Quantum Science Center summer school draws record attendance
Award-winning geneticist Liane Russell has written a history of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's fabled Mouse House, where she and husband William led a research program that charted significant advances in the field of mammalian genetics and mutagenesis.
The generation of bioethanol from lignocellulosic biomass holds great promise for renewable and clean energy production. However, this type of biomass is a complex, composite biological material that shows significant recalcitrance to enzymatic breakdown into sugars that can be used for fermentation, currently making it cost-ineffective as an ethanol source. The present research provides insight into the consequences of dilute acid pretreatment of biomass through direct observation by small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) of structural features in cellulose extracted from switchgrass over length scales from 10 to 6000 Å.