GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

14-09-2004, 09:15 PM

(Curious) wrote in
m:

(Mike Lyle) wrote in message
om...
(Curious) wrote in message
Natural bacteria feed on whatever is their. Bacteria could be
gene-modified into "eating" only specfic substances. For
example, there was a strain of gene-modified bacteria to feed
on the petroleum dumps of the sea. If gene-modified, the
bacteria can be more "task-oriented".

You'd have to get rid of the bacterial waste and the waste
bacteria somehow. And you'd fart like crazy. All the time.

Genetically-engineered bacteria can specifically feed on the waste
products and their odors and convert them to substances the human
body can use. Same with the urinary system. Bacteria can be
genetically-modified so that they feed on urea and other
urine-specific constituents so that one does not need to urinate
and so the waste is converted to useful substacnes the subject can
use. Why not also modify the microbes so that they can feed use
necessary nutrients from plants? That way we won't need to eat.

There is a limit on some of that. Urine is also very important in
maintaining electrolyte balances. Perhaps you could get a bacteria
to turn the urea back into amino acids that your body can use, but
you will still need to do something about the excess of sodium, or
even other salts that your body may want to get rid of. This is not
counting excess water. As far as converting feces and odors into
substances that the body can use, that would require lots of energy.
There is already a system where this occurs, namely the rest of the
environment.

Sean