Bacteria have been rewired to live off carbon dioxide and they could be used to produce biofuels in a more sustainable way. Specific strains of Escherichia coli bacteria are often used to make biofuels and other chemicals, but they normally feed on sugar. Ron Milo at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and his colleagues have managed to make E. coli consume CO2 instead. The researchers added genes to the E. coli genome for an enzyme that converts atmospheric CO2 to biomass and deleted genes needed for sugar metabolism. They then left the bacteria for several months in the lab. After 200 days, they found that the microbes had successfully evolved to grow without needing sugar for food . Read more: Your guide to the carbon sucking tech we need to save the planet […]