A generally accepted, 44-year-old assumption about how certain kinds of bacteria make energy and synthesize cell materials has been shown to be incorrect by a team of scientists led by Donald Bryant, the Ernest C. Pollard Professor of Biotechnology at Penn State and a research professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Montana State University. The research, published in the journal Science on Dec. 16, is expected to help scientists discover new ways of genetically engineering bacteria to manufacture biofuels -- energy-rich compounds derived from biological sources. Many textbooks, which cite the 44-year-old interpretation as fact, likely will be revised as a result of the new discovery.

A forest products researcher in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is playing a role in a national effort to gauge the viability of wood and wood waste as feedstocks for jet fuel and other high-value co-products. As part of a multi-institutional consortium, Paul Smith, professor of forest products marketing at Penn State, will lead a group that will quantify environmental and social values and determine how those values influence purchasing decisions for biofuel-based products. "This is an exciting opportunity to work with a world-class team of industrial, academic and government researchers to address one of society's most pressing challenges," said Smith, who before coming to Penn State worked for five years as an industrial forester in Colorado and Montana, and for two years as operations manager for a wood products export-trading company in the Pacific Northwest.

A software program developed by a Penn State synthetic biologist could provide biotechnology companies with genetic plans to help them turn bacteria into molecular factories, capable of producing everything from biofuels to medicine.

A series of presentations about bioenergy, offered by Penn State's Biomass Energy Center from March through November, will cover the latest technology and the best ideas in this rapidly changing field.

Ramping up biofuels production to replace fossil fuels and provide a significant portion of the nation's energy will require nothing short of a transformation of the U.S. agricultural, transportation and energy sectors in the next few decades, according to a bioenergy expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

In their continuing effort to evaluate crops that can serve as biofuel feedstocks as well as cover crops (and that can fit into crop rotations in Pennsylvania and the Northeast) researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences have found that forage sorghum holds potential for producers in the region. Forage sorghum has intrigued agricultural scientists for some time, according to Glen Cauffman, manager of farm operations and facilities at Penn State, who oversaw a recent investigation of the plant on University fields.