Some fantastic and amazing science! Using genetic engineering, scientists took the Rubisco gene (Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase) from plants, and replaced it with the Rubisco used by blue-green algae. Rubisco catalyses the conversion of CO2 into organic sugar, and is the main way that carbon enters the life cycle across the entire world. It is also horribly inefficient, because evolution cannot tear down a structure and replace it wholesale; each improving mutation MUST be an incremental improvement in order to remain, even if the overall structure is incrementing towards a maximum that ultimately sucks. The Rubisco used by blue-green algae is a much more compact and efficient design, but nature cant break a structure to rebuild it from scratch. However, genetic engineering can. And in doing so, weve created plants that are 60% better at fixing CO2 into sugar; thats 60% better at producing biomass, at growing more efficiently. Which means food crops that grow faster, produce more starch and more sugar, more people fed with no changes in infrastructure or practice, simply better plants. Science is awesome, yo. sciencealert.au/news/20141909-26205.html
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 16:39:45 +0000
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