Belly of the Bug: Better Biofuels Through Termite Guts

Topic: Alt Fuel

Not satisfied with biofuels based on corn, cane, and chicken fat, metagenomicists are diving into the digestive tracts of termites in the hope of co-opting the microbial genes that let the house-chewing pests digest wood. MIT Technology Review quotes Jim Bristow of the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute:

Converting cellulose in trees and grasses into the simple sugars that can be fermented into ethanol is a very energy-intensive process. "If we had better enzymatic machinery to do that, we might be better able to make sugars into ethanol," Bristow says. "Termites are the world's best bioconverters."

Researchers at the institute, who "have just finished sequencing the microbial community living in the termite gut,"

have already identified a number of novel cellulases — the enzymes that break down cellulose into sugar — and are now looking at the guts of other insects that digest wood, such as an anaerobic population that eats poplar chips.

The expected end result: "a giant parts list that synthetic biologists can put together to make an ideal energy-producing organism."

Earth hottest in 400 years, report says

The last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable time in at least the past four centuries, a new report says.

The report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences was requested by Congress after a controversy last year over climate reconstructions published in the late 1990s.

That work, by University of Virginia climatologist Michael Mann and others, found the warming of the Northern Hemisphere in the last decades of the 20th century was unprecedented in the past thousand years. They concluded that the 1990s were the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year.

Scientists believe they can glean evidence of past temperatures from tree rings, boreholes, retreating glaciers, corals, cave deposits and other sources, although the evidence becomes weaker further back in time.

Such evidence agrees with the globally averaged warming of about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) that instruments have recorded during the last century, according to members of a committee that drafted the new report.

The committee of the National Research Council, part of the National Academy of Sciences, called “plausible” the Mann team’s conclusion that warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last millennium.

But the panel said it had less confidence that the warming was unprecedented before 1600, and in the Mann team’s conclusions about the 1990s and 1998 in particular.

Scientists’ reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures for the past thousand years are generally consistent, the dozen-member committee reported.

These reconstructions, members added, show relatively warm conditions centered around the year 1000, and a relatively cold period, or “Little Ice Age,” from roughly 1500 to 1850. None of the reconstructions show temperatures were warmer during medieval times than during the past few decades, the committee added.

Most scientists blame global warming on greenhouse gases, substances such as carbon dioxide emitted as a result of human activities and that collect in the atmosphere.

Scientist are predicting a host of evils for human health and the environment as a result of global warming. Among many other problems, they have reported that polar bears are being driven to cannibalism as their icy habitat melts away, and baby walruses are possibly being orphaned for similar reasons.

The committee wrote that surface temperature reconstructions for periods before the Industrial Revolution—when levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases were much lower—are one of many lines of evidence suggesting human activities are responsible for the warming.

The National Research Council is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter.

More on the Veg and IQ Study

Our last issue reported a study from the UK which found that people with higher IQs at age 10 were more likely to be vegetarians later in life. You can read the entire article at http://www.bmj. com/cgi/rapidpdf /bmj.39030.675069. 55v1

The article has quotes from Shakespeare and Benjamin Franklin, the famous scientist, publisher, and politician of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, about the effects of diet on intellect. One of Shakespeare’s characters, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night (Act 1, Scene 3), states; “I am a great eater of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit.” Franklin is quoted as stating in his autobiography that a veg diet provides one with “greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension.”

Keynote Address at IVU World Vegetarian Congress 2006

To close the year, here’s an excerpt from the opening, keynote speaker at the 2006 IVU World Vegetarian Congress in Goa , Dada J. P. Vaswani. The October 2006 issue of the newsletter of the Vegetarian Society (Reverence for Life) of India contains a transcript of the speech. Below is an excerpt. (please excuse the use of ‘men’ to refer to all humans)

Men have their rights. Do animals have no rights? Men have their rights. Do they not have duties towards the animals who have befriended man since the dawn of creation: the dog, the horse, the cow? Do they have no rights? The time has come when all animal lovers should come together and formulate a charter of animal rights and a charter of man’s duties towards the animals. Every animal has certain fundamental rights and the very first right of every animal I believe, the very first right of every animal is the right to live, for we cannot take away that which we cannot give. And since we cannot give life to a dead creature, we have no right to take away the life of a living one.

The year 1789 is a landmark in the history of humanity. It was in that year over two centuries ago that the French National Assembly adopted a declaration of the rights of man. That was the beginning of a new era in the history of humanity. Until then, mean had no rights. Kings were sovereign’ they could do whatever they liked. The 18^th century gave rights to man. The 19^th century gave rights to slaves, for there was a time when slaves had no rights; they were treated as we treat animals today. … The 18^th century, as I said, gave rights to man. The 19^th century gave rights to slaves. The 20^th century has give rights to women. The 21^st century I verily believe will give rights to animals. That will be a great and glorious day in the history of humanity.

Vote for Your Favourite Veg Restaurant

More and more sites provide listings of veg restaurants, in Singapore and worldwide. Happy Cow is probably the best-known world-wide site of this type: http://www.happycow .net

Here’s another such site: Veg Dining http://vegdining. com/Home. cfm Currently, there are about 35 listings on the Singapore page. The site also has a feature that let’s you vote for your favourite veg restaurant, but you have to do it before the end of the year. Some features of the site require a small yearly fee.

Yao Ming Says No to Sharks Fin Soup

Chinese basketball star, Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets, one of the world’s top players, has joined the growing list of celebrities who have come out publicly against eating shark’s fin soup.

http://www.usatoday .com/sports/ basketball/ nba/rockets/ 2006-08-02- yao-wildlife_ x.htm?POE= SPOISVA