Science news of the day thread.

[rainbow]

...

For the terminally curious...

For the worminally curious....

...wait for the next segment.

[JimC]

...except nematodes are not segmented...

[Tero]

[Tero]

diabetes 1
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/w ... tem-cells/

[Brian Peacock]

They said getting the chemistry just right was a bit of headache, but...

Everyday painkiller made from plastic — by E. coli

Study highlights potential for sustainable synthesis of paracetamol

A common bacterium can be adapted to convert plastic waste into paracetamol, a study published this week in Nature Chemistry reports.

Paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, is widely used to treat pain and fever. It is produced from molecules derived from fossil fuels, but researchers are working to develop processes that use more sustainable source molecules, such as plastic waste.

“We’re able to transform a prolific environmental and societal waste into such a globally important medication in a way that’s completely impossible using chemistry alone or using biology alone,” says co-author Stephen Wallace, a chemical biotechnologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Central to the project’s success was the discovery by Wallace and his team that a synthetic chemical reaction that typically requires conditions that are toxic to cells can occur in their presence. The reaction, called the Lossen rearrangement, has been known for more than a century, but had previously been observed only in a test tube or a flask, says Wallace...

Read the paper here.