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Biobased Economy
Biobased economy, bioeconomy or biotechonomy is economic activity involving the use of biotechnology and biomass in the production of goods, services, or energy. The terms are widely used by regional development agencies, national and international organizations, and biotechnology companies. They are closely linked to the evolution of the biotechnology industry and the capacity to study, understand, and manipulate genetic material that has been possible due to scientific research and technological development. This includes the application of scientific and technological developments to agriculture, health, chemical, and energy industries. The terms bioeconomy (BE) and bio-based economy (BBE) are sometimes used interchangeably. However, it is worth to distinguish them: the biobased economy takes into consideration the production of non-food goods, whilst bioeconomy covers both bio-based economy and the production and use of food and feed. More than 60 countries and regions have bioec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used by Károly Ereky in 1919, meaning the production of products from raw materials with the aid of living organisms. Definition The concept of biotechnology encompasses a wide range of procedures for modifying living organisms according to human purposes, going back to domestication of animals, cultivation of the plants, and "improvements" to these through breeding programs that employ artificial selection and hybridization. Modern usage also includes genetic engineering as well as cell and tissue culture technologies. The American Chemical Society defines biotechnology as the application of biological organisms, systems, or processes by various industries to learning about the science of life and the improvement of the value of materials ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Presidency Of Barack Obama
Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Four years later, in the 2012 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney to win re-election. Obama is the first African American president, the first multiracial president, the first non-white president, and the first president born in Hawaii. Obama's accomplishments during the first 100 days of his presidency included signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 relaxing the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits; signing into law the expanded State Children's Health Insurance Program(S-CHIP); winning approval of a congressional budget resolution that put Congress on record as dedicated to dealing with major health care reform legislation in 2009; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forestry
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. The science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences. Forest management play essential role of creation and modification of habitats and affect ecosystem services provisioning. Modern forestry generally embraces a broad range of concerns, in what is known as multiple-use management, including: the provision of timber, fuel wood, wildlife habitat, natural water quality management, recreation, landscape and community protection, employment, aesthetically appealing landscapes, biodiversity management, watershed management, erosion control, and preserving forests as " sinks" for atmospheric carbon dioxide. Forest ecosystems have come to be seen as the most important componen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. The history of agriculture began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture in the twentieth century came to dominate agricultural output, though about 2 billion people still depended on subsistence agriculture. The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials (such as rubber). Food classes include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, cooking oils, meat, milk, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetically Modified Organism
A genetically modified organism (GMO) is any organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. The exact definition of a genetically modified organism and what constitutes genetic engineering varies, with the most common being an organism altered in a way that "does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination". A wide variety of organisms have been genetically modified (GM), from animals to plants and microorganisms. Genes have been transferred within the same species, across species (creating transgenic organisms), and even across kingdoms. New genes can be introduced, or endogenous genes can be enhanced, altered, or knocked out. Creating a genetically modified organism is a multi-step process. Genetic engineers must isolate the gene they wish to insert into the host organism and combine it with other genetic elements, including a promoter and terminator region and often a selectable marker. A number of techniques are a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energy Crops
Energy crops are low-cost and low-maintenance crops grown solely for energy production by combustion (not for food). The crops are processed into solid, liquid or gaseous fuels, such as pellets, bioethanol or biogas. The fuels are burned to generate electrical power or heat. The plants are generally categorized as woody or herbaceous. Woody plants include willow and poplar, herbaceous plants include '' Miscanthus x giganteus'' and ''Pennisetum purpureum'' (both known as elephant grass). Herbaceous crops, while physically smaller than trees, store roughly twice the amount of CO2 (in the form of carbon) below ground compared to woody crops. Through biotechnological procedures such as genetic modification, plants can be manipulated to create higher yields. Relatively high yields can also be realized with existing cultivars. However, some additional advantages such as reduced associated costs (i.e. costs during the manufacturing process) and less water use can only be accomplis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mealworm
Mealworms are the larval form of the yellow mealworm beetle, ''Tenebrio molitor'', a species of darkling beetle. Like all holometabolic insects, they go through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Larvae typically measure about or more, whereas adults are generally between in length. Reproduction The mealworm beetle breeds prolifically. Males insert sperm packets with their aedeagus. Within a few days the female burrows into soft ground and lays eggs. Over her lifespan, a female will, on average, lay about 500 eggs. After 4 to 19 days the eggs hatch. During the larval stage, the mealworms feed on vegetation and dead insects and molt between each larval stage, or instar (9 to 20 instars). After the final molt, they pupate. The new pupa is whitish and turns brown over time. After 3 to 30 days, depending on environmental conditions such as temperature, it emerges as an adult beetle. Sex pheromones A sex pheromone released by male mealworms has been identified. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ideonella Sakaiensis
''Ideonella sakaiensis'' is a bacterium from the genus'' Ideonella'' and family Comamonadaceae capable of breaking down and consuming the plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) using it as both a carbon and energy source. The bacterium was originally isolated from a sediment sample taken outside of a plastic bottle recycling facility in Sakai City, Japan. * Discovery ''Ideonella sakaiensis'' was first identified in 2016 by a team of researchers led by Kohei Oda of Kyoto Institute of Technology and Kenji Miyamoto of Keio University after collecting a sample of PET-contaminated sediment at a plastic bottle recycling facility in Sakai, Japan. The bacteria was first isolated from a consortium of microorganisms in the sediment sample, which included protozoa and yeast-like cells. The entire microbial community was shown to mineralize 75% of the degraded PET into carbon dioxide once it had been initially degraded and assimilated by ''Ideonella sakaiensis''. Characterization Phys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carbon-neutral Fuel
Carbon-neutral fuel is fuel which produces no net-greenhouse gas emissions or carbon footprint. In practice, this usually means fuels that are made using carbon dioxide (CO2) as a feedstock. Proposed carbon-neutral fuels can broadly be grouped into synthetic fuels, which are made by chemically hydrogenating carbon dioxide, and biofuels, which are produced using natural CO2-consuming processes like photosynthesis. The carbon dioxide used to make synthetic fuels may be directly captured from the air, recycled from power plant flue exhaust gas or derived from carbonic acid in seawater. Common examples of synthetic fuels include ammonia and methane, although more complex hydrocarbons such as gasoline and jet fuel have also been successfully synthesized artificially. In addition to being carbon neutral, such renewable fuels can alleviate the costs and dependency issues of imported fossil fuels without requiring either electrification of the vehicle fleet or conversion to hydrogen o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biofuel
Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), biofuels are mostly used for transportation, but can also be used for heating and electricity. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricultural, domestic or industrial biowaste. The greenhouse gas mitigation potential of biofuel varies considerably, from emission levels comparable to fossil fuels in some scenarios to negative emissions in others. See the biomass article for more on this particular subject. The two most common types of biofuel are bioethanol and biodiesel. The U.S. is the largest producer of bioethanol, while the EU is the largest producer of biodiesel. The energy content in the global production of bioethanol and biodiesel is 2.2 and 1.8 EJ per year, respectively. * Bioethanol is an alcohol made by fermen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double sugars, are molecules made of two bonded monosaccharides; common examples are sucrose (glucose + fructose), lactose (glucose + galactose), and maltose (two molecules of glucose). White sugar is a refined form of sucrose. In the body, compound sugars are hydrolysed into simple sugars. Longer chains of monosaccharides (>2) are not regarded as sugars, and are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Starch is a glucose polymer found in plants, the most abundant source of energy in human food. Some other chemical substances, such as glycerol and sugar alcohols, may have a sweet taste, but are not classified as sugar. Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants. Honey and fruits are abundant natural sources of simple sugars. Suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bioplastic
Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, etc. Some bioplastics are obtained by processing directly from natural biopolymers including polysaccharides (e.g. starch, cellulose, chitosan and alginate) and proteins (e.g. soy protein, gluten and gelatin), while others are chemically synthesised from sugar derivatives (e.g. lactic acid) and lipids (oils and fats) from either plants or animals, or biologically generated by fermentation of sugars or lipids. In contrast, common plastics, such as fossil-fuel plastics (also called petro-based polymers) are derived from petroleum or natural gas. One advantage of bioplastics is their independence from fossil fuel as a raw material, which is a finite and globally unevenly distributed resource linked to petroleum politics and environmental impacts. Life cycle analysis studies show that some bioplastics can b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
