Creation Biochar Quote by Kelly Weinersmith

““Dr. Joff Silberg and Dr. Carrie Masiello are a husband-and-wife team of professors at Rice University. He is a synthetic biologist. She is a geologist. But somehow they managed to move past that and find love. Dr. Masiello studies biochar, which is made when plant matter gets baked at a high temperature in the absence of oxygen. The creation of biochar sequesters carbon that would otherwise end up back in the atmosphere, and it is frequently added to soil to increase plant growth. We don’t know precisely why it helps plant growth, but it may be that it alters the composition of microbes in the soil. Dr. Masiello wanted bacteria that could report back to her on what conditions were like for microbes living in soil with and without biochar. She asked Dr. Silberg to make her a synthetic microbe for Valentine’s Day. Yes, really. Dr. Silberg created bacteria that release gases that aren’t commonly found in soil. So by putting the synthetic microbes in soil, then monitoring the gas release, we can “eavesdrop” on microbe behavior instead of grinding them up for analysis.””

— Kelly Weinersmith