In honor of National Poetry Month, we’re celebrating an underutilized method of communicating our science: poetry. According to Merriam-Webster, poetry is defined as, “writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.” As proof that science can (and has)…
Sponges that sponge off bacteria
Medical compounds harvested from a marine sponge are actually produced by symbiotic bacteria living in the sponges. The Science: The research team used single-cell genome analysis, and metagenomic sequencing to find that just two bacterial tenants of a marine sponge, Theonella swinhoei, make medically important compounds called polyketides. Both bacteria belong an uncultivated genus, Enthotheonella. The research…
Great Prairie soil study in Biomass magazine
“During the study, MSU researchers sought to compare the microbial populations of different soils sampled from sites that were once native prairie with 100 years of agricultural cultivation. The experiment yielded nearly 400 billion letters of code, which amounts to more than 130 human genome equivalents.” Learn more about the complexities of soil and then…
A Tale of Two Data Sets: New DNA Analysis Strategy Helps Researchers Cut through the Dirt
For soil microbiology, it is the best of times. While no one has undertaken an accurate census, a spoonful of soil holds hundreds of billions of microbial cells, encompassing thousands of species. “It’s one of the most diverse microbial habitats on Earth, yet we know surprisingly little about the identities and functions of the microbes…
Biofuels from a floating water weed
The recently sequenced genome of Spirodela polyrhiza showcases why the plant makes an excellent raw source for biofuels. The Science: Duckweed is one of the smallest and fastest-growing flowering plants that can be a hard-to-control weed in ponds and small lakes. Sequencing the genome of Greater Duckweed (Spirodela polyrhiza) has provides clues about how the tiny…
Pond-dwelling powerhouse’s genome points to its biofuel potential
Duckweed is a tiny floating plant that’s been known to drive people daffy. It’s one of the smallest and fastest-growing flowering plants that often becomes a hard-to-control weed in ponds and small lakes. But it’s also been exploited to clean contaminated water and as a source to produce pharmaceuticals. Now, the genome of Greater Duckweed…
Feeding at the biofuel trough
Researchers are using “experimental evolution” to develop bacteria that are more efficient at decomposing biomass. The Science: Clostridium phytofermentans is a soil-dwelling bacterium that helps decompose leaf litter. Researchers grew successive generations of bacteria on different woody material that make up plant cell walls (cellulose, cellobiose and xylan) and found that the bacteria adapted and became…
A cool glass of clean drinking water
A new system called ScanDrop could revolutionize how we identify pathogens in drinking water. The Science: Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (the Joint BioEnergy Institute and the DOE Joint Genome Institute) and Northeastern University and the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School) have developed a portable, network-enabled system for testing drinking water contamination. The system, called ScanDrop, developed by…
Ocean sponge-dwelling bacteria have hidden talents
Ocean sponge-dwelling bacteria have hidden talents. The kidney-red coral reef sponge, Theonella swinhoei, is a source of several anti-fungal and anti-cancer drug candidates. These compounds aren’t produced by the sponge itself, but by symbiotic bacteria that live inside it. The compounds in question are called polyketides, secondary metabolites that happen to be made by just two…
Faster, bigger, stronger: improvements to two of JGI’s genome databases
Capacities for DOE JGI’s twin genome analysis systems, IMG and IMG/M have both been expanded in the last two years. The Science: The DOE Joint Genome Institute maintains the Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) data warehouse, which contains a rich collection of genomes from all three domains of life. IMG/M provides a similar collection of microbial…