Pop quiz: Frogs are good for making (choose one): (A) Handsome princes, (B) Muppets
(C)Biofuel. The answer, according to a University of Cincinnati research team, is (C). Sorry, Kermit.
The Cincinnati team used plant, bacterial, and fungal enzymes to make a special foam � like that made by the semi-tropical Tungara frog to develop tadpoles � to produce sugars from sunlight and carbon dioxide. Those sugars can be converted to ethanol.
This procedure may trump plant photosynthesis to create sugars because it uses no soil, and it can be used in highly enriched carbon dioxide environments.
The journal Nano Letters published these findings of UC College of Engineering and Applied Science Dean Carlo Montemagno, Research Assistant Professor David Wendell and student Jacob Todd online last month and plans to use it for a cover story this fall.
Other media attention is starting to steamroll. The research also has been featured on HeatingOil.com, PhysOrg.com and BioFuels Watch.com, to name a few.
Science blogger David Bois, writing on Tonic, called it "a breakthrough."
"The innovation, astonishingly, appears to be even more efficient than nature itself, at least in terms of the amount of solar energy going in compared to the amount of energy contained by the output hydrocarbons. . . . Actual plants are required to expend energy for reproduction and survival. The lab creation doesn't have such requirements, and accordingly can put all of the incoming solar energy work into making hydrocarbons."
Maybe it's easy being green after all.
Source: Wendy Beckman, University of Cincinnati
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs