The production of biological ...
The production of biological weapons can be divided into several stages, a biological agent must first be chosen and acquired, the production method must be acquired, the agent ...
What is biotechnology?
Biotechnology is the term used to describe a group or collection of technologies which capitalise on the attribute of cells, an example of this is manufacturing capabilities and ...
Agricultural biotechnology
Since time began we humans have always relied on plants and animals to provide us with food, shelter, clothing and fuel, and for thousands of years farmers have ...
Bio energy
Bio energy is any form of energy which can be stored in materials with the help of any living thing, one very simple example of a form of ...
The production of biological ...
The production of biological weapons can be divided into several stages, a biological agent must first be chosen and acquired, the production method must be acquired, the agent ...
What is biotechnology?
Biotechnology is the term used to describe a group or collection of technologies which capitalise on the attribute of cells, an example of this is manufacturing capabilities and ...
Agricultur ...
Since time began we humans have always relied on plants and animals to provide us with food, shelter, clothing and fuel, and for thousands of years farmers have ...
Bio diesel
Bio diesel is an alternative clean burning fuel that is made from domestic renewable resources which is better for the environment. It contains no petroleum but it can ...
The production of biological weapons can be divided into several stages, a biological agent must first be chosen and acquired, the production method must be acquired, the agent must then be grown and multiplied to sufficient quantities and finally the agent has to be prepared for delivery.
Deciding which agent is needed will depend on what the particular outcome is to be and then match this with the agent’s characteristics.
The characteristic relies on how much of a particular agent can cause disease, the time it takes from exposure to illness, how debilitating the result will be, how readily the disease will spread and how lethal the agent. Countermeasures to the disease are also taken into account.
Natural environment and a microbiology laboratory are the two main sources for the pathogen and as laboratories in which biochemical’s are stored are well guarded with the most advanced of security measures acquiring pathogen from a lab would be extremely hard to accomplish.
However there could be a way of getting around this; toxins can be produced by adding the DNA coding needed for its production to bacteria. Advancements over the last few years in biotechnology have made it possible to synthesize certain viruses; however this isn’t an easy matter as growing microorganisms require optimal conditions.
Actual living cells are required in order to grow viruses and some bacteria, fungi some bacteria and other microorganisms are usually grown in Petri dishes or fermentation vats. However growing large amounts of an agent requires a lot of space and is limited by factors such as cost, specialized equipment and the safety concerns that arise from handling dangerous substances.
Selection techniques and the great advancements in genetic engineering over the last few years now allow us more modifications of microorganisms which can alter an agent in a particular manner. Agents are now being modified to allow increased pathogenicity with a much shorter incubation period which will result in a much more severe and fast acting disease.
If scientists wanted, then using the biotechnology of today the possibilities could be endless and alterations could be made to them to make vaccines, treatments or the body’s own immune system defenseless against them.
Delivering an agent would also require great planning and preparation for it to remain effective when outside of its optimal growing conditions. Exposure to the outside world would have a negative effect on the pathogen, temperature, ultraviolet radiation, and drying can all have an effect.
Some pathogens are much hardier, anthrax for example can encapsulate itself into a hardy long lasting spore that can resist most of the conditions others cannot, however most agents require extra processing to minimize damage to them and for to remain active when removed from their environment.
Biotechnology is the term used to describe a group or collection of technologies which capitalise on the attribute of cells, an example of this is manufacturing capabilities and their DNA and proteins are made to work for us.
Biotechnology however isn’t something new, we have used biological process for over 6,000 years to achieve more useful food products, such as cheeses and bread and to help us preserve dairy products. It wasn’t however until the 60`s and 70`s that we gained a better understanding of biology and we reached a point where we could start to use only the very smallest part of an organism, the molecules.
Industrial biotechnology is a new and exciting approach to preventing pollution, resource conservation and reducing costs. If biotechnology is able to be developed to its full potential then industrial biotechnology will have a larger impact on the world than health and agricultural biotechnology combined.
It will be able to create new markets and offer businesses a way to reduce costs while protecting the environment. Review times are quicker than with new drugs which means that advancements and the benefits seen in industrial biotechnology can occur in as little as two years from lab study to commercial application.
Biotechnology helps in industry not only by transforming how we are able to manufacture products but it is also able to provide us with new products that we at one time would never have thought possible. How wide a scope of benefits industrial biotechnology has to offer is still not known as the technology is still relatively new but from its very beginning it has integrated product improvements with the prevention of pollution.
Since time began we humans have always relied on plants and animals to provide us with food, shelter, clothing and fuel, and for thousands of years farmers have strived to better these in order to continue providing us and to meet the needs of evolution. As the population grows and expands then so does the need for resources provided by plants and animals.
With the population expected to reach over 10 billion by the year 2030 it is estimated that the world food production will have to double on the farmland that exists today, if it is to compete with the anticipated growth in the population. The ever-increasing needs of yields of crops and the decreasing crop inputs such as water and fertiliser can all be helped by biotechnology as can advancements in providing pest control that is better for our environment.
Bio diesel is an alternative clean burning fuel that is made from domestic renewable resources which is better for the environment. It contains no petroleum but it can be mixed or blended with petroleum to create a bio diesel blend. Bio diesel has many benefits and can be used in diesel compression ignition engines with little or no modifications needed.
How is bio diesel made?
A chemical process known as transcesterification is used to make bio diesel and the process involves glycerine being separated from fat or vegetable oil which leaves behind two products, methyl esters, which is the chemical name for bio diesel and glycerine which is a valuable by product and is found in other products such as soap.
In order to ensure proper performance, fuel grade bio diesel is produced to the strictest of industry specifications and is the only alternative fuel to have fully completed the rigorous testing requirements to meet health requirements.
Bio energy is any form of energy which can be stored in materials with the help of any living thing, one very simple example of a form of bio energy is wood heat. Heat from burning wood is perhaps one of the oldest forms of bio energy, with another common source of bio energy being biogas.
What are the benefits of bio energy?
The main benefits of bio energy is that by getting sources of fuel from living things it is renewable and as such is much better for the environment. Although living organisms originally formed fossil fuels eons ago it takes millions of years to replace fossil fuels. To be considered as renewable, the resources which we use have to be replaceable within our lifetime, for example if we burn wood then the trees are replaced as the forest grows back.
Biotechnology has made great advancements over the last century but it would have all been impossible without the use of computers and the internet. Thanks to the computer with its common language and the internet with its word wide web structure scientists all over the world have been able to join forces, contribute and access biological data allowing collaborations among scientists studying plant, animal and microbe life.
One of the biggest problems that researchers of today have to face is bioinformatics, more specifically how to make sense of all the massive amounts of data provided by biotechnologies powerful techniques and research tools.
Biological warfare is something which is on everyone’s mind especially after the recent terrorist attacks, before this the threat was always there but not in the forefront of most peoples minds. But what are biological weapons and warfare?
Biological weapons are able to deliver toxins and microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria with the specific aim of inflicting disease and death among people, animals and agriculture. The severity of a biological attack can vary from the destruction of crops to causing outbreaks of illnesses within a community to causing mass destruction worldwide and bringing death.
The oldest form of biotechnology is bioprocessing technology; this technology uses the living cells or molecular components of manufacturing machinery to give us the results we desire. Simple one-celled organisms such as yeast and bacteria are the ones which are more commonly used with the bio molecular components usually being used are enzymes, which are proteins which catalyze biochemical reactions.
Microbial fermentation which is one form of Bioprocessing that has been around albeit unwittingly, for thousands of years, we have used it do brew beer, make wine, leaven bread and to pickle foods.
It wasn’t until around the middle of the 1800`s that we realised biochemical machinery was responsible for these products and we began to expand greatly the exploitation of microbial fermentation to give us even more useful products.
Cloning is a very broad technology and one form that many years ago, we would have only dreamed about or thought would happen only in far-fetched science fiction movies. However, it is in the present and is one which allows us to and has allowed us to generate a population of genetically identical cells, plants, some animals and molecules.
Molecular or gene cloning
This is the process by which we create genetically identical molecules and one which provides the basis for molecular biology revolution and is an essential tool of biotechnology research and development.
Molecular cloning is the basis by which virtually all applications of recombinant DNA technology relies on from the human genome project to the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals to producing transgenic crops.