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Power

Cheaper Fuel From Self-Destructing Trees 112

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Wood is great for building and heating homes, but it's the bane of biofuels. When converting plants to fuels, engineers must remove a key component of wood, known as lignin, to get to the sugary cellulose that's fermented into alcohols and other energy-rich compounds. That's costly because it normally requires high temperatures and caustic chemicals. Now, researchers in the United States and Canada have modified the lignin in poplar trees to self-destruct under mild processing conditions—a trick that could slash the cost of turning plant biomass into biofuels."

Comment Re:Misleading Summary; Less than exhaustive resear (Score 1) 459

The point is, none of the funding bodies wants to pay the extremely large sums required for *real* nutritional science, so researchers make do with lots of observational studies and a lot of data massaging that will get treated as SCIENCE by an uncritical and generally scientifically-illiterate press, and by not rocking the boat by coming out with articles that challenge the status quo, they're able to continue to receive funding.

Comment Re:Organic vs processed (toxic) sugar. (Score 2, Informative) 1017

Please bear in mind that HFCS (in mainstream use) is either 55% Fructose/42% Glucose (used mainly in drinks) or 42% Fructose/53% Glucose (typically used in food and baked goods). Table sugar consists of Sucrose, which when absorbed by the body breaks down into 50% Fructose/50% Glucose. Any difference between the two is a matter of marketing.

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