In Japan, Autocar reports that Mazda is working on carbon-neutral biofuel by giving funding to the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Hiroshima University so researchers can look at genome editing and plant physiology, including microalgae specifically for biofuel. Autocar reports that “Mazda anticipates a gradual transition to biofuel, if that path is taken, with both […]
In Colorado, Living Ink makes inks based on algae and is partnering with printers to bring Algae Ink to commercialization. Living Ink is using proprietary technology to take the crude pigment from algae and purify it, mill it, and form it into a dispersion that can then be formulated into a variety of products including […]
In the Philippines, ABS CBN news reports that OrbitX, the country’s first space start-up, is developing reusable rockets that will be fueled by liquid methane produced from biogas that uses algae as feedstock. The rockets will fly on a mixture of liquid methane with liquid oxygen. The Philippines recently created a national space agency but […]
In New Jersey, scientists have discovered how diatoms – a type of alga that produce 20 percent of the Earth’s oxygen – harness solar energy for photosynthesis. The Rutgers University-led discovery, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help lead to more efficient and affordable algae-based biofuels and combat climate […]
In Japan, researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and colleagues investigated the conditions under which the model microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii produces more of the storage molecule triacylglycerol (TAG), found in microscopic algae. In an attempt to find conditions under which C. reinhardtii both produces more TAG and grows well, the team of researchers gave […]
Midorimushi – other than being a cool sounding Ninja name, it’s scientific name is Euglena. No, it’s not the latest superhero in a manga comic. It’s a kind of algae. In a magical sort of hybrid way, it has both plant and animal properties and has 59 types of nutrients such as unsaturated fatty acids […]
In Washington, D.C., the Algae Technology Educational Consortium (ATEC) is developing programs to educate and employ the next generation of algae researchers and to improve skills for those already in the algae workforce, with funding from the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. ATEC […]
In Michigan, new research from Michigan State University, and published in the journal eLife, presents evidence that algae could have piggybacked on fungi to leave the water and to colonize the land, over 500 million years ago. Researchers selected a strain of soil fungus and marine alga from old lineages, respectively Mortierella elongata and Nannochloropsis […]
In New Mexico, new DNA analysis by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers has revealed surprising genetic diversity in a bacterium that poses a persistent threat to the algae biofuels industry. With the evocative name Vampirovibrio chlorellavorus, the predatory pest sucks out the contents of the algae cells (thus the vampire reference) and reduces a productive, […]
In Washington, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists have developed a model that predicts outcomes from the algae hydrothermal liquefaction process in a way that mirrors commercial reality much more closely than previous analyses. They found that algae with higher lipid content is key to reducing costs, and that two factors—algae composition and capital investment—are the […]
