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Sweat-Eating Bacteria to Live in Your Clothes
amyaimee writes: "Perfect for you hygiene-challenged computer geeks (you know who you are): New Scientist reports on a new clothing made of milkweed containing a special strain of e. coli designed to feed on human sweat and the proteins that cause B.O. Alex Lightman of Charmed Technology quips, "I wear the same pair of jeans all the time and I'm sure they have bacterial colonies living in them, but if they were selected to convert my sweat into sweet-smelling pheromones, that would be great," he says."
I read somewhere that Cameron Diaz hates deodorant and anti-perspirant. I am willing to bet money she will pet some of these bacteria :)
Mmmm, me wants to become sweat-eating bacteria on her now !#%
"the majority of their metabolic byproducts will still be what makes them "gross": lactic acid, butyric acid, tartaric acid, other nasty smelling compounds..."
Not necessarily, there are other compounds which can also serve as the end product of a fermentation process. For instance, alcohols. And if you choose to use more advanced organisms that engage in oxidative phosphorylation, you can go all the way to C02 + H2O.
On a different note, I'd choose something other than E. coli for this purpose. An endospore-forming bacterium would be much tougher, as you could expect at least a small fragment of the population to survive just about anything short of an autoclave.
The primary source of E.Coli is feces (i.e.shit). It lives (and helps) in your digestive system. It survives outside for a relative long period, longer than most bacteria.
Thus E.Coli (Escheria Coli) is used as an indicator for bacteria in drinking water in general. Drinking water that is contaminated with E.Coli probably is contaminated with sewer water.
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the pun is mightier than the sword
it's my shirt, my boxers, and she's wearing 'em.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Well, there goes the best way to get some space on the subway/bus. No more three weeks+ old B.O.
The only such product I've seen that has anti-bacterial properties is a King Of Shaves spray with some sort of bacteria-killing herbal extract - dunno if you'd call this a deodorant or not
As you saw when you read the article, but seem to have forgotten in the intervening time, you don't wash them. they live off the dirt in your clothes. and if you leave your clothes clean for long enough for them to become dormant, you feed them by wearing the clothes.
Or maybe they'll come up with bacteria that feeds on common clothing stains, too. That way, you'd never have to wash them
Again, when you looked at the title of this story, you noted the words "Sweat-Eating Bacteria to Live in Your Clothes", and when you read the article, you noted that you wouldn't have to wash clothes anymore due to the bacteria keeping them clean. And then the amnesia hit again.
A question: any chance those E. coli bacteria could mutate into a harmful strain?
Clearly, the answer is yes. although there are thousands of strains without which we'd all starve due to our inadequate guts, and a very limited number of strains which are harmful. But as long as you can resist eating Bart's shorts.....
TomV
Today: "The Smartest Man In America Fixes Education System"
I wear the same pair of jeans all the time and I'm sure they have bacterial colonies living in them
I'm sure they'd rather live in vacuum if they had a choice.
Perhaps you should read more carefully yourself. Although my memory is fading, and I can't re-read the article because it's giving a JRUN error now, I believe that the bacteria currently don't live off of dirt, or even sweat for that matter. They live off of some nutrients they soaked into the fibers. However, the statement was that they could be ALTERED to live off of sweat and body-odor causing chemicals. This, however, is only about 2/3 of the reason we wash clothing. The other 1/3 would be the grass stains, grape juice, or general mud and dirt that find their way to our clothing. My comment was merely to point out what washing would do, and promote discussion on whether the bacteria could be engineered to feed off of other substances that typically prompt us to wash our clothing.
although there are thousands of strains without which we'd all starve due to our inadequate guts
Yeah, that's one of life's more funny ironies. Your body can't do without something that can kill it. Of course, I guess you could say the same thing about water. As for eating Bart's shorts? Let's get Mikey to eat them. :)
GreyPoopon
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GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Incidentally, does anyone know just how close to the skin these clothes have to be? I don't want to have to have a permanent wedgie when it's warm just because my ass sweats a lot.
Wait, I guess that's the same as Option 5: "That homeless guy on the subway".
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
bacteria are bacteria are bacteria...
...but there is a reason why these compounds are natural chemical dead-ends... they are energetic dead-ends as well: it's breaking the second law of thermodynamics: you can't have the bacteria churning out more energetic chemical processes than the energy you give them... there's a reason lactic acid is a dead-end chemical street: the bacteria have evolved to extract as much energy from a chemical source as they could, and they have, and they do... there's no getting around that energetic roadblock...
yeah sure, you can engineer them to manufacture some phermones, or lilac scent, or febreeze, or whatever as a byproduct of their metabolic efforts, but:
the majority of their metabolic byproducts will still be what makes them "gross": lactic acid, butyric acid, tartaric acid, other nasty smelling compounds...
it's hard to simply edit these compounds out of the bacterial output, as these compounds are simply the natural chemical dead-ends to well-established bacterial metabolic pathways.
"well, you can engineer other processes to destroy these compounds as well"
plus, like any other ecosystem: the savannah, a coral reef, your intestines, there is a bitter battle for survival raging.
it has been proven that bacteria without antibiotic resistance successfully displace and kill off bacteria with antibiotic resistance in the wild... why? because to defend themselves against antibiotics, resistant bacteria are exerting a hefty metabolic toll in order to survive... without antibiotics to worry about, those bacteria who are free to devote all of their metabolic efforts to survival and reproduction will outcompete their metabolically-hobbled cousins...
so what do you think will happen in these milkweed clothes when mr. i-make-phermones bacteria functioning at 70% metabolic maximum due to it's genetically-engineered burden is forced to compete for food with mr. wild-as-i-wanna-be bacteria functioning at 100% metabolic maximum? hmmph
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