As the researchers reported Oct. 15 in the online journal Biotechnology for Biofuels, they’ve begun to identify which of these genes encode for enzymes that could significantly improve the production of cellulosic ethanol, a fuel made from inedible plant material

At the University of Florida they are studying termite guts. Termite guts are awesome collections of bacteria and micro-organisms that live only in the stomachs of termites and are passed on from generation to generation.

There’s a good overview of things in this article about bioprospecting termites, which is very readable. Gripping science journalism:

He worked at a rapid clip, pulling the insects’ heads and anuses in opposite directions with a microscopically violent yank

The production of biofuels is one of the main ends of the sythetic biology research program. The place of termites in the larger process of making useful life is not without complications, but maybe one day we will see parts of the genetic code for verious termite symbiotes stocked as open wetware. ]]> http://eightprime.net/2009/11/16/formiculture/feed/ 0 http://eightprime.net/2009/11/16/humanoid-walking-robot/ http://eightprime.net/2009/11/16/humanoid-walking-robot/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:15:57 +0000 eightprime http://eightprime.net/?p=674

This humanoid walking robot has been built for testing  protective suits against chemical warfare attack.  The robot can walk, stumble and maintain its balance. Once outfitted with a head and arms Petman will move around dressed in an outfit to help people not get turned into useless mush when the environment turns toxic.

By the makers of the Big Dog robot, Boston Dynamics.

I think they are eerily beautiful. And a little ominous.

There is, of course, the terrible spectre of something going terribly wrong. We could all die. The world could end. Horror.
But there’s always the terrible spectre of something going terrible wrong. That’s nothing new.

No scientific achievement has promised so much, and none has come with greater risks or clearer possibilities for deliberate abuse. The benefits of new technologies—from genetically engineered food to the wonders of pharmaceuticals—often have been oversold. If the tools of synthetic biology succeed, though, they could turn specialized molecules into tiny, self-contained factories, creating cheap drugs, clean fuels, and new organisms to siphon carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

My favourite bit though is when the auuthor points out that

Little more than a hundred years have passed, however, since Gregor Mendel demonstrated that the defining characteristics of a pea plant—its shape, its size, and the color of the seeds, for example—are transmitted from one generation to the next in ways that can be
predicted, repeated, and codified.

Now they’re working on a living organism built from non-living componente. They will call this organism Synthia.

Found via an interview with the author on Gizmodo.

Then I came upon this story about the upcoming announcement of the prize for economics. At the end there was mention of the 2009 prize for chemistry:

Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath of Israel shared the chemistry prize for their atom-by-atom description of ribosomes.

A release from the medical research counsel reported that

Ramakrishnan, Steitz and Yonath demonstrated what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at an atomic level using a visualisation method called X-ray crystallography to map the position of each of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome.

which, aside from being an astounding technical achievement, is cool because ribosomes are the parts of you which make proteins, which make up all the main parts of you. Ribosomes are like the first order nanoassemblers of terrestrial life.

Also there are movies

short video from the ramakrishnan lab

and images.

on the laboratory website.

The quantum version of the top is the “spin” of individual laser-cooled cesium atoms that Jessen’s team manipulate with magnetic fields and laser light, using tools and techniques developed over a decade of painstaking laboratory work.

“Think of an atom as a microscopic top that spins on its axis at a constant rate of speed,” Jessen said. He and his students repeatedly changed the direction of the axis of spin, in a series of cycles that each consisted of a “kick” and a “twist”.

Because spinning atoms are tiny magnets, the “kicks” were delivered by a pulsed magnetic field. The “twists” were more challenging, and were achieved by subjecting the atom to an optical-frequency electric field in a precisely tuned laser beam.

They imaged the quantum mechanical state of the atomic spin at the end of each kick-and-twist cycle with a tomographic technique that is conceptually similar to the methods used in medical ultrasound and CAT scans.

Today’s episode of Schlock Mercenary, by Howard Tayler is particularly awesome.

Tagon’s Toughs have been on my screen for several years now (with nary a day missed) but this is the first definite synchromystic occurrence between me and the strip.

It would be rude to give away the punchline – but check it out.

A remixable audio file is up for grabs at CCmixter and a video record of the performance can be viewed below.

The oratory was extemporaneous (with notes) based on the guiding principles of the A440hz electromagnetic explorations project.

The video background was responsive to the environmental audio and is built of photographs (taken by me) of the [human hearing] portion of the A440hz installation.

The global market for sperm exports has been estimated at between £25 million and £50 million a year. The US market is worth £5 million and £10 million and the European market is of similar size.

Futurepundit offers a comprehensive rundown of the jet setting gamete market.

Upscale ladies, unwilling or unable to spawn through more traditional methods are shelling out large for people seed.

Meanwhile, women willing to produce ova in multiples are gadding about laying eggs for profit in foreign climes.

All this is interesting, but perhaps not as interesting as learning that

Denmark boasts an ever-growing sperm lake.

And even that is not as interesting as finding out about Hamster-Human Hybrids.

There’s some interesting stuff, including this video of the dissectionof a larval Central Nervous System.