Microbes Produce Precursor To Missile Propellent

Posted by timothy on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @02:24AM from the those-clever-microbes dept.

Makarand writes "According to this article on ScienceDaily.com microbiologists at the Michigan State University have created strains of bacteria which can convert certain types of sugars into a non-natural synthetic material, called butanetriol, which is used to produce a missile propellant (butanetriol trinitrate). The DNA of bacteria like Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas fragi was altered so that these bacteria could act as minifactories producing butanetriol. Interestingly, butanetriol is a precursor to two cholesterol-lowering drugs making this process useful in both pharmaceutical and defense applications."

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Re:Two thoughts on this by tigeba · 2003-12-31 07:32 · Score: 4, Funny

"First thought...just how much of this propellant can be produced by these microbes? It really seems like you'd need quite a bit to launch a missle. Can this be done from the work of some microbes?"

Replace "propellant" with "alcohol" and "launch a missle" with "supply the fans at an NFL game" and proceed to ponder your question.