Article Image

IPFS News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology

Scientists Engineer Extreme Microorganisms To Make Fuel From Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

• http://www.popsci.com, By Colin Lecher
 To find a way of fending off global warming, scientists sometimes look to nature. Plants, after all, use photosynthesis to snap up carbon dioxide, the biggest source of our climate change woes. So we get inventions like artificial leaves and ambitious projects like a plan to give fish photosynthesizing powers. One of the more interesting plans: genetically alter microorganisms so they can chow down on some CO2, too.

University of Georgia researchers recently used the mighty Pyrococcus furiosus, which usually eats carbohydrates and lives in super-heated waters or volcanic marine mud (ideally, for it, at about 100 degrees Celsius). By toying with the genome-sequenced microorganism's genetic material, they were able to make it comfortable in much cooler waters, and to eat carbon dioxide. After that, using hydrogen gas to form a chemical reaction in the microorganism, the researchers got the microorganism to produce 3-hydroxypropionic acid, a common chemical used in household products.

1 Comments in Response to

Comment by Leslie Fish
Entered on:

If this pyrococcus takes all the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, WHAT WILL ALL THE OTHER PLANTS BREATHE?  This is basic grade-school Biology;  animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, and plants inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen.  If pyrococcus gets loose in the atmosphere, all the other plants will suffocate -- and then so will we.  Real smart move, U of G.

 

--Leslie



ContentSafe