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Yeast is maybe the best-understood microorganism in the world. Humans have leveraged yeasts' biochemical abilities to produce bread, alcohol, and fermented milk products since the dawn of civilization. Yeasts are also one of the most common organism “models” in biology laboratories. And important bio-factories for plenty of medicines and useful biomolecules. Still, yeasts need to be fed with sugar or other compounds to stay alive. At least, that was true until Anthony Burnetti, a research scientist working in the lab of William Ratcliff’s, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, managed to make yeast able to harvest the energy of light. The story highlights the potential impact of the research on biofuel production.
Securities.io | 2024-01-23T00:00:00-05:00
What a strain is and how many strains make up a natural bacterial population remain elusive concepts despite their apparent importance for assessing the role of intra-population diversity in disease emergence or response to environmental perturbations. A research team sequenced 138 randomly selected Salinibacter ruber isolates from two solar salterns and assessed these genomes against companion short-read metagenomes from the same samples. In its paper published in Nature Communications, the team says its methodology and ANI thresholds outlined should represent a useful guide for future microdiversity surveys of additional microbial species. The researcher include Ph.D. Scholar Roth E. Conrad and Professor Kostas Konstantinidis, both in the School of Biological Sciences. Konstantinidis is also the Richard C. Tucker Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Nature Communications | 2024-01-16T00:00:00-05:00
By lassoing lizards, putting tiny chips on their legs, and tracking them for three years, Georgia Tech’s James Stroud revealed why species often appear unchanged for millions of years despite Charles Darwin’s theory of constant evolution. Darwin said that evolution was constantly happening, causing animals to adapt for survival. But many of his contemporaries disagreed. Everything changed in the past 40 years, when an explosion of evolutionary studies proved that evolution can and does occur rapidly — even from one generation to the next. Evolutionary biologists were thrilled, but the findings reinforced the same paradox: If evolution can happen so fast, then why do most species on Earth continue to appear the same for many millions of years? Stroud, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, set out to investigate it. (This research was also covered at Scientific American, Study Finds, India Education Diary, BNN Breaking, SciTechDaily, ScienceDaily, Earth.com, and Washington University/St. Louis.)
Technology Networks | 2024-01-16T00:00:00-05:00
Unlike some pretty metal plants that thrive in the darkness, yeast generally doesn’t function well in the light. This fungi turns carbohydrates into ingredients for beer or bread when left to ferment in the dark. It must be stored in dark dry places, as exposure to light can keep fermentation from happening all together. However, a group of School of Biological Sciences researchers have engineered a strain of yeast that may actually work better with light that could give these fungi an evolutionary boost in a simple way. The findings are described in a study published January 12 in the journal Current Biology. Co-authors are Research Scientist Anthony Burnetti, Ph.D. Scholar Autumn Peterson, Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences William Ratcliff, and Carina Baskett, Head of Grant Writing and Trainee Development for Georgia Tech's Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection. (This research was also covered at Technology Networks, New Atlas, ScienceDaily, Interesting Engineering, Biofuels Digest, Infobae, and Phys.org.)
Popular Science | 2024-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
School of Biological Sciences students are currently getting a taste of a New Zealand summer during their studies. The students are participating in the Pacific Study Abroad Program in Biology. They are spending the first six weeks in Dunedin, staying at Hayward College, and will spend a second six-week block in Australia. It is part of their spring semester program, and they will take classes in subjects such as physics, public policy and conservation biology. Professor Michael Goodisman said Georgia Tech brought over its own faculty lecturers. When they're not studying, the students and faculty will get a chance to explore New Zealand and Australia during the weekends.
Otago Daily Times | 2024-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
James Stroud, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, had a problem. The evolutionary biologist had spent several years studying lizards on a small island in Miami. These Anolis lizards had looked the same for millennia; they had apparently evolved very little in all that time. Logic told Stroud that if evolution had favored the same traits over millions of years, then he should expect to see little to no change over a single generation. Except that’s not what he found. Instead of stability, Stroud saw variability. One season, shorter-legged anoles survived better than the others. The next season, those with larger heads might have an advantage. This story builds on Stroud's recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Quanta Magazine | 2024-01-02T00:00:00-05:00
James Stroud, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, joined Fox Weather to talk about the "falling iguana alerts" now issued by the National Weather Service in Miami when temperatures dip unseasonably lower during the winter, causing the large lizards to fall out of Florida trees. Stroud, an evolutionary ecologist, spoke of his lab's studies to find out whether iguanas are adapting to colder temperatures brought on by climate change, or whether genetic factors are involved. Iguanas, normally found in hotter Central and South American climates, are considered an invasive species for Florida.
Fox Weather | 2023-12-27T00:00:00-05:00
The United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, or USAFSAM, part of the Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, is collaborating with Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Institute, or GTRI, on a new research project to design strains of probiotic bacteria that can provide health benefits to stimulate immune recognition of influenza. Developing more effective methods to combat influenza could reduce impacts on military readiness and training from outbreaks and augment vaccine efforts to increase force health protection capabilities. Brian Hammer, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, co-wrote a proposal that met Air Force requirements, and he will work with other researchers to develop the proof-of-concept project.
Air Force Materiel Command | 2023-12-01T00:00:00-05:00
This roundup of some of the most unique excrement in the animal kingdom, showcasing the fascinating diversity of animal waste, includes a 2018 Georgia Tech study of how wombats manage to produce square-shaped feces. The study's authors include David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics. As it turns out, the elastic nature of the marsupial's intestinal walls is a key factor.
Interesting Engineering | 2023-12-01T00:00:00-05:00
Blimps are indeed part of this "Innovations" roundup, but it's the collaborative abilities of army ants that have led engineers from Northwestern University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology to speculate that the insects' behavioral principles and brains could one day be used to program swarms of robots. David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics), is quoted regarding his research on fire ant raft constructions during flooding, comparing the insects to neurons in one large brain.
Mastercard Newsroom | 2023-11-30T00:00:00-05:00
