Old Frog, New Tricks: The Rise of Magnetic Biofuels
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Can the harnessing of the powers of magnetism overcome cost challenges in algal biofuels? Researchers across the globe pursue the answers.
…For the fossil molecule, its time within a living system is complete and its development is finished – it is simply a matter of finding the best way to retrieve it. But for the bio-based molecule, it is still a living thing and, ultimately, can be helped to acquire traits that make it spectacularly successful as a platform for fuels and materials.
The old dog, as it turns out, is highly capable of learning new tricks, if we simply master the means of looking beyond traits . That is, assembling traits – like magnetism of magnetotactic bacteria and the lipid production rates of green algae – into aggregated groups that we might refer to not only as organisms, but as organisms with talents. READ MORE
