Green | July 11, 2008 | 36 comments

Genetically modified bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol

source: http://weirdandinteresting.blogspot.com/2008/07/genetically-modified-bugs-that-eat.html

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Unbelievably, this is not science fiction.
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36 comments // Genetically modified bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol

  • heres2u
  • Dr_Dank_Thumb
    • 0
      Dr_Dank_Thumb  

    • yes please.. we need more petrol in the world. hopefully they let these bugs go free and they start eating all this ugly green foliage on my property then poop it out and i can put it in my SUV!

    • 3 years ago
  • HellaDelicious
    • 0
      HellaDelicious  

    • Yeah so true witchking. There are already algae that produce much more oil than palm oil that are being used to make bio-diesel and they didn't have to be genetically altered. If the money put in to researching and developing these bugs had been put into developing a practical way to get the oil out of the algae we would all be driving biodiesel cars. Genetic modification makes me nervous, especially because it messes around with viruses and bacterias etc which we still have a lot to learn about.

    • 3 years ago
  • Witch_King
    • 0
      Witch_King  

    • Everyone must have their own ideas and must beable to express them, but I don't know why humans just keep inventing new stuff when we've got the answers and the solutions for the problems already right in front fo us?

    • 3 years ago
  • 1percent
  • Neghie
  • uroborus8
  • HurricaneRena
    • 0
      HurricaneRena  
    • Image

    • There's a great Sci-Fi book called Ill Wind that deals with a similar organism...we invent a bug that eats oil to combat a spill, but when the oil spill is cleaned the bug mutates to eat any oil based product. All plastics, lubricants and fossil fuels disappear...it's the end of the world as we know it.

      Not that this is probable, but the Jurassic Park Theory, as someone coined earlier, could be worth taking into account here. Genetically modified bugs (or any GMOs) are invented by us, but fundamentally they still belong to nature. There's no telling what could happen..."nature will find a way"

    • 3 years ago
  • marpunk
  • drewsuf721
  • palaver
  • AVtime
    • AVtime  
    • This comment was removed by its owner.
  • palaver
    • 0
      palaver  
    • AVtime:

      This isn't a discovery of a novel degrader. Waste degraders abound, including MO's that can eat plastic and concrete. For instance, shampoo has to be tested for sterility, because there is an MO that can "eat" the bottle it comes in.

      The novel part of this is the product produced by the degradation of these wastes. As I mentioned before, the argument of "they will get beyond our control," while not inaccurate, is premature. We don't know what conditions these bacteria require for growth.

      For all we know they may not be able to survive in natural conditions, rather only in a bio-reactor.

      It's basically a difference between an organism needing our control IN ORDER to grow, or requiring our control to LIMIT its growth. The former being "safer" than the latter.

    • 3 years ago
  • Swiyyah
  • palaver
    • 0
      palaver  

    • I understand the practical arguments against genetic modification of organisms, and I'm even sympathetic to the moral objections. That said, many of the early fears of GM (genetically modified) corn for instance, have been realized as paranoia.

      We dare not tarry too long searching for a Utopian solution that satisfies all. I haven't read the published journal article yet, but it's in my pile. Generally when an organism is modified to produce an exotic effect or substance it requires heavily controlled conditions to do so. For instance, to produce high percentage volumes of ethanol, one must continuously evaporate the ethanol from the fermentation tank, because a small build up of ethanol causes the microbes to stop fermenting more.

      In light of these phenomena I would hypothesize that the risk of these organisms escaping and causing an ecological disaster is, at least initially, quite low.

    • 3 years ago
  • restotle
  • advertisehere
  • handshakeheartbreak
  • chipsinabox
  • pablohoney
  • KefKef
  • eldamon
  • street_smart
  • diode
  • 24French
    • 0
      24French  

    • Once again, it's really sad that Charlton Heston is gone so he can't uncover the futuristic conspiracy when oil starts seeping from every available surface, threatening to wipe out the human race because there's nothing to eat but each other. "We caused this!" Fade out.

    • 3 years ago
  • baylorlebowski
    • 0
      baylorlebowski  
    • Image

    • Funny, I was just talking to someone about this topic this morning.
      A few questions: What happens when (because it's not if, but when) these bugs get into the natural environment and start leaving petrol all over the place- what does that do to our water supply? Do we have bugs that will be able to turn the crude back into water in case this happens? I definitely see weaponizing potential for this- you drop these little suckers in an enemy country and they go for the food supply and at the same time poison the water.

      Is anyone thinking about these repercussions.
      Incidentally, RadioLab has a really good program that hovers around this topic. It's titled "(So Called) Life."
      The link is attached.

    • 3 years ago
  • clintisdakoolest
  • anglcazn
  • neckfire
    • 0
      neckfire  
    • clintisdakoolest:

      You presume to know that genetic modification is wrong. While I personally think it is fair game.

      “I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to.” -- Willard Gaylin, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons

    • 3 years ago
  • KD0BQM
  • clintisdakoolest
    • 0
      clintisdakoolest  
    • clintisdakoolest:

      I'm not trying to sound hypacritical. I just don't agree with it. I understand that i and everyone else does live in a Genetically altered wold, but we can only live in the envoirment that is created for us genetically altered or not.

    • 3 years ago
  • SwiftlyTilt
    • 0
      SwiftlyTilt  
    • clintisdakoolest:

      We've been genetically modifying things since we first stepped out of the caves. Do you think the rice, corn, potatos and meat that we eat were as nutritious and plentiful 10,000 years ago, as they are now?

      Granted it is a bit scarier doing it over night in a test tube, rather than over 10,000 years of picking the best crops, but I think the major issue is that this is another way to keep us on the oil fix. Humans should be more concerned finding ways to take petroleum out of our "global diet," rather than supplementing it.

    • 3 years ago
  • Stradius
    • 0
      Stradius  
    • clintisdakoolest:

      Humans make a lot of mistakes.... I'd hate to see what happens if one of these modified bacteria species gets loose on the world.... farm crops destroyed and converted to greasy oil plateaus? There are other ways to feed the world and other ways to fuel the world that don't require changing nature... the problem is figuring out how to make money at it so the greed-brokers will put some resources behind it.

    • 3 years ago
  • themanwithadog
    • 0
      themanwithadog  
    • clintisdakoolest:

      A huge proportion of the food we eat has been modified at some stage prior to appearing on the supermarket shelves for various reasons,colour, size, uniformity, and attractiveness.

      Name anything from apples, fruit in general, tomatoes, lettuce, wheat products, sheep,cows, pigs, or any vegetable.

      The scientists have been at it for over a hundred years seeking "perfection" in the cross breeding.

    • 3 years ago
  • purplefox
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