Newspapers, it’s often said, will always be popular with people who have hamsters and parrots. Fortunately, somebody has invented another use for newspapers…burning them for fuel.

The idea, courtesy of scientists at Tulane University, is to feed your local rag to a strain of bacteria that crank out biofuel, specifically butanol, in an oxygenated environment. All it needs is cellulose…you know, like you find in newspaper.

Butanol is an ideal biofuel because it can run unmodified car engines, it’s got more energy, it can be pumped through our current terrible oil infrastructure and, oh yeah, it’s easy to make. In short, we’re approaching the day where you just cram whatever crap is lying around into your tank and drive off.

No word on whether you can hit 88 miles per hour.

[ via the papereaters at Gizmag ]

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is two things: absolutely nasty and absolutely everywhere. It can live in just about any environment on earth, and if you get infected with it, it can cause sepsis and inflammation. It’s all over hospitals, and it can kill. So science decided to make itself a bacterial Boomer and put Pseudomonas in its place.

The researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore designed a synthetic bacterium using E. coli that finds Pseudomonas, gives it a great big hug, and then explodes, spraying anti-bacterial agents everywhere. It grows just like a normal bacterium until it finds its target, and then BLAM! Kiss your bacterial ass goodbye.

The best part? The method it uses to detect Pseudomonas can be used for other diseases, most notably cholera. We could be on the verge of having a cheap, simple way to wipe out one of the worst diseases on the planet. Thanks, E. coli! This makes up for all those times you gave us…well…you know.

[ via the germophiles at The Scientist ]

Europe is currently facing the most fatal outbreak of E. Coli on record, which has so far killed seventeen people. Just how screwed are we? Pretty screwed. Here’s why:

• It’s a strain that nobody was expecting to turn into a killer. Epidemiologists weren’t even thinking about it.
• It’s picked up genes that increase its resistance to antibiotics.
• Oh, it’s also found genes that allow it to cause hemorrhaging, because that wasn’t nasty enough.
• If that weren’t bad enough, it also apparently secretes a type of super glue that lets it stick to your colon and start killing you with toxins.
• It’s also causing hemolytic-uremic syndrome, which basically means that in addition to making you bleed in the colon, it’s going to shut down your kidneys by killing your red blood cells.

So, yeah, we’re all screwed.

[ via the bearers of bad news at Ars Technica ]

No, we haven’t figured out how to use babies as batteries (although research is ongoing). Instead, we’re figuring out how to make microbial fuel cells, and there was just a major breakthrough in the field.

Microbial fuel cells basically use bacteria to turn chemical energy into electricity, but one of the big problems was figuring out exactly how the bacteria did this in the first place. We had a rough idea, namely that they used proteins, but no idea what those proteins looked like.

The University of East Anglia, though, has finally figured it out, offering up the exact molecular structure of said protein. This means now we know exactly how it works and what protein the bacteria needs to crank out to get this research out of my dreams and into my car…er, that is, out of the lab and into the marketplace.

Yes, soon, your gizmos could be powered not by lithium but by microbes. Isn’t technology wonderf-wait, are these things infectious?

[ via the chemically complex proteins at Gizmag ]

Usually when we talk about bacteria, they’re doing something horrible: stripping the flesh from your bones, giving you explosive diarrhea, or otherwise something vile. Fortunately, this bacteria does something nerds find adorable: it literally lives off of caffeine.

It’s worth explaining that caffeine has carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, aka the building blocks of life. What this bacteria does is fairly simple: strips caffeine of its methyl groups (one carbon and three hydrogens), turning them into carbon dioxide and ammonia, and also getting some energy out of the proceedings.

What’s this useful for? Well, decaffeinating things, obviously, but the enzymes involved could also be useful for asthma and blood treatments. But mostly for funny headlines about “living off caffeine.”

[ via the tea drinkers at Geekosystem ]

E. Coli!

Yep, the bacterium that makes you die screaming on a toilet is being used to store information. And yes, it can even encrypt it.

It all starts with researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (wait, they have to be that specific?), who literally place the data in the cells. Yes, they turn data into DNA, and put it into the cells. They also can use site-specific genetic recombination to encrypt the data.

There are a few problems, like the minor issue of there being no guarantee of the data not mutating when the cells do. Oh, it’s also a pain in the butt to get the data out. But, hey, eventually, your hard drive could give you explosive Montezuma’s Revenge, so…hooray?

[ via the infectious folks at Engadget ]