Nanowerk September 7, 2022 Almost all living things breathe oxygen to get rid of excess electrons when converting nutrients into energy. Without access to oxygen, however, soil bacteria living deep under oceans or buried underground respire by “breathing minerals,” through tiny protein nanowires. Researchers at Yale University found that exposing bacteria-produced nanowires to light yielded up to a 100-fold increase in electrical conductivity showing stable and robust photocurrent that persists for hours. They showed that living biofilms of Geobacter sulfurreducens used nanowires of cytochrome OmcS as intrinsic photoconductors. Photocurrents respond rapidly (<100 ms) to the excitation and persist reversibly for hours. […]
Tag Archives: Bacterial energy
Bacteria for blastoff: Using microbes to make supercharged new rocket fuel
Science Daily June 30, 2022 An international team of researchers (Denmark, USA – Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, UC Berkeley) explored the chemical diversity encoded in thousands of bacterial genomes to identify and repurpose naturally occurring cyclopropanated molecules. They identified a set of candidate iterative polyketide synthases (iPKSs) predicted to produce polycyclopropanated fatty acids (POP-FAs), expressed them in Streptomyces coelicolor, and produced POP-FAs. By determining the structure of the molecules, they were able increase their production 22-fold and produce polycyclopropanated fatty acid methyl esters (POP-FAMEs). Their research showed that the POP-FAMEs and other POPs […]