ScienceDaily: Producing fuels from plants and other renewable sources requires breaking down the chemical cellulose; a major candidate to drive, or catalyze, this stubborn chemical is a ubiquitous microorganism called Clostridium thermocellum that works well in hot environments without oxygen. Researchers found that C. thermocellum uses a previously unknown mechanism to degrade cellulose, in addition to other known degradation mechanisms.
This discovery helps explain C. thermocellum's superior ability to digest...