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

Coastal microbes may offer a smart solution for plastic contamination in the world's oceans, according to research presented at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting.

The research shows that the combination of marine microbes that can grow on plastic waste varies significantly from microbial groups that colonize surfaces in the wider environment. This raises the possibility that the plastic-associated marine microbes have different activities that could contribute to the breakdown of these plastics or the toxic chemicals associated with them.

A team of neuroscientists claim it is possible to influence people's moral judgments by disrupting a specific brain region called the the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ).

The study offers "striking evidence" that the right TPJ, located at the brain's surface above and behind the right ear, is critical for making moral judgments, the authors say.

An analysis of tree rings and archeological remains suggests that decades of drought, interspersed with intense monsoon rains, may have helped bring about the fall of Cambodia's ancient Khmer civilization at Angkor nearly 600 years ago.

The findings, published this week in PNAS,  indicate that advanced civilizations are still vulnerable to the influence of climate change.

Marine ecosystems could be radically altered by ocean acidification resulting from increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, say researchers presenting at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting.

As a result of it's impact on fish stocks and erosion of coral reefs, researchers say ocean acidification could also have serious socioeconomic ramifications as well. 

The team simulated ocean acidification as predicted by current trends of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and found that the decrease in ocean pH (increased acidity) resulted in a sharp decline of a biogeochemically important group of bacteria known as the Marine Roseobacter clade.