WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Researchers have genetically engineered one of the most common bacteria on the planet — E. coli — to digest simple sugars from plant waste and turn it into valuable biofuel.

They said their study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the first demonstration of a one-step conversion of a renewable nonfood plant to fuel.

The technology could lead to low-cost, low-carbon, high-performance renewable fuels, researcher Stephen del Cardayre said in a telephone interview.

"We looked at the ideal feedstock, which is biomass, and then looked at the product we wanted to make, which is diesel, then we engineered this E.coli to contain the genes that catalyzed all of the chemical reactions required to convert that feedstock into that fuel," del Cardayre said.

"It’s a one-step process, so there’s no need to have to do two or three buckets of chemistry," he said. "You put in your feedstock, the bug converts it to fuel, which is an oil that you can just scrape off the top."

Del Cardayre of privately held industrial biotechnology firm LS9 worked in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The work represents the next step forward in biofuel technology developed by the South San Francisco-based company.

Biofuels, made from plants and animal fat, are alternatives to petroleum-based fuels.

Energy Secretary Stephen Chu highlighted the research in remarks to a Capitol Hill forum on clean energy, jobs and security.

"The bacteria we find in our guts, E.coli, they’ve taken and reprogrammed (with) simple sugars and made diesel," Chu said.

Chu said he was interested enough in the research to e-mail the article’s authors and ask how soon the fuel might be available. He said they responded, "We’ll know in two years."

Del Cardayre said his company expects to begin commercial production over the next two years in Brazil, where there is an abundant crop of cheap sugar cane juice that could be converted to diesel.

Canada, which has invested heavily in the biofuel industry as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has ordered a study of the environmental impact of making biofuel.

A Canadian Environment Ministry document said there is evidence that biofuel production facilities in the U.S. and Brazil may be responsible for a range of new air and water problems.

(Additional Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko, Editing by Sandra Maler)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. teen pregnancy rate rose in 2006 for the first time in more than a decade, reversing a long slide, a U.S. think tank reported on Tuesday.

The overall teen pregnancy rate was up 3 percent in 2006, with a 4 percent rise in the rate of births and a 1 percent rise in the rate of abortions, according to the report by the Guttmacher Institute.

WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. teen pregnancy rate
rose in 2006 for the first time in more than a decade,
reversing a long slide, a U.S. think tank reported on Tuesday.

The overall teen pregnancy rate was up 3 percent in 2006,
with a 4 percent rise in the rate of births and a 1 percent
rise in the rate of abortions, according to the report by the
Guttmacher Institute.

WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (Reuters) – The sell-off of the federal strategic helium reserve has driven up demand for the vital element and poses a threat to the supply that researchers need, a panel of U.S. experts reported on Friday.

The report by the National Academy of Sciences recommends that Congress consider maintaining a reserve of the element crucial in research, space, medical and defense programs.

"The committee finds that selling off the helium reserve … has adversely affected critical users of helium and is not in the best interest of the U.S. taxpayers or the country," the report said.

Congress in 1996 ordered the government to get out of the helium reserve business and sell it off to private industry as compensation for the government’s investment in the reserve, created in the 1920s. The law also called for evaluation by the National Academies to determine whether the sell-off hindered the work of U.S. researchers.

Charles Groat of the University of Texas at Austin, who was committee co-chairman, said researchers were "very uncomfortable" about the prospect of having to get helium from Russia or the Middle East once the U.S. supply is depleted.

Groat said helium was an essential commodity that taxpayers depend on daily yet know little about.

"To most people, helium is party balloons and the Goodyear blimp," he said in a telephone interview.

"Essentially every medical doctor and every medical lab that deals with injuries and stuff has an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). MRIs have to have helium," said Groat.

"NASA can’t fly its rockets without helium because it’s used in cleaning the fuel tanks," he added.

The report said that "small-scale government-funded researchers who use helium have been hit particularly hard by sharp price rises and shortages that have characterized the helium market in recent times."

The United States has about 18 billion cubic feet of the colorless, odorless element, a byproduct of collecting natural gas, stored in a facility near Amarillo, Texas, Groat said.

The strategic reserve was started when the government needed a ready supply of helium to fuel airships in a crisis and was bolstered during the Cold War.

While helium is the second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen, it is rare on Earth and generated by the decay of heavy radioactive elements such as uranium. (Editing by Maggie Fox and Peter Cooney)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The sell-off of the federal strategic helium reserve has driven up demand for the vital element and poses a threat to the supply that researchers need, a panel of U.S. experts reported on Friday.

The report by the National Academy of Sciences recommends that Congress consider maintaining a reserve of the element crucial in research, space, medical and defense programs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One in five American teens has unhealthy cholesterol levels, a major risk factor for heart disease in adults, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

The heavier teens were, the more likely they were to have high cholesterol but even 14 percent of teens with normal body weight were found to have unhealthy cholesterol levels, the CDC said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One in five American teens has unhealthy cholesterol levels, a major risk factor for heart disease in adults, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

The heavier teens were, the more likely they were to have high cholesterol but even 14 percent of teens with normal body weight were found to have unhealthy cholesterol levels, the CDC said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. scientists have identified a new class of drugs that appear to block the hepatitis C virus from replicating in laboratory experiments, researchers said on Wednesday.

The team discovered activity within a key protein of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) essential for the virus to reproduce, they reported in the online journal Science Translational Medicine.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The most common form of brain cancer in adults, glioblastoma multiforme, probably is a set of diseases, rather than a single disease, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

The team identified four distinct subtypes of the brain tumors, each with unique molecular characteristics, a finding they say may lead to targeted therapies.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The most common form of brain cancer in adults, glioblastoma multiforme, probably is a set of diseases, rather than a single disease, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

The team identified four distinct subtypes of the brain tumors, each with unique molecular characteristics, a finding they say may lead to targeted therapies.