadth and depth of their genomic research. In this study researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI) have developed a suite of build-optimization software tools (BOOST) to streamline the design-build transition in…