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sgiandubh · 17 days

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Whisky, gin and beer

It was always going to be about beer, too - not only whisky and gin. And it was probably designed to be a simultaneous project, that might have been postponed for various reasons: funny how all those intelligent people across the street forget everything about COVID, when it does not fit their agendas. And by COVID, I do not mean only the prolonged lockdowns, but first and foremost the worldwide logistics crisis, with compromised supply chains and overall a huge blow on the transports' sector.

In fact, looking at those trademark websites, it becomes evident that first (now abandoned) trademark application for beer was filed in at the same time as the one for whisky, on December 28, 2018:

Separate categories, as per US regulations, need separate filings, of course. And beer is a brilliant, simple idea, with high quality local ingredients (it's really barley, water, hops and yeast) relatively easy to source. Well, spare perhaps for the hops, but that is not really a problem, anymore:

(Source: the James Hutton Institute's booklet Hops in Scotland, 2018 - well, then. The institute is based in Dundee, by the way, so I think they know exactly what they are talking about, especially after a four year long feasibility study with encouraging results: https://www.hutton.ac.uk/news/scottish-hops-viable-commercial-crop-hutton-research-finds)

As I always make a point of reminding anyone, this page does not deal in fantasy and empty, meaningless scouring of social media accounts. And cackle to your heart's content, Mordor, but S seems to have a genuine, informed interest in the industry, as shown above.

This is a different business plan and a different marketing model, based on affordable production costs and yield/volume (as compared to successive, 'limited batches' of tequila or whisky, where the accent is placed on the excellence of the product and know-how, as reflected in the final price tag). You can bottle that beer or you can sell it on tap, partnering with local bars and pubs first, then progressively extending that network. And I bet the farm it is going to be a premium, artisanal beer first, with options open for a more democratic product, once brand awareness is properly built: beer is versatile, like that.

Whisky and gin were expensive, carefully curated pet projects. Beer is a fun, easy and lucrative one, with a wider clientele and fast growing potential. And this is how that unknown, struggling Scottish actor who once was the face of Tennent's has a fair opportunity to strike it big. To be followed, which I might do. And this is also how his products could cover the entire price range, from luxury to affordable.

It is also always disheartening to see how all those bitter women congregating on certain Tumblr pages feel the need to dismiss anything he does. As I always said and I always will, many of them have no idea about the very basics of business and trade, no exposure to that world and, to be honest, no particular intellectual acuity. Plus I bet the farm many of them lie about their own circumstances: it's easy to pretend, on the Internet and always sexier (and lame, of course) to introduce yourself as a corporate whatever than a secretary. But I wonder how would they feel, in the unlikely situation they would be running their own lemonade stand, if passers by started cackling and bitching about their trade, out of the blue.

So, all in all, we seem to be dealing with some careful preparation, portfolio diversification and yes, taking much needed strides away from McGrandma. To be continued, of course...

PS: FMN Gin, still crickets? Ahhh...

#fandom #shitshow #booze wars

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todaysbug · 2 months

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February 11th, 2024

The Worm (Caenorhabiditis elegans)

Distribution: Found in temperate regions worldwide.

Habitat: Terrestrial; lives in humid soils with moderate oxygen contents and low-to-medium clay contents.

Diet: Microbivorous; feed on bacteria that lives in soil and on rotting vegetation, but can also feed on various species of yeast.

Description: C. elegans is aptly nicknamed "the worm" because it is a very common laboratory model; in fact, it's used as the model organism for all eukaryotic organisms! These worms are very easy to study due to the transparency of their body, as well as their limited number of cells, having only 131 cells in their entire bodies. They were the first multicellular organisms to have their entire genome sequenced (as they only have 6 chromosomes and approximately 20,000 genes). Common research on these worms include the processes of embryogenesis, development, disease and aging (especially in the form of programmed cell death). By understanding how their genes are involved in the aging process, we can hopefully have a better idea of the processes involved in human aging, too!

Most of these worms are self-fertilizing hermaphrodites, though males are also present (composing only about 1/1000 worms). Though their anatomy is quite simple, they do possess a simple brain and nervous system (one third of their cells are neurons). They're also capable of rudimentary learning, as well as using chemoreceptors to orient themselves, and respond minimally to light (living in dark environments, they don't have much need for good eyesight).

Image by K. Bradnam and gif by Bob Goldstein.

#today's bug #biology #bugs #ecology #entomology #nature #wildlife #nematodes #roundworms #worms

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makoodles · 1 year

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I spent a few hours this morning making this (i suck at 3D modeling/positioning) Just imagine THIS with literally any of the Avatar men…

Also, very sorry that you’re dealing with a kidney stone, I hope you pass it soon and get better <333 If it’s any consolation, I found out this week I have a yeast infection and B.V. simultaneously 🙃

I think you’re VERY VERY talented. I genuinely adore you and the work you do as a writer. I love all the small details you put into writing, the way you write the Na’vi culture and how you portray the characters (Tsu’tey especially, and how you make the reader kinda awkward in the writes with him. And how BOLD Ronal is when she her and Tonowari are courting the reader. And how in ‘Daddy Issues’, the reader finally stands up for their self and POPS OFF on the Recoms for wrecking their research and stuff, I’ve seen too many fics where the reader is incredibly meek and has no back-bone)

I really appreciate the work you do, it takes a lot of time, effort, skill and especially creativity 💖💖💖

bro the way i am going FERAL right now like i'm talking balls to the wall insane oh my good fucking GOD

i am obsESSED with these 3D models, it honestly gives SUCH a good visual which is amazing because sometimes that size difference is hard to imagine! i'm so fucking obsessed oh my fod

but you are the kindest ever, i'm so flustered over your compliments khgkshg i'm honestly so delighted that you like my work! this is such a magical message to get, i'm fully blushing and kicking my feet like a moron

#also! i hope you feel better my love!#asks #avatar thirsts

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tricktster · 2 years

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so i’ve been baking bread pretty regularly since sayyyy april 2020. you know, when we were waiting for this whole kooky covid thing to die down in a few weeks, but in the meantime some people had taken the very rational step of buying out every store’s supply of EXTREMELY PERISHABLE goods, including the extremely sad 100 calorie sandwich rounds favored by my parents.

now me? I’d read enough zombie very serious survival books to have ventured to the co-op on March 10 to stock up on dry bulk ingredients, and I’d included yeast and bread flour among the necessities - not because I thought that they’d ever get used, really, it just seemed practical if things got a lot worse than anticipated. And then? Well. You know.

So I joined the club of the tens of thousands of americans who had always viewed leavened dough with a healthy skepticism and the deep sense that these things were best left to the professionals. With the circumstances now unimaginably altered, we were now very cautiously dumping yeast into bowls of warm water, all the while doubting that this would actually work. So, obviously, that sense of accomplishment I felt when, after all the proofing and kneading and rising and punching down and rising again and venting and egg washing and etc etc etc, I actually pulled two relatively respectable loaves of bread out of the oven? Fucking intoxicating.

I’ve gotten medium good at bread over the intervening years, insofar as I can produce a sandwich loaf without needing to find a recipe, I’m pretty comfortable with adding cheese or garlic or raisins and nuts or whatever if I’m feeling like an Interesting Bread, i’ve forced a few loaves of sourdough into existence (though both I and the dough were kicking and screaming the whole way), and I recieved the ultimate tool of convenience for my birthday last year, when my parents gave me the dutch oven that finally permitted me to finally skip kneading altogether (if I so desired).

Except like.,. I didn’t ask for a dutch oven. I actually asked for something much cheaper and by all accounts more convenient: A bread machine. When I did, though, my mom (who has baked precisely 0 loaves of bread in her life) said “oh, you don’t want a bread machine.”

“I don’t?” I asked, already halfway swayed by her confidence on the matter.

“oh, no, nobody ever actually uses bread machines, they just take up space on the counter.” my mom, a woman who owns two instapots, assured me.

I considered her reasoning, and very firmly replied with a defiant “oh, okay, yeah. that makes sense, and I guess I’ve gotten this far without one, so like, it’s silly to get one now.”

I know. I have a will of steel.

So like, another year has passed since that exchange, and a week or two ago i finally decided that since counter space is no longer at a premium at my new place, i could at least try out a cheap bread machine? I went on ebay, got an open box deal on a decent entry level model, and took it for a spin yesterday.

And, for what it’s worth, uhhhhhhh HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT COULD HAVE BEEN THIS LOW EFFORT THE WHOLE TIME?????

LIKE I COULD HAVE BEEN JUST DUMPING INGREDIENTS IN A PAN AND WALKING AWAY THIS WHOLE TIME?????!?!?!?

it’s making brioche for me right now. It’s almost too easy. I’m actively furious.

This feels exactly like the day I finally bought a game genie so i could get Mew to finish out my red dex. I’ve been grinding and learning helpful strats from youtube and there was a fucking cheat code that would have let me skip the bread making side quest while still gaining xp this whole goddamn time.

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yellowistheraddest · 1 month

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love how my degree has gone from 'write an essay about respiration of mussels' and 'discuss how genes are expressed in different mating types of yeast' at the start of the year and now im the trenches of 'use this mathematical model and stastistical analysis to figure out if evolution will occur in this environment' and 'look at this dead corpse photo and now tell me what changes happened since death and also how youd estimate time of death'

#i mean i chose the classes myself but there has been a shift in the energy

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trollcafe · 1 year

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uhm !!!

beloved and food :)

Bertie’s baking skills were truly unrivaled in the Monark family line. However, there was one thing even he could never beat. Maybe it was less about the food itself, and more about the comfort of having Beloved make it, that is what Faxaen had said.

Flour, powdered milk, salt, baking soda, a dash of sugar. Into a big metal bowl, mixed by hand. Slowly add water. Beloved’s hands knew this recipe better than he did. He knew the perfect consistency, the perfect amount of water to form the stiff dough. Calloused war-worn hands knead the dough with a skilled precision. Galile would say it was how the old fish kneaded the dough that made it so good. Palola said it was the lack of yeast. Beloved would just smile.

Then, set the dough aside to rest. Waiting was the hardest part. He always tried to get the dough ready before anyone came over, so the wait was shorter. Patience was a virtue…but patience didn’t exist when it came to fry bread. Jodiah claimed resting the dough was the real secret.

When the time is up, fry in lard. Bertie tried to argue once that butter would be better, but he was silenced with a look. Don’t fix what isn’t broken, his father would say, always sprinkling wisdom like cinnamon sugar. Then, Bertie decided the lard was the secret key.

Handfuls of dough sectioned out, rolled into little balls, and flattened. This was Beloved’s favorite part, what he considered to be the key ingredient. He often roped someone into helping him. He would have conversations about Faxaen’s classes, about Calysa’s hobbies, catching up with Galile, or with Twitch, or Palola. Today he secured Bertie’s assistance. His blueblooded friend had tagged along, and was just as easily roped into helping. The two men stood side by side, rolling out the dough, flattening it into discs. Beloved listened to their casual conversation with a smile as he prepared the lard for frying.

Bertie showed Basil the best size for frying. It’s in the heart, he said, modeling how. Basil would laugh and follow suit. Take a spoon and make a hole in the center, followed by Bertie showing him how. One could easily tell which were prepared by Basil, and which by Bertie. When Beloved finally interrupted their chatting and laughter to grab the first tray for cooking, Basil apologized for the sorry appearance. Beloved smiled, and assured him they all fry the same in the end.

The two dough-rollers watched curiously as the flattened dough was fried. It sizzled, filling the air with nostalgia. Fried until golden brown on both sides, then set carefully on a paper towel to drain.

Bertie scored the first finished fry bread. He brushed it with butter and dusted it with cinnamon sugar, as sweet as his father’s wisdom. And he gave it to Basil. Child-like excitement glittered in his eyes, watching Bas take his first bite.

Beloved laughed as Basil’s eyes lit up as well. The secret to good food was the love that went into making it. The perfect imperfections in each piece of fried dough, the act of standing by someone you love while preparing the food, the workout of kneading love into the perfect stiff dough. All topped off with the smiles, the conversation, the splitting of pieces to share, the passing of butter and jam and cinnamon sugar.

#jazz.ask #drabbles #her beloved annihilation #:)c

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dabingusbongus · 8 months

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I'm the 😎Globglogabgalab😎

And I 😍love😍 books

And this 😌basement😌 is

a true 💸treasure trove💸

I am the 😎Glob-glo-gab-galab😎

The 💃🏻shwabble-dabble-wabble-gabble🕺🏻

😨flibba blabba blab😨

I'm full of 😎shwibbly glib-a-kind😎

I am the 🤯yeast of thoughts and minds🤯

💃🏻Shwabble dabble glibble🕺🏻

🕺🏻glabble schribble shwap glab💃🏻

💃🏻Dibble dabble shribble🕺🏻

🕺🏻shrabble glibbi-glap shwap💃🏻

💃🏻Shwabble dabble glibble🕺🏻

🕺🏻glabble shwibble shwap-dap💃🏻

🕺🏻Dibble dabble shribble💃🏻

✨shrabble glibbi-shwap glab✨

😌Oooh😌🤭ha ha ha🤭😌mmm😌☺️splendid!☺️

😋 Simply delicious~!😋

☺️Ooooohm, ha ha ha ha!☺️

I am the ✨Glob-glo-gab-galab✨

The 🕺🏻shwabble-dabble-wabble-gabble💃🏻

🤯flibba blabba blab🤯

I'm full of 😵shwibbly glib-a-kind😵

I am the 🧐yeast of thoughts and minds🧐

💃🏻Shwabble dabble glibble🕺🏻

🕺🏻glabble schribble shwap glab💃🏻

💃🏻Dibble dabble shribble🕺🏻

🕺🏻shrabble glibbi-glap shwap💃🏻

💃🏻Shwabble dabble glibble🕺🏻

🕺🏻glabble shwibble shwap-dap💃🏻

💃🏻Dibble dabble shribble🕺🏻

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😌Ahhh...😌

See this is how you know Christianity is a cult because they always come up with the weirdest shit known to man-

I say as if the real reason is the fact they have restrictive reading/ many of their actions match up to the B.I.T.E Model. Behavior, information, thought, and emotion. According to the B.I.T.E model, if a cult can effectively control one or more components, the others will tend to follow. Which you can easily see running ramped in American society currently. Even the republicans who aren't christian can prophet off of the Christians hierarchy/influence they have over their specific areas. They have built this machine within and they do not want it to be dismantled even after years and years of pain/agony of others. Spreading that pain/shame to other countries forcefully and undauntedly. In this essay I will- **gets dragged off the stage kicking and screaming**

#Anonymous #anon ask #merlin's chatter #can you tell i have trauma #personal #cw religion #cw vent #when you get told at like 13 it's better to let a gun man shoot you in the head instead of renouncing god 🤪#oh no trauma dumping on main?

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andypantsx3 · 2 years

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idk if you ever thought about it but how would you write shouto in your model!au? i was re reading cover shot and i have terrible brainrot 😔😔

Hello my sweet angel!! First of all thank you for rereading, you're so sweet and I do not deserve you!! 💕✨💖

Second of all, HAVE I EVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT!!!!! I have so many thoughts. I literally have a spin off series for Shouto all plotted out, where Shouto is a model returning to university, and Reader is a part time bakery worker, part time college student in the same course. He's a fourth-generation senator's son and Reader thinks he's cute but doesn't understand the hype, until a series of encounters first leave her tongue-tied and tripping over herself, and later reveal Shouto is more than his standoffish, sexy ice prince persona...

Also working title is "beauty and the yeast" bc of the bakery and I need u to suffer that knowledge with me lmao.

#ask andie

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halomancer · 1 year

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Alright, I’ve decided to go through with the Model Organism Bracket! I’m going with twelve of the more common species, plus four lesser-known, comment-submitted wildcards. My tentative bracket (unorganized and some common names because I’m tired):

Standard competitors

Mouse

E. coli

Baker’s yeast

Dictyostelium

Drosophila melanogaster

Aspergillus

Arabidopsis

Schmidtea mediterranea

4 yet-to-be-decided

Wildcards

Parhyale hawaiensis

3 yet-to-be-decided

If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment them! The current competition is very animal-heavy and I’d like some representation from other taxa. The list is still subject to change, and probably not in Animalia’s favor.

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bossymarmalade · 1 year

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@sindirimba tagged me!

Rules: post the first lines of your last 10 fics/chapters posted on AO3 (if you have less than 10 fics posted, post the first lines of all your fics) and try to draw some conclusions.

I’m tagging: @pearwaldorf, @lightedwindows, @stupidlullabies, @spaceoperafeerie, @aimmyarrowshigh, @rubynye

"Don't think," Olivia says, and the smile she's smiling is immediately evident in her voice in the way she adds, "--I know, that's hard for you. But as a special, special favour to me.“ 1. witness marks - the haunting of hill house

The early model wetware brain you make is pink. 2. in sleep, in confusion - ex machina

"Don't be bloody ridiculous, Eames," Yusuf says, as Arthur links his fingers with Eames's, already turning to step out of the door's threshold into the pounding midday sun. 3. the time before that and the other time after - inception

"As it so happens, Alfie," Tommy said. 4. the midlands - peaky blinders

Tommy'd been forced to re-evaluate his estimation of the Duchess' grasp on English both formal and colloquial as he moved towards the bed, moved on top of her, moved inside her with the taste of her brining his lips and the scent of her mingled with Grace's perfume against the side of his face. 5. the king’s shilling - peaky blinders

Eddie does well, he thinks, with waiting until they’ve finished their entrees – black bean veggies and noodles for Anne, soy duck and rice for himself – before he says, “I caught the, uh, the work you’ve been doing defending those college kids in the defamation suit.” 6. you’re burning yearning - venom

There’s a moment before he commits himself to this course of action when Tommy realizes with perfect clarity that he doesn’t know who else Alfie fucks, if he fucks at all, and if he does, what he fucks them for. 7. sugar feeds yeast - peaky blinders

"I'd ask if you've got a fag to lend me," he smiles, "but I think we both know the answer to that one." 8. now i hope it’s forever - velvet goldmine

"--and the next thing I knew, the young man in the blue turned on the young man in the red and stabbed him. He stabbed that young man five times, yes Lord." 9. three-part disharmony - homicide: life on the street

He invents things. 10. always music in the air - twin peaks

---

I pared down some of the PB stuff lol. I tend to start in the middle of a thought being expressed, whether that’s mid-conversation or the character’s thought process. That’s the biggest commonality I think!

#says miss maggie #this was fun hee

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kariachi · 1 year

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More opinion on new pokemon! Dear gods this has to end at some point, right? 63-72

Shroodle

The Toxic Mouse Pokemon, poison/normal type. It’s just, a little guy. They put a Salandit head on a mole body and gave him teefs. It’s cute, don’t get me wrong, but still. They’re normally chill, but apparently they’re venomous and their venom paralyzes fuckers when they get pissed and bite them. Also they mark their territories by marking them with poisonous and acrid liquid. Given there’s no description of where this fluid comes from I have to assume they do the standard animal thing of rubbing their ass on shit.

7/10, it’s certainly a pokemon, not a bad one, would definitely be on the ‘team mascot maybe’ list, but it would have steep competition

Grafaiai

I’m sorry this is what Shroodle evolves into? Bit of a fucking jump. I mean I can see the connections but still. It’s Grafaiai, we all know it. Poisonous saliva, color depends on it’s diet, uses it to paint markings on trees, patterns are unique to each individual, you know the deal

6/10, it’s not bad but I’m not feeling it

Fidough

Dough pupper! Not the best design in the world, but it’s a dough pupper. It breathes yeast, people have kept them for ages, things ferment in it’s vicinity. Forget sourdough we have fidough bread around here.

7/10, bread pupper

Dachsbun

They baked the pupper. They made him into pretty shapes and braids and baked him. Don’t know that I love the design, but it’s still a good, well baked, pupper. Literally it’s got a new ability called Well-Baked Body that makes fire moves raise it’s defense stat rather than do damage. Apparently they smell delicious and farmers love them because their scent makes wheat grow better.

7.2/10, you walk into the field, everything smells like fresh bread, you eat double servings at lunch but damnit if the crop isn’t gonna come in great

Maschiff

This pupper does not look happy. Dark type, the Rascal Pokemon, and it literally looks like a kicked dog in this image. I want to protect it. It’s jaws can crush boulders, it’s thick fat makes it bulky, and though it tries to scowl to make fuckers take it seriously, nobody can take it seriously.

8/10, my pupper now

Mabosstiff

Oh gods this one looks like it’s gonna cry. The 3d models matter be happier, Gamefreak, or so help me! But yeah, it’s a big fluffy dog to go with the little, less fluffy dog that was Maschiff. The Boss Pokemon, new ability is called Guard Dog- attack raises if intimidated and it can’t be forced to switch out. It stores energy in it’s dewlap and uses it to blow away opponents. Is gentle and playful with children, but will go right on alert and become intimidating if it’s loved ones are threatened.

9/10, what is with this gen and good puppers? So many.

Bramblin

It’s a tumbleweed with two eyes just, floating in the hollow center. Normally pokemon at least has a dark void there but no, this is just like that. Love it. Tumbleweed Pokemon, grass/ghost type, new ability called Wind Rider- takes no damage from wind moves and when hit with them or Tailwind is active it’s attack is boosted. A soul that couldn’t move on got tangled in some dry grass and turned into this fucker, who doesn’t know where the wind is taking it anymore than the rest of us do. They don’t like getting wet.

7/10, like the way they did this one

Brambleghast

It’s got thorns now, and a more defined face in a sort’ve jack’o’lantern style. Gotta have Bramblin walk 100 steps in the overworld to get it, so that another of those. Found in arid regions, sometimes an outbreak gets large enough to bury a town in the bastards. Apparently they trap prey within themselves, drain it of life energy, and then just discard them when it’s done.

7/10, I think I’d prefer this to Cacturne, if I had to pick a carnivorous desert plant.

Gimmighoul

We know this bitch. The capitalism pokemon. Some sort’ve ant, dowsing rod, alien, capitalism gremlin. The chest version sometimes gets left in shop corners because it’s too well camouflaged as storage, were apparently born in these chests like 1500 years ago, and drain the life from people to try to rob them. The wandering version apparently was born when a coin went missing and the desire for it got so intense it generated a pokemon and started looking for it’s way home. They survive by draining life energy from people who try to rob them of their coin.

6/10, hate the design but damn if that’s not some lore

Gholdengo

A steel/ghost dual type, the Coin Entity Pokemon, fucker is literally a person made of stacks of coins. Also it’s got hair kinda sorta. And a belt it carries a tiny chest on. New ability is Good as Gold, which grants immunity to status moves used by other pokemon. You need to give 999 Gimmighoul coins to a Gimmighoul and it’ll evolve. It’s made up of a thousand coins, defends itself by flinging them at fuckers, and is very friendly.

7/10, you don’t quite have me but it’ll do

~~~

Such puppers this gen.

#scavio pokemon opinions

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mercurialbadger · 2 years

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Metabolic engineering of Green Dudes Part 2

The next article, by popular demand, covers the limonene synthesis.

When you search for ‘limonene biosynthesis‘ either in PubMed or in Google Scholar, the two articles that pop out first are a review on advances in production of limonene in a huge variety of organisms and a research article on prototyping metabolic pathways in vitro before putting them into the cell.

They are both kinda hard to read, even if they are good.

The other article showcases how even good journals sometimes publish things that would be more fitting into an advertising email than in a research journal. In this case, authors are pushing forward their neural network, while diminishing the importance of actual human ingenuity in these sorts of things.

So, for today’s journal club we chose this article for its elegant approach and important insights.

Engineering of cyanobacteria for the photosynthetic production of limonene from CO2

Let’s start with the abstract!

Isoprenoids, major secondary metabolites in many organisms, are utilized in various applications. We constructed a model photosynthetic production system for limonene, a volatile isoprenoid, using a unicellular cyanobacterium that expresses the plant limonene synthase. This system produces limonene photosynthetically at a nearly constant rate and that can be efficiently recovered using a gas-stripping method. This production does not affect the growth of the cyanobacteria and is markedly enhanced by overexpression of three enzymes in the intrinsic pathway to provide the precursor of limonene, geranyl pyrophosphate. The photosynthetic production of limonene in our system is more or less sustained from the linear to stationary phase of cyanobacterial growth for up to one month.

Writing is considerably worse here than in the previous article, so, like, the first sentence says basically nothing.

The second sentence tries to catch up as a result of this, and ends up rushed. They constructed model system for producing limonene in a photosynthetic bacterial system by using an enzyme found in plants.

spoiler: the photosynthetic bacterial system here is Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 again

limonene is a valuable compound actually! Known for giving pines and oranges their distinct flavour, it also found use in cleaning industry as a renewable solvent for removing highly hydrophobic dirt, machine oil and bad odor. Being a nearly saturated aliphatic (meaning that it has no aromatic nuclei) hydrocarbon, it also can be used as fuel.

The next sentence mostly repeats the previous points, except it offhandedly points to researchers making a gas-stripping device that continuously extracts limonene from the culture.

Now, we should note that limonene in plants is an antimicrobial and antifungal compound. Does it affect our microbial culture? The next sentence says ‘no’.

This lack of strain on cells is then demonstrated as the culture kept producing limonene for a month.

The main text is written slightly better, so it's going to be a bit easier.

So, let’s move to introduction.

Fun fact also, while limonene is a monoterpene, it is still of isoprenoid biosynthetic nature. All sterols, including steroid hormones, such as cortisol, testosterone or estradiol, are triterpenes, i.e. also isoprenoids! Meaning that they can be produced entirely within the isoprenoid pathway. However, aside from making them from petroleum, plant sources are very slow to grow. Marker degradation process, for example, one that revolutionized the steroid chemical synthesis and allowed HRT to even exist for both cis and trans people, uses yams as a plant material for example.

So, of course people tried to make them in the genetically engineered organisms. And of course they started from E. coli and yeast to do it, but, then again, heterotrophic organisms live by turning organic matter into CO2, making organic matter using them is not very rational.

So, they chose a cyanobacterium for it, and used the most studied one.

So, the results are written in a very dry way. Thus, it is imperative that we look at figures. This is a metabolic pathway.

You probably remember the G3P and pyruvate from the previous article, and you might remember that phytol and carotenoids are structural moieties in the light-harvesting systems of photosynthetic organisms. Specifically, phytol is a part of chlorophylls, and carotenoids are these super-active antioxidants that give carrots their color and allow you to see at all. So, like, everything from Calvin cycle (it's the CO2 fixation cycle) and the lower right corner has to occur in the chassis organism no matter what.

Calvin cycle is when you use the carbon you got by affixing it to the ribulose to make more ribulose to affix carbon to. It's literally it. It might be called after Some Guy, but it's nothing conceptually hard. Just moving carbons around like in those children's problems of "how do you measure 5 liters of water having only a 3-liter and 1-liter bucket?"

The arrow pointing to limonene starts at GPP, standing for geranyl pyrophosphate. GPP is made by combining two "activated isoprene" blocks (DMAPP and IPP) , hence the name "isoprenoids". Isoprene is an old name for a gas that you get if you decay natural rubber, which is also an isoprenoid. It has two double carbon-carbon bonds, so it can be 'activated' by pyrophosphate group in two ways as a result. Limonene synthase is a 'magic enzyme' here, which takes the intermediate product of what is called 'primary metabolism' (you will die a lot if you do not do it) into a 'secondary metabolite' (everything else).

Well, Figure 2 is a biologist's version of those "this is going to be so tasty!!!" pictures on the culinary blogs where they post the gray dough in the least appetizing light spread thin on the ugliest dish in existence.

Of note: Cm^R and Km^R signify cassetes of antibiotic resistance to chloramphenicol and kanamycin. They can be used as selective markers, letting the strain that has it survive in the presence of said antibiotic.

Ptrc is a trc promoter. It is strong, making lots of protein. And constitutive, meaning it works always.

6xHis-tag is. Hm, it's a bit of satanic magic actually. If you put six pentagram-like amino acids (protein constituents) in a row, they will be able to bind nickel or cobalt ions, both named after demons (Nick and kobold respectively).

The second colorful sausage shows that they also expressed a cassete of usual isoprenoid pathway enzymes under a strong promoter, but like. It doesn't matter, just as insertion sites (blue arrows on a string) do not really matter. Now, for the black and white part of the figure. The pic labeled (B) is "PCR analysis of the integration of the limonene synthase using the primers 2031-9 and 2031-12". Which means that they amplified using Polymerase Chain Reaction a select part of the bacterial genome, which should contain their insert, and this part became bigger after the insertion, confirming that the insertion really happened. In the pic labeled (C) they confirm that their insert makes protein and that this protein is not immediately degraded by the cell. Pic labeled (D) sucks ass, so I am not commenting on it. So, now we know that their construction makes protein in Synechocystis, but is this protein functional?

I have absolutely no idea why they didn't put this result into the previous figure. They basically just show that an ion of the weight of limonene appears at the retention time of limonene, and is absent in the wild type strain. Whatever.

But there are many other ions here! How do we isolate limonene from this mess? And they solve it very elegantly, but also completely undersell the ingenuity of the approach. Air that we breathe is actually not very polar. Oxygen and nitrogen are monoelemental gases, carbon dioxide is perfectly symmetrical, argon is a noble gas. This means that the non-polar compounds like limonene actually would prefer to be in the air than in the water solution!

So the authors connect the air output of the culture to the cold trap (cold trap is a vessel on the path of gas that is cold and traps wanted/unwanted things by being too cold for them to be in gaseous phase) filled with octane. And all the limonene goes to the cold trap and does not poison the algae. This is genius, but also they really tried to make it look the worst way possible.

Hip Dadaist(@hypdadaist) — WHY ARE SCIENCE PAPERS LIKE THIS???

You take the stupidest and the craziest people that can still be functional, put them into an underfunded institution on the diet of deadlines, and pay them on the basis of how much papers they write. I am actually surprized that we as civilization lasted that long since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The other two figures are basically "number go up", so commenting on them seems pointless.

Discussion also sucks, aside from the calculation that they used 2.5% of cell isoprenoid synthesis by sloppily putting an unmodified enzyme under the "eh, it's going to be fine anyway" promoter. The coding sequence for the enzyme was isolated from the backyard japanese catnip their lab neighbor studied.

This is really cool because of THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES, but also it seems like authors despaired at some point.

Like, there is probably some science fan out in the wild that will be like "you can make saturated hydrocarbons in your backyard with just sun, air and fertilizer????" and there are scientists that are like, "yeah, yeah, the clean energy ready to go whenever, we've all seen it".

That’s it for now!

Questions?

#science #molecular biology #metabolic engineering #dual power #sustainability

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 2 years

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Microbial survivability of ionizing radiation on Mars As the goals of Mars exploration expand to include sample return, it becomes important to protect Earth from potential extraterrestrial sources of contamination. Likewise, it is important to avoid mistaking Earth life for indigenous life brought back from Mars. In a new study, scientists examine the effects of desiccation and freezing on microbial ionizing radiation survivability on Mars. The study is published in the peer-reviewed journal Astrobiology. Corresponding author Michael Daly, PhD, from the School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and colleagues sought to better understand the impact of the martian surface on microbial dormancy and survivability. Mimicking the conditions on Mars, they tested the influence of desiccation and freezing on the ionizing radiation survival of six model microorganisms: vegetative cells of two bacteria, a strain of yeast, and vegetative cells and endospores of three Bacillus bacteria. The investigators found that desiccation and freezing increased radiation survival of vegetative microorganisms. “We report that desiccated and frozen cells of the bacterium D. radiodurans can survive astonishing ionizing radiation,” stated the investigators, “exposures equivalent to hundreds of millions of years of background radiation on Mars.” The investigators concluded that “if martian life ever existed, even if viable lifeforms are not now present on Mars, given that whole viable D. radiodurans cells can survive the equivalent of 280 million years in the frozen martian subsurface, then their macromolecules would survive much, much longer. This strengthens the probability that, if life ever evolved on Mars, this will be revealed in future missions.” Astrobiology Editorial Board Member, John Rummel, noted that “the work put forward by Michael Daley and his colleagues represents a comprehensive look at the interactions between desiccation, freezing, and radiation survivability in one of our most tenacious microbes, Deinococcus radiodurans. The potential for D. radiodurans or other Earth microbes to survive present-day conditions on Mars draws attention to the need for a complex analysis regarding the very real possibility of Earth microbes contaminating specific landing sites on Mars, and even some of them—as qualified martian survivors—showing up in our studies after a ride home to Earth in a sample returned from Mars.”

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #astrobiology

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