“What I’ve found over the last nine years working in a more liberal and diverse environment at the JGI is that there are huge benefits from diversity in the workplace, the main one being that you just simply get better ideas with a more diverse group of people within your department or organization.” Our Operations…
Longer DNA Fragments Reveal Rare Species Diversity
New sequence assembly technologies help reconstruct environmental microbial communities. Many microbes cannot be cultivated in a laboratory setting, hindering attempts to understand Earth’s microbial diversity. Since microbes are heavily involved in, and critically important to environmental processes from nutrient recycling, to carbon processing, to the fertility of topsoils, to the health and growth of plants…
Potential new bacterial phylum in The Scientist
At the US Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute User Meeting held in Walnut Creek, California, last week, researchers announced the genomic identification of a potential new bacterial phylum, Candidatus Kryptonia, based on their study of samples isolated from four hot springs located in North America and Asia. A talk presented by our postdoc…
Targeted Sorting of Microbial Cells
DOE JGI is enabling collaborators to develop a universally applicable technique for studying microbial metabolic activities. The Science: A team led by University of Vienna researchers has developed a way to identify and sort single microbial cells through a probe-independent process that uses heavy water (laced with deuterium) which is then incorporated into mostly lipids…
Identifying causes of poplar canker
Researchers compared two fungal tree pathogens to find out how one of them has gained the capability to significantly damage hybrid poplar plantations.
Characterizing Permafrost Microbes in a Changing Climate
In the effort to curb climate change by reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, thawing permafrost poses a critical challenge. These reservoirs of frozen organic matter embedded in Arctic soils are one of the major (~1.5 billion tons) stores of carbon on Earth. One of the abiding concerns regarding permafrost is that as global temperatures…
Ultra-small bacteria project in Huffington Post
“These newly described ultra-small bacteria are an example of a subset of the microbial life on earth that we know almost nothing about,” says Jill Banfield, a Senior Faculty Scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division and a UC Berkeley professor in the departments of Earth and Planetary Science and Environmental Science, Policy and Management….
Congressman DeSaulnier Visits JGI
On Friday, February 20, first-year Congressman Mark DeSaulnier, whose 11th District spans from Antioch in east Contra Costa County to Richmond in the west, visited the landmark energy and environmental genomics user facility at his District’s geographic center, the DOE Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek. The Representative and his staffer Pat Joyce met with…
March 4: DOE JGI-EMSL Collaborative Science Google+ Hangout
Have questions about or plan to submit a Letter of Intent to the DOE JGI-EMSL Collaborative Science Initiative? Now is your chance to learn more about these national scientific user facilities funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the collaborative science capabilities they offer the global research community. The DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and…
Mycorrhizal fungi project in ScienceNews
“Long before the fungi engaged in trade with their plant hosts, though, their fungal ancestors primarily were decomposers, breaking down wood from dead trees. So how did this mutually beneficial relationship with live plants evolve?” The ScienceNews article ran on February 23, 2015. Learn more about the DOE JGI’s role in understanding the symbiotic relationship…