Biology and biotechnology
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ResearchBacterium forced to evolve to consume carbon dioxide to make biomass
Tweaked Escherichia coli could help deal with humanity’s carbon dioxide problem
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Robotic system can plan and perform biosynthesis without human intervention
New strategy combines machine learning with automation and has proven itself optimising a complex biochemical pathway
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Engineered insulin with enhanced thermal stability inspired by fish-hunting snails
Four-disulfide insulin has similar bioactivity to native human insulin
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Biomimetic synthesis cultivates yellow poppy pigment
Cascade process that fuses indole with orientalin verifies biosynthesis of nudicaulins
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Chronic exposure to battery nanomaterial leads to resistant bacteria
Shewanella onedensis MR-1 adapts to media spiked with complex metal oxide nanoparticles
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Ammonium bicarbonate trick enables sophisticated lipid analysis
Tandem mass spectrometry method can distinguish lipid isomers
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Secret of super-tough scales of giant Amazonian fish uncovered
Spiral-staircase structure prevents the scales being penetrated by piranhas
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Unified synthesis shows how genetic alphabet could have been put together on early Earth
Cycles of wet and then dry conditions provide the right conditions to make all the nucleobases from basic chemicals
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Cryogenic properties could promote silkworm fibres into space exploration
Combination of intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms allows silks to retain both toughness and ductility at extremely low temperatures
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Synthetic flame retardant compounds turn up as marine natural products
Finding an alga that biosynthesises halogenated anilines increases likelihood of finding an organism that can degrade the toxic compounds too
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Elusive protein and key to many tropical diseases found after decades of searching
Discovery offers powerful new target to treat trypanosome parasite illnesses that affect millions
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New way to create huge protein polymer chains
Strategy constructs synthetic protein polymers that weigh 0.5MDa
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Why photosynthetic organisms evolved to have dimeric reaction centres
Excitation energy transfer enhancements thought to compensate for decrease in charge transfer efficiency of going from monomers to dimers
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Microbes and renewable energy turn carbon dioxide into edible protein
Sustainable method for producing proteins for human consumption made possible by clever two-stage bioprocess
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Biomolecular analysis unpicks human story of Himalayan skeleton lake
Archaeological deposits subject to ancient DNA analysis, stable isotope dietary reconstruction, radiocarbon dating and osteological analysis
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Biodegradable batteries could be made from modified proteins
Coiled polypeptides modified with redox-active molecules make for eco-friendly single-use batteries
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Engineered cyanobacteria turn carbon dioxide into petrol substitute
Strategy transforms wild photosynthetic organism into a system that could reduce humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels
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Turbo-charged Crispr gene-editor can make 25 alterations in one go
Theoretically thousands of changes could be made at once using new technique
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Shark skin study illuminates new fluorescent molecules
New family of glowing metabolites help sea bottom dwelling sharks recognise each other
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Why does all life use the same 20 amino acids?
Chemical properties offer an answer to why nature limits itself to so few protein building blocks
