way 0000190.99 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Escherichia coli (E. coli) can give you a severe case of food poisoning or, with a little genetic engineering, a useful plastic. Scientists at San Diego–based Genomatica, Inc., have announced success in manipulating the bacteria to directly produce butanediol (BDO), a chemical compound used to make everything from spandex to car bumpers, thereby providing a more energy-efficient way of making it without oil or natural gas. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

"We have engineered the organism such that it has to secrete that product in order for it to grow," says bioengineer Christophe Schilling, president and co-founder of the company, launched in 2000 to develop such chemical-producing microbes. "The interests of the organism are aligned with our interests: It grows faster when it produces more."

The E. coli can be grown in large fermentation tanks, exactly like those used to brew ethanol from corn, and have also been genetically tweaked to tolerate high concentrations of BDO in their water. "Originally, BDO was toxic to E. coli at fairly low levels but we evolved the organism such that it now tolerates the concentration we need it to grow at," Schilling says. "We grow the bacteria in sugar and water to produce the product, then purify and separate that product out of that water."

Schilling and his colleagues are attempting to produce BDO first precisely because current methods of making it require are so energy-intensive. "You need some significant energy," says chemist Herbert Exner, an executive in charge of producing BDO and other chemicals in the U.S. at Germany-based chemical giant BASF, one of the largest BDO manufacturers in the world.

In addition, BDO itself is getting more expensive, rising from below $1 to around $1.22 per pound for bulk orders, Exner says. "Natural gas and oil peaked in the last 12 months and all processes are either gas or oil related," he says. "Therefore, by nature, the raw material costs went up, so also the prices for BDO went up."

Cost will be the ultimate factor in whether this someday becomes a widely used plastic-making process; Genomatica says it's not sure how much its E. coli–produced BDO will cost, noting that results thus far have been confined to the lab.

But the company calculates that their process (even including all the energy needed to gather and transport the raw feedstocks, ranging from sugar to cellulose) requires only 32,000 British thermal units (Btus) of energy, at least 30 percent less than traditional methods. CEO Christopher Gann says the company plans to use "inexpensive, readily available, nonfood-competing renewable feedstocks." Then the E. coli can turn these waste sugars into BDO at normal pressure and temperatures under 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), unlike the petroleum alternatives.

"This isn't an aberration where we need $250 per barrel oil to be cost competitive," Gann adds. He says the researchers so far have produced less than two pounds (a kilogram) of BDO; he expects a pilot plant to be up and running next year.

"Natural gas or oil are materials that could one day be gone," BASF's Exner says. But "major industries, such as auto manufacturers are not willing to pay a significantly higher price just because you gave your product a bio-label."

Given that three billion pounds (1.4 billion kilograms) of BDO are produced annually relatively cheaply, Genomatica has a long way to go. But the company suggests that its genetically engineered E. coli may prove a more sustainable way of producing a range of necessary plastic compounds in the future.

"We selected BDO to start with because it's a product that is relatively sophisticated in the sense of the number of steps to make it starting from oil and gas," Gann says. "In our case, we start with land and water and sunshine to end up with sugar in water to produce BDO. The important competitive advantage is less energy and a much friendlier environmental footprint." Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

treatment

Schizophrenia's characteristic symptoms, such as confused thinking, disrupted emotions,

and social withdrawal, wreak havoc on many people. This severe mental disorder usually first

appears in young adults, abruptly derailing their lives and those of their families. Moreover, it

typically takes 1 to 2 years to get mental-health treatment after schizophrenia's emergence.

There's a bit of encouraging news, though. Contrary to the suspicions of some researchers,

treatment delays for schizophrenia don't foster brain damage that intensifies symptoms and

renders antipsychotic medications less effective, according to two studies in the November

American Journal of Psychiatry.

Still, those young people who receive appropriate treatment within a few months of developing

schizophrenia stand the best chance of recovering, comments psychiatrist Jeffrey A.

Lieberman of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill.

"Apart from the frightening prospect of permanent brain damage, there are other compelling

reasons for making the early detection and treatment of psychosis a public health priority

—first and foremost, the fact that untreated psychosis damages lives," Lieberman and

Wayne S. Fenton of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., remark in a commentary

in the same journal.

Both new investigations examine young adults who were hospitalized and given initial

antipsychotic medication at various points after they developed their first schizophrenia

symptoms.

In the first study, a research team led by psychologist Anne L. Hoff of the State University

of New York at Stony Brook interviewed 50 patients hospitalized after a first episode of schizophrenia

or a related psychotic disorder. Experimenters also interviewed a close family member

of each participant.

Interviews and previous medical records enabled the researchers to identify 35 volunteers

who had endured 1 year or more of untreated psychosis.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans showed that, compared with 20 adults who had no

psychiatric ailments, patients with psychotic disorders exhibit a lower brain volume and larger

fluid-filled spaces in the brain. The patients also scored lower on tests of language, memory,

concentration, and sensory perception.

However, these deficits weren't worse in patients who had experienced treatment delays of

at least 1 year, the scientists say. Also, patients showed comparable responses to antipsychotic

drugs, regardless of treatment delays.

The second study, directed by psychiatrist Dominic Fannon of the Institute of Psychiatry in

London, focused on 37 patients hospitalized after a first episode of schizophrenia or a related

psychotic disorder and 25 adults with no psychiatric condition. Again, patients showed lower

brain volume and larger fluid-filled spaces on MRI scans, with no differences between those

who began treatment either a few months or more than 1 year after an initial period of psychosis.

A decisive test of the possibility that untreated schizophrenia causes brain damage needs

to evaluate the same individuals before and after they develop schizophrenia, note Lieberman

and Fenton. Many factors, including stigma about mental illness and lack of recognition of psychosis

by the patient, contribute to treatment delays, they say. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Anthropologist

During the heart of the Stone Age, from 1.7 million to 400,000 years ago, populations of our ancient ancestors in Africa, Asia, and Europe often served as brief evolutionary experiments, with most dying out before they established themselves as truly distinct species. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

At least that's the implication of a peculiar fossil skull unearthed in eastern Africa last summer, according to its discoverers. The roughly 930,000-year-old cranium exhibits some features of Homo erectus as well as unique traits, say anthropologist Richard Potts of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and his colleagues. They describe the new find in the July 2 Science.

Stone Age specimens possessing the full anatomical signature of H. erectus exist only in China and Indonesia, in Potts' view. Variations on that skeletal theme at the African site and elsewhere arose from "short evolutionary experiments in small and fairly isolated populations that may have gone extinct as incipient species," he argues. An incipient species is an isolated group of animals presumed to be in the early stages of evolving into a new species.

In contrast, many researchers suspect that three or more full-fledged species of human ancestors coexisted with H. erectus (SN: 5/3/03, p. 275: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030503/fob1.asp).

The new specimen, assembled from 11 cranial pieces, was discovered at Kenya's Olorgesailie site. Olorgesailie has yielded many stone hand axes but few remains of human ancestors.

The skull's estimated age derives from its position above a previously dated layer of volcanic rock and below a soil layer containing evidence of a reversal in Earth's magnetic field known to take place more than 700,000 years ago.

The Olorgesailie fossil displays some features of typical H. erectus crania, which are long and thick walled. However, even if the fossil turns out to be from a female, it's an unusually small skull for a human ancestor from that time, Potts says. The specimen's cranial capacity is considerably smaller than that of most H. erectus finds. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

The new fossil exhibits other curious traits, such as a thin ridge of bone above the eye sockets rather than the pronounced bony crest associated with H. erectus.

Considerable body-size differences must have characterized Olorgesailie's ancient inhabitants, Potts holds. Only adults much larger than the newly discovered fossil individual could have struck pieces of rock from nearby outcrops to make tools. Skeletal development may have diverged in various ways for small and large individuals, contributing to the population's anatomical diversity, Potts theorizes.

Anthropologist Jeffrey H. Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh welcomes the new find but still holds that a wide range of ancestral human species existed during the Stone Age. He regards only skulls previously found at two sites on Java as H. erectus. Other fossils found in Asia and Africa and sometimes attributed to H. erectus actually fall into two other anatomical groups that probably represent separate species, he holds.

The Olorgesailie skull's evolutionary identity remains unknown, Schwartz adds.http://louis-j-sheehan.com