Genetically Modified Algae Are Magnetic, For Ease of Manipulation
Magnetic Algae The wild algae on the left settles to the bottom of the test tube. The magnetic algae on the right sticks to the wall thanks to the magnet. Los Alamos National Laboratory via PhysOrg Proving that there's always a different way to approach a problem, researchers at Los Alamos National Lab have devised a pretty clever method of algae harvesting that could take a major chunk out of the cost of algae-based biofuel production. And all they had to do was create a magnetic organism. Scientists at LANL have genetically engineered a new kind of algae that is magnetic, which could lead to new and simple ways of both extracting genetically engineered biofuel-producing algae from water and extracting the lipids that contain the hydrocarbons from the algae. This part of the process generally accounts for roughly a third of the total cost of algae-based biofuel production, but now could conceivably...