Water shortages in near future...

Water shortages in Asia near 2050...

Economic and population growth on top of climate change could lead to serious water shortages across a broad swath of Asia by the year 2050, a newly published study by MIT scientists has found.

Sources:

Water problems in Asia’s future? | MIT News

Understanding the basic principles of life...

The simplest form of live has been developed inside a laboratory and has only 473 genes...

Not all the 'code' used is already understood...

... Improved transposon mutagenesis methods revealed a class of quasi-essential genes that are needed for robust growth, explaining the failure of our initial design. Three cycles of design, synthesis, and testing, with retention of quasi-essential genes, produced JCVI-syn3.0 (531 kilobase pairs, 473 genes), which has a genome smaller than that of any autonomously replicating cell found in nature. JCVI-syn3.0 retains almost all genes involved in the synthesis and processing of macromolecules. Unexpectedly, it also contains 149 genes with unknown biological functions. JCVI-syn3.0 is a versatile platform for investigating the core functions of life and for exploring whole-genome design.

Sources:

Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome | Science

Bacteria 'eats' plastic

The plastic is one of the new materials that humans use extensively worldwide... Is no really 'compatible' with nature but there is a 'bacteria' (Ideonella Sakaiensis) that seems to put this new material into the biodegradation scheme...

It could be a viable remediation or recycling strategy.

Bacteria isolated from outside a bottle-recycling facility can break down and metabolize plastic. The proliferation of plastics in consumer products, from bottles to clothing, has resulted in the release of countless tons of plastics into the environment.

Sources:

A bacterium that degrades and assimilates poly(ethylene terephthalate) | Science