1. Pyrococcus furiosus – The Raging fireball.
Imagine a world where instead of creating CO2 as an emission from burning fuels, you could make fuels from the emissions, the CO2. And could do so in a way that bypasses the production of biomass and the extraction of fermentable sugars – thereby getting around the energy-intensity of making biomass and then destroying it. This week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team from both universities led by Michael Adams has revealed that they have engineered Pyrococcus furiosus to make 3-hydroxypropionic acid using hydrogen gas, and CO2.
It’s a relatively well-known microorganism found in the vicinity of underwater geothermal vents or volcanoes. It’s one of the archaea – a group of one-celled critters long thought to be a subset of bacteria, but which in recent years have been shunted off to a domain in the taxonomy of life all their own. This little archaeon is one for the books – whose name translates from a mash-up of Medieval Latin and Classical Greek as “raging fireball – known for having a preferred temperature of 100 degrees celsius.
Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse
