BLUE-green bugs could help save forests by replacing wood as a source of
paper. Researchers have shown for the first time that the photosynthetic
cyanobacteria can make cellulose.
Paper and cotton consist mainly of cellulose, a polymer made of strings of
glucose molecules that reinforces the cell walls of plants. But wood isn’t an
ideal source of cellulose because it contains impurities such as lignin, which
have to be removed. And while cotton is a purer source, it also contains
impurities that are expensive to remove.
So Malcolm Brown and David Nobles at the University of Texas in Austin have…
