You're Kidding ... Bug Shit!

"Surprise, surprise, surprise!".

And, as a former filling station attendant, by the name of Gomer Pyle, may exclaim - "Shazam!"

In a way, it almost sounds like something Gomer might have come up with.

Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol; Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide 'renewable petroleum'

Inside LS9’s cluttered laboratory – funded by $20 million of start-up capital from investors including Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Sun Micro-systems – Mr Pal explains that LS9’s bugs are single-cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant. They start out as industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli, but LS9 modifies them by custom-de-signing their DNA. “Five to seven years ago, that process would have taken months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he says. “Now it can take weeks and cost maybe $20,000.”

Because crude oil (which can be refined into other products, such as petroleum or jet fuel) is only a few molecular stages removed from the fatty acids normally excreted by yeast or E. coli during fermentation, it does not take much fiddling to get the desired result.

Fill It Up With High Test ... And Check The Bugs!

If this thing pans out, you can expect a stampede to eBay, with people looking for those old, Gilbert Chemestry sets.

You can trade in the greasy overalls, for a starched-white lab coat.

Out goes the family room, or that finished basement, as the masses, to compliment the solar panels and rainwater buckets, begin farming their own LS9 bugs.

In fact, it could make gas stations obsolete, or, at minimum, they convert over to becoming "bug stations".

I just hope this isn't a hoax ...

It looks mighty interesting ...


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