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Synechococcus bacteria. Source: Wikipedia

Issue no. 41, 2009 Published: Dec 11, 2009
Researchers engineer bacteria to turn CO2 into liquid fuel
European Union to unify patent system
Gates Foundation joins global crop research network
Battery lithium could come from geothermal waste water
Battery made of paper charges up
Average person consumes 34GB of data daily

Researchers engineer bacteria to turn CO2 into liquid fuel
Global climate change has prompted efforts to drastically reduce emissions of CO2, a greenhouse gas produced by burning fossil fuels. In a new approach, researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have genetically modified a cyanobacterium to consume CO2 and produce the liquid fuel isobutanol, which holds great potential as a petrol alternative. The reaction is powered directly by energy from sunlight, through photosynthesis. The new method has two advantages for the long-term, global-scale goal of achieving a cleaner and greener energy economy, the researchers say. First, it recycles CO2, reducing greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Second, it uses solar energy to convert the CO2 into a liquid fuel that can be used in the existing energy infrastructure, including in most automobiles. Using the cyanobacterium Synechoccus elongatus, researchers first genetically increased the quantity of the CO2-fixing enzyme RuBisCO. Then they spliced genes from other microorganisms to engineer a strain that intakes CO2 and sunlight and produces isobutyraldehyde gas. The low boiling point and high vapour pressure of the gas allows it to easily be stripped from the system. The engineered bacteria can produce isobutanol directly, but researchers say it is currently easier to use an existing chemical catalysis process to convert isobutyraldehyde gas to isobutanol, as well as other useful petroleum-based products.
Physorg / Nature Biotechnology Dec 10, 2009	back to top

European Union to unify patent system
European ministers have announced a breakthrough in the development of an enhanced European Union (EU) patent system. Agreement has been reached on a new package that includes the development of a single EU patent, and the creation of a patent court designed to make it easier and less costly for companies to register and protect their technology. The setting up of the new patent court still requires the approval of the European Court of Justice, but the EU said that it would allow cases to be heard before specialised judges, and would remove the burden of litigating in different countries which traditionally involves high costs. The EU estimates that holding cases in a unified court could save firms as much as £280m a year. Ministers pointed out that patenting designs costs 11 times as much in Europe as it does in the US, a situation that would be remedied by a common agreement.
VNUnet UK Dec 07, 2009	back to top

Gates Foundation joins global crop research network
International agricultural development research is set to receive a major boost with the announcement that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will formally join the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The foundation signalled its intention to take part in reforming the CGIAR system and increase its funding to the group at a CGIAR business meeting in Washington DC this week, taking many delegates by surprise. The foundation currently has an observer status. The CGIAR reforms, under discussion since early 2008, will merge the group's 15 research centres into a consortium that can take on broader cross-continental projects known as 'mega-programmes'. Donor funding previously allocated to individual centres will form a Common Fund. The foundation's involvement could provide a welcome boost to the consortium's coffers. Expectations for the Common Fund were being scaled back and donor pledging postponed to early next year. Some donors, including Sweden, had already announced cuts in their CGIAR support due to the global recession. The current budget of the 15 institutes is around USD530m and the target had been to double funding through the Common Fund to around USD1bn within five years.
SciDev Dec 10, 2009	back to top

Battery lithium could come from geothermal waste water
A geothermal power plant in California will soon be producing more than just electricity. The valuable metal lithium could be extracted from its hot waste water. The technique, developed by Simbol Mining, could bolster lithium supplies at a time when they are being squeezed by our growing reliance on high-density batteries. Global lithium consumption is projected to increase threefold by 2020 as electric cars and energy storage in the electrical grid become more common. Lithium is usually extracted from soil, in a process that consumes a lot of water, or from brine dried in large salt ponds. The geothermal waters at the Salton Sea, on top of the active San Andreas fault, are just as lithium-rich as the most productive brine lakes in Bolivia and Chile. Simbol says Salton's waters can be exploited with a much smaller environmental footprint. Geothermal plants draw on very hot underground water to make steam and drive turbines. Previous attempts to pull lithium from this water were scuppered because it contains high levels of silicates, which clog equipment. Simbol uses a technique to precipitate out the silicates, so they can be filtered out of the water. The remaining water flows over a chemical resin that pulls lithium ions from the salty solution and into a compound of lithium chloride, before the lithium-depleted water is returned to the ground. The water's heat partially drives the process.
New Scientist Dec 10, 2009	back to top

Battery made of paper charges up
Batteries made from plain copier paper could make for future energy storage that is truly paper thin. The approach relies on the use of carbon nanotubes to collect electric charge. The work could lead to 'paintable' energy storage. Because of its structure of millions of tiny, interconnected fibres, paper is a good candidate to hold on to carbon nanotubes, providing a scaffold on which to build devices. However, paper is also mechanically tough, and can be bent, curled or folded, more than the metal or plastic surfaces that are currently used or under development. A team of researchers at Stanford University started with off-the-shelf copier paper, painting it with an 'ink' made of carbon nanotubes. The coated paper is then dipped in lithium-containing solutions and an electrolyte to provide the chemical reaction that generates a battery's electric current. The paper acts to collect the electric charge from the reaction. Using paper in this way could reduce the weight of batteries, typically made with metal current collectors, by 20%. The team's batteries are also capable of releasing their stored energy quickly. That is a valuable characteristic for applications that need quick bursts of energy, such as electric vehicles.
BBC News / Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Dec 08, 2009	back to top

Average person consumes 34GB of data daily
The average person is exposed to some 34GB of electronic data every day, according to a recent study. Researchers at the University of California San Diego said that a recent survey of Americans showed that the consumers in the US on average look at some 3.4 zettabytes (3,400 trillion gigabytes) of digital information each year. The study added digital information consumed through television, computer, radio and recorded audio that each person observes. The intake, however, may not be as evenly spread out as the 34GB per person figure would suggest. While researchers note that users are spending more time absorbing electronic information, much of the massive data load was attributed to richer, more dense digital data sources. The overwhelming majority of the data load came from intake of data from computer games, movies and television. Gaming in particular accounted for 54% of all data intake, with high-end PC gaming alone accounting for 38.56% of the total. Researchers suggested that the recent leaps in graphics and processing power in high performance gaming is causing a smaller percentage of the population to consume a massive amount of digital information in the form of richer, more detailed 3D imagery.
VNUnet UK Dec 11, 2009	back to top