Labex Korea Colletion

By Gilberto Silber Schmidt
Labex Korea – The new format of Labex Korea Collection provide our readers more facilities to identify and read the titles of interest without having to go through the entire page. The PDF document includes the TOP10′s for each month. This version includes the articles published in January, February and March. Enjoy

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Does It Compute?

By Valda Vinson, Beverly A. Purnell, Laura M. Zahn and John Travis
Science – A discussion of computational biology has to start with a pioneer of the field, Alan Turing, especially in this centennial year of his birth. He introduced us to the digital computer and proposed that much biology could be described by mathematical equations—the number of spirals in a sunflower is a Fibonacci number and pattern formation in animal skins can be described by a reaction diffusion model. Turing lacked the data and the computing power to substantiate his models. Today, the availability of vast quantities of new data, together with striking advances in computing power, is promising to give us new insights into the mechanisms of life. This special section, together with related content in Science Signaling and Science Careers, highlights recent advances and outstanding challenges…. >>Read More<<

Source: Science,April 13rd, 2012
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Synthetic biosystems for the production of high-value plant metabolites

Cell Press – Plants display an immense diversity of specialized metabolites, many of which have been important to humanity as medicines, flavors, fragrances, pigments, insecticides and other fine chemicals. Apparently, much of the variation in plant specialized metabolism evolved through events of gene duplications followed by neo- or sub-functionalization. Most of the catalytic diversity of plant enzymes is unexplored since previous biochemical and genomics efforts have focused on a relatively small number of species. Interdisciplinary research in plant genomics, microbial engineering and synthetic biology provides an opportunity to accelerate the discovery of new enzymes. The massive identification, characterization and cataloguing of plant enzymes coupled with their deployment in metabolically optimized microbes provide a high-throughput functional genomics tool and a novel strain engineering pipeline.

Source: Cell Press
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Genetically Engineered Bacteria Could Help Fight Climate Change

By Kim Krieger

ScienceNOW – As humans warm the planet by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, some researchers believe that capturing CO2 and trapping it in buried rocks could lower the risk of catastrophic climate change. Now a team of researchers has shown that bacteria can help the process along. They can even be genetically modified to trap CO2 faster, keeping it underground for millions of years.

Source and Photo: ScienceNOW, February 26th, 2012,
Photo Credit: Jenny Cappuccio/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
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Research seeks to produce enzymes for whitening cellulose

By Flora Serra

Agência FAPESP – Enzymes are among the most remarkable biomolecules. They are proteins that possess catalytic properties to accelerate chemical reactions that occur inside and outside of organisms. Enzymes have been used extensively, including by the pharmaceutical industry, to increase the efficiency of processes or reduce the costs and environmental impacts of some chemical compounds.

Source and Photo: Agência FAPESP, March 21st, 2012
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Opportunities in Brazil Beckon

Gulfnews -  Brazil is not for beginners, quipped Tom Jobim the late Brazilian composer behind the hit song The girl from Ipanema. The same holds true for foreign investors, given the massive opportunities but challenging business environment in this vast land.

Source and Photo: GulfNews,  March 21st,  2012

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Green Technology: The 10 leading countries

Exame – Report prepared by the consulting firm Cleantech Group and the WWF, shows which countries are characterized by creativity and innovation in green technology, and who also have stimulating environment for companies in the industry, either public policy or private funding.
As technological innovation facilitated incredible changes in consumer lifestyles and productivity in the last 200 years, the development of so-called green technologies will be essential to catalyze and facilitate the sustainability revolution in the 21st century. But which countries have the greatest potential to produce and commercialize this clean future?

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Source and Photos: Exame, March 15th, 2012

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Translated by Gilberto Silber Schmidt

 

Brazilian researchers win plant identification challenge

By Fábio de Castro

Agência FAPESP – Since 2003, the French organization ImageCLÉF has promoted an annual challenge to the international scientific community to stimulate advances in pattern recognition research. A group of researchers from the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) won first place in the 2011 ImageCLÉF “Plant Identification” category, which was begun in 2010 with the support of the French Botanical Society.

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Source: FAPESP, March 14th, 2012

Genetically Engineered Bacteria Could Help Fight Climate Change

Science: Some researchers believe that capturing atmospheric CO2 and trapping it in buried rocks could lower the risk of catastrophic climate change. Now researchers have found that bacteria can speed that process up.

Source and Photo: Science, March 2nd, 2012
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Sustainable charcoal – New system produces raw material cleanly within eucalyptus plantation

By Marco de Oliveira

Revista FAPESP  – Better known for being used at barbecues, charcoal in Brazil is also responsible for the production of 30% of the pig iron, the metal alloy used for producing the steel used in vehicles, machines, ships, trains, cables and other products. Worldwide, this percentage is less than 1%. Thus, part of the steel made in the country is renewable, unlike the use of coal, which requires the exploration of finite mines, often underground, and in the case of Brazil is almost all imported.

Source: Revista FAPESP, November, 2011

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