Conversion of Lignocellulosic Biomass Into Valuable Feed for Ruminants Using White Rot Fungi.

White rot fungi can degrade lignin and improve the nutritional value of highly lignified biomass for ruminants. We screened for excellent fungi-biomass combinations by investigating the improvement of digestibility of wheat straw, barley straw, oat straw, rapeseed straw, miscanthus, new reed, spent reed from thatched roofs, and cocoa shells after colonisation by Ceriporiopsis subvermispora (CS), Lentinula edodes (LE), and Pleurotus eryngii (PE) (indicated by increased in vitro gas production [IVGP]). First, growth was evaluated for three fungi on all types of biomass, over a period of 17 days in race tubes.

Photonic Quantum State Tomography Using Free Electrons.

The tomography of photonic quantum states is key in quantum optics, impacting quantum sensing, computing, and communication. Conventional detectors are limited in their temporal and spatial resolution, hampering high-rate quantum communication and local addressing of photonic circuits. Here, we propose to utilize free electron-photon interactions for quantum state tomography, introducing electron homodyne detection with potential for femtosecond-temporal and nanometer-spatial resolutions.

Intraspecies Variation Offers Potential to Improve White Rot Fungi for Increasing Degradability of Lignocellulose for Ruminants.

The aim of fungal treatment of organic matter for ruminants is the improvement of its degradability. So far, such treatment appears to be time-consuming and improvement has been modest. In previous work, we observed within three white rot species that there is modest () or low ( and ) variation in fiber degradation in wheat straw during seven weeks of incubation.

Essential genes encoded by the mating-type locus of the human fungal pathogen .

Fungal sexual reproduction is controlled by the mating-type () locus. In contrast to a majority of species in the phylum Basidiomycota that have tetrapolar mating-type systems, the opportunistic human pathogen employs a bipolar mating-type system, with two mating types ( and α) determined by a single locus that is unusually large (~120 kb) and contains more than 20 genes. While several genes are associated with mating and sexual development, others control conserved cellular processes (e.