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Microbes May Help Astronauts Transform Human Waste Into Food (phys.org)
A Penn State researcher team has shown that it is possible to rapidly break down solid and liquid waste to grow food with a series of microbial reactors, while simultaneously minimizing pathogen growth. They reported their findings in the journal Life Sciences in Space Research. Phys.Org reports: To test their idea, the researchers used an artificial solid and liquid waste that's commonly used in waste management tests. They created an enclosed, cylindrical system, four feet long by four inches in diameter, in which select microbes came into contact with the waste. The microbes broke down waste using anaerobic digestion, a process similar to the way humans digest food. The team found that methane was readily produced during anaerobic digestion of human waste and could be used to grow a different microbe, Methylococcus capsulatus, which is used as animal feed today. The team concluded that such microbial growth could be used to produce a nutritious food for deep space flight. They reported in Life Sciences in Space Research that they grew M. capsulatus that was 52 percent protein and 36 percent fats, making it a potential source of nutrition for astronauts.
Because pathogens are also a concern with growing microbes in an enclosed, humid space, the team studied ways to grow microbes in either an alkaline environment or a high-heat environment. They raised the system's pH to 11 and were surprised to find a strain of the bacteria Halomonas desiderata that could thrive. The team found this bacteria to be 15 percent protein and 7 percent fats. At 158 degrees Fahrenheit, which kills most pathogens, they grew the edible Thermus aquaticus, which consisted of 61 percent protein and 16 percent fats.
Because pathogens are also a concern with growing microbes in an enclosed, humid space, the team studied ways to grow microbes in either an alkaline environment or a high-heat environment. They raised the system's pH to 11 and were surprised to find a strain of the bacteria Halomonas desiderata that could thrive. The team found this bacteria to be 15 percent protein and 7 percent fats. At 158 degrees Fahrenheit, which kills most pathogens, they grew the edible Thermus aquaticus, which consisted of 61 percent protein and 16 percent fats.
Looks like they've solved the 3rd world food problem. Just don't tell anyone what it's made from.
They already make a substance that appears to be bioprocessed human waste. It's called Marmite.
Microbes + plants + animals + sun creates food for humans (and for themselves) from dirt.
This is a set of well established processes we haven't fully understood. This is why we are trying to destroy them.
So "just microbes" is less effective.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Eat-a-Tweet
Table-ized A.I.
...but I hear it tastes like shit.
reminds me of Trantor in Asimov's Federation Series, where they grew microbes (yeast in the story) in huge vats to feed 40 billion people.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Of course not. But expenses are only enormous until they aren't. And this seems like a rather nice step in that direction.
Ezekiel 23:20
the queue of people signing up to be astronauts just got a lot shorter after we told them what they would be eating.
This being done by microbes I guess is the headline.
In other news, Indian street food prices tumble.
Microbes May Help Astronauts Transform Human Waste Into Food
since Astronauts Transform Food Into Human Waste Thanks To Microbes.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
2 birds 1 stone, solves food and toilet shortage at the same time.
People might not realize it, transforming food into human waste via microbacterial action is exactly how Pope Ratzoâs mother birthed him.
yup
Mutations are going to be frequent.
I suspect the expression "Eat shit and die" has seldom been more appropriate.
Now engineer that into an intestine prolongation (powered by a small fission reactor) and watch the flowers growing out your ass.
Delicious.
The research to turn shit into butter has already reached the 50% mark.
It spreads already as it should, just the taste is still slightly off.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Just add microbes!
There's already more than enough food for everyone.
It's more complicated than that. Depends on what people eat.
Globally, yes, planet earth can produce more food than need to keep everyone fed ( for a certain definition of "fed" ).
But if every body decide they want to have the same exact food diet as people in the developed world (think about USAmerican's love of steak. It's an entirely different approach to the word "fed" compared to above) : then you'll need at least 3 Earths worth of food production to keep everyone happy.
It's why Paul Ehrlich's 1960s neo-Malthusian predictions of mass starvation in the 1970s never happened.
No. That's more to do that those predictions (which also serves as inspirations for movies such as Soylent Green) are based on what would happen if the then tendencies were kept as is : if everybody kept reproducing like rabbits, today's world might look a bit like the over-populated slum that the science fiction back then predicted.
Except that the tendencies didn't keep. Demographic transition happened. People actually stopped reproducing as rabbits. Even the poorest developing country are nowadays showing progressive reducing of population growth.
So because the tendencies on which these prediction were made didn't keep, the prediction didn't come to happen. (Well, you still have over populated slums here and there, but not planet-wide).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
First off they already drink filtered pee. And now they eat shit sandwiches? It's just too much...
And by the way, the stuff that these scientists created from human dukey is not food. It may have a similar ratio of fats & protein as food, but it's not food. Astronauts will eat each other before they eat some cultured turd yogurt.
And what do you think real food is made from ?
Which substances do you think the plants process to transform into more plants (i.e.: more food) thanks to the solar power ?
Do you really think that plants make themselves using solidified light ?
HINT: Look up the word "manure".
This project is basically doing the same thing, only scaled down and accelerated by using a different set of bacteria and yeast only, compared to the usual set of bacteria + plants that do the exact same stuff every day in agriculture.
(But it's going to be difficult to pack a whole field in a space ship, so hence the interest)
You see it as a "toilet-to-mouth" system, but you should more realistically think of it as a pocket-sized field to grow food out of your (human produced) manure.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It's cute how some people still believe there is *any* future for the human race.
Corn...again
NASA recruitment slogan?
let them eat their own shit, i'll stick with real meat and potatos!
they already drink recycled urine, might as well feed 'em crap too ...
can't wait to see what musk feeds all you martian colonists ...
Shit Burger. Somebody find the link because I can't be bothered.
Sorry, "But but Hillary..." isn't a legal defense. If you think you've got something on either one of the Clintons, you go right ahead and indict. HINT: their whiny-bitch-snowflake room-temperature-IQ enemies have been trying to do so for over 30 years, without one shred of success. Or evidence.
Doesn't my septic system already do this? (And it's really the drain field, not the tank)
If this tech is developed for Space travel or is an outcome of research into supporting us in space then it can most likely be ported into farming.
Who says this tech has to be used to feed humans directly. Why can't use it to improve the efficiency of animal husbandry. We can use farm wastes to more directly loop back into the production cycle. We could use it to improve the production of meat, textiles, milk, medical supplies etc.
Why not feed the outputs to say ants, and in return feed the ants to other stocks. Thus further diversifying the various protein chains making the process even more benificial.
Or we do more engineering and create organic polymers from the protein. Thus a replacement for many of the plastics in use today.
It does not have to directly feed us. As a matter of fact it can help reduce the costs associated with meat etc.
The key to the process is that it is a bio reactor that minimises infections and contamination. Thus making it more robust as an industrial system.
This will obviously by marketed as Soylent Brown.
(Spoiler: it's poople!)
That's true, no other "comments".
Now I understand that old saying: "shit eating grin".
Wow. And when we get a new disease that can't be cured such as "mad cow" from eating our own waste than where will we be?
And knowing how $$$$ will drive this and not common sense you truly know how this will end up.
BTW, is anyone else having troubles accessing and posting to slashdot?
Human waste have been used as fertilizer for a long time. People gladly ate the vegetables/fruits so produced.
=> People have eaten converted human shit.
Astronauts/cosmonauts are selected by people that are rational and scientific - exactly the kind of persons that would understand that their food is not shit.
And they are less likely to become cannibals as they understand the problems that brings.
What happened to you? Even when you posted stuff I absolutely did not agree with you had some intelligence baked into the posts.
This? It's just shit.
at the Congressional cafeteria? After all, they keep making us eat all the shit that they pass...
It's cute how some people still believe there is *any* future for the human race.
Since your comment was made in the past. Your comment is cute. There is a future- it's happened since you posted.
... playing "Oxygen Not Included". After giving my whole colony food poisoning by using contaminated water in the musher, the principle and what is important became quite clear.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Great.... poop bars
Or life post-attempt. Every single person with dirt on the Clintons seems to die horribly before it can be exposed.
Nonaggression works!
Oh bullshit. I buy grass fed beef from a coworker because I enjoy blue steak and tartare, and don't want worms. However, grocery store meat isn't a "spongy mass". There are subtle texture differences, but it's not huge. Stop lying, you smug retard.
You're confusing me with someone else. As a relative newcomer, you might not be aware that all of my posts are transformed human waste turned into food for astronauts, eaten, turned into human waste again, and then turned into Slashdot comments.
You are welcome on my lawn.
feces
n/t
I can see it now...
NASA exec: "Why is no one answering our ad for Astronaut training?"
NASA drone worker: "I think it's the food plan and people not wanting to eat their own shit"
Putting the "Ass" in "Tronauts"!
until you eat and then shit anti-biotics into the septic tank.
someone gets sick on the spaceship and because of profit pressure cannot ... disaster on the spaceship: all "digestors" are wiped-out.
be sick for a week (earn your keep) and "on the blackmarket" acquires some
"homemade" anti-biotics... pops it down into the collective poop fermentation tanks
and voila
If even the researchers are so squicked out about handling poop that they use artificial poop to test it, why do they think any astronaut would want to eat this.
That's a conspiracy theory, not facts.
So they are growing microbes to feed people.
:)
Better learn to take small bites.
The world is turning to crap. This just confirms it.
...a real shitty idea.
If they can't function in zero g, it might only be good for off world colonies.
...it gives a new meaning to "shit eating grin"
This new source of food stuffs will create a whole new industry for collection, processing, and delivery. People will be gainfully employed, unemployment rates will decline, collection pods and pails will sell out. America will rise out of the Sh.....
When I read "edible Thermus aquaticus, which consisted of 61 percent protein and 16 percent fats", I immediately envisioned a McDonalds beef patty. I'm pretty sure no one would notice if they were switched as they look and taste alike.
land of sand, known as Dune.
Fremens unite!
Hillary and Bill took hundreds of millions of dollars that were donated for Haitians and spent it on themselves. Bill then proceeded to go down there and RAPE little girls. These are the people you wanted in the White House? For shame. #HillaryForPrison
Lie
But you know that