Arizona State University researchers have reengineered the genetics of cyanobacteria, producing mutant strains that continuously secrete fatty acids through their cell walls. The reprogramming has essentially turned the microbes into tiny biofuel production facilities.
By Introducing an enzyme called thioesterase into cyanobacteria researchers were able to coax them into overproducing fatty acids. Accumulation within the cells eventually caused these fatty acids to leak out through the cell membrane, through the process of diffusion.
Hemophilia is caused by a genetic defect that inhibits the body's ability to control blood clotting. The two forms of the disease — hemophilia A and B — are associated with the absence of proteins called factor VIII and factor IX, respectively.
The disease affects millions of people and is sometimes untreatable due to patients' immune systems rejecting the standard treatment--infusion with a protein that helps the blood to clot.
To help patients tolerate therapy, doctors try to exhaust patients' immune systems by administering the therapeutic protein intravenously at frequent intervals and for long periods until the body no longer responds by producing inhibitors. While that brute force approach works
So how dangerous is the Large Hadron Collider? How likely is it that when operated at maximum energy the LHC will create a black hole and wipe out earth? Eric Johnson, assistant professor of law at the University of North Dakota and author of the report The Black Hole Case: The Injunction Against The End Of The World, writes in a recent edition of New Scientist:
