doe idaho

Enzyme could overcome industrial bleaching waste problems

Taken from a microbe that thrives in the depths of a Yellowstone National Park hot springs pool, a newly discovered enzyme may be the key to transforming industrial bleaching from environmentally problematic to environmentally green. Chemical engineer Vicki Thompson and biologists William Apel and Kastli Schaller from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory discovered that the catalase enzyme from a Thermus brockianus microbe flourishes in both a high temperature and high pH (basic or alkaline) environment.

Gov't researchers discover new life in deep ocean floor

In a modern-day odyssey of exploration, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory endured grueling shifts on remote ocean drill rigs to get frozen cores of mud. Then came painstaking lab work, analyzing the microbial inhabitants of the deep seafloor sediment. The reward: discovering new life and gaining new insight into the microscopic creators of the largest frozen methane pools on the planet.