toodlepipsky ([info]toodlepipsky) wrote in [info]wtf_nature,
2009-10-02 08:06:00
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The amazing panda poo electricity-making bacteria

Nobel prize winners Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei from the Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences discovered a bacteria that lives in panda dung and can break down massive amounts of domestic waste from us polluting humans and turn it into water and hydrogen. The research group is now working on harnessing the produced hydrogen for electricity-producing causes.


Found in only a handful of areas in mainland China, the Giant Panda has a diet which is 99% bamboo. The rare and exotic animal, which can weigh as much 150 kilograms (330 lbs), feeds on 25 varieties of bamboo, consuming as much as 9 to 14 kilograms (20 to 30 lbs) per day.

After identifying some 270 different microorganisms in panda dung obtained from Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo, the researchers isolated five types of bacteria that were the most efficient at breaking down proteins and fats and that could reproduce easily even under high heat.

In one experiment, the researchers mixed the bacteria with 70 to 100 kilograms (lbs) of raw garbage, including vegetable stems, potatoes (raw and fried) and fish remains, and placed it in an industrial waste disposal machine. Seventeen weeks later, only 3 kilograms (6.6 lbs) of waste remained, while the rest had turned to water and carbon dioxide. With a digestive rate of up to 96%, the panda excrement bacteria is significantly more effective than most commercial disposal bacteria, which has a digestive rate of around 80%.

In 2003, Taguchi also claimed it was possible to harvest about 100 liters (26 gallons) of hydrogen gas for every kilogram (2.2 lbs) of waste treated with panda poo. At the time, he was exploring the possibility of integrating a hydrogen fuel cell into a waste disposal unit to sell to food processing companies in Japan.


I suppose that for commercial reasons they're keeping the name of the bacteria to themselves so I don't have a specific name to give you, but yo aught to admit, it's pretty damn cool.

saucer

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  • 23 comments

[info]neev

October 2 2009, 07:14:54 UTC 2 years ago

Every day we get a little closer to the world of Transmetropolitan. I can't WAIT. 8D

[info]stokerbramwell

October 2 2009, 07:36:16 UTC 2 years ago

Now THAT is clever!

[info]toodlepipsky

October 2 2009, 11:37:16 UTC 2 years ago

I only pity all the heaps of grad students and the likes who had to sit and smear panda poo on various petri (sp?) plates.

[info]stokerbramwell

October 3 2009, 01:22:01 UTC 2 years ago

These are the risks you take when you're a grad student! Risks in the name...OF SCIENCE!

[info]lupagreenwolf

October 2 2009, 08:06:34 UTC 2 years ago

Quick! Somebody notify Chris Packham!

[info]glitter_glitter

October 2 2009, 08:56:26 UTC 2 years ago

what does he mean "let them die out" has he ever looked at one??

D:

[info]death_by_soy

October 2 2009, 11:21:29 UTC 2 years ago

haha, ya beat me to that one

[info]toodlepipsky

October 2 2009, 11:33:23 UTC 2 years ago

brilliant!

Understanding evolution fail.

[info]consortofvenus

October 4 2009, 10:25:33 UTC 2 years ago

I agree with him! I bet we can manufacture the bacteria on our own. I bet Tigers will at least bump uglies to save themselves!

[info]paranoide

October 2 2009, 08:55:49 UTC 2 years ago

Suddenly, panda's go from a abomination of natural selection (due to not knowing how to reproduce properly AND due to eating the least nutritious plant they could find) to fucking awesome.

[info]pikku_gen

October 2 2009, 11:12:03 UTC 2 years ago

This. Applause, pandas. Welcome to the rank of actually useful species. XD

[info]toodlepipsky

October 2 2009, 11:35:14 UTC 2 years ago

But they're cute, surely that means they're important.

Actually, every specie is important. That's the whole thing about biodiversity conservation but never mind.

[info]paranoide

October 2 2009, 12:00:10 UTC 2 years ago

Extinction of species is also nature's course. ;)

I agree with you, though, my comment was not out of ignorance about biodiversity and the ecosystem and whatnot. It's just that I find it astounding how panda's managed to survive with such lack of.. Well, every basic knowledge of survival.

Kind of like koalas. If I remember correctly, koalas have two thumbs, yet they only use one of them. By all laws of physiology they should be capable of using both, but they don't. If the one thumb gets broken they don't just go ahead and use the other one, but instead go 'oh lol idk' and die of starvation.

Australia has the most fucked up animals ever.

[info]toodlepipsky

October 2 2009, 13:22:38 UTC 2 years ago

The problem with that way of thinking is that it forgets the pace of evolution.
Evolution is powered by mutations - changes in DNA that result in a change of a certain property. Sadly, mutations are rare and the odds of having the right mutation to make just the right change is even smaller.Most mutations are too tiny to bring big changes. Big mutations are 99.99999% lethal or damaging to an organism's ability to procreate.

That means that if a creature is to adapt itself to the lessening quality of its drinking water/deminishing food quantities/rising temperatures it needs a LOT of time to do that.
The pace in which we destroy this earth is way, way too fast for that.

Sure, you can argue that the dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the earth by a giant meteorite in a pace that was too fast for them to adapt to it. Then again, we cannot survive a planet as wiped of animals as the earth was back then, particularly not in the overly-consuming western countries we live in.

And as for the koalas' thumbs, it might be an evolutionary lag or a chapter in the middle of some more useful development. Who knows.

[info]paranoide

October 3 2009, 17:46:41 UTC 2 years ago

I know how evolution works and I'm not trying to justify extinction of species caused by mankind. I just find panda's pretty retarded (as most animals know how to eat and reproduce properly) and this story made me go 'oh wow, look at that'.

[info]siouxsyn

October 4 2009, 09:43:22 UTC 2 years ago

Bamboo grows at a ridiculous rate. Somebody has to eat it all. But not too many somebodies... hence so little reproduction.

They'd probably get it on when no-one's looking, but that's not going to happen any more.

[info]pyro_ike

October 2 2009, 13:57:55 UTC 2 years ago

I guess there's something to be said for the ability to make unique situations for microbes to evolve in. :D

[info]fishwindows

October 5 2009, 04:01:21 UTC 2 years ago

yeah I was going to say, "Yaaayyyy they have a reason to live!!!!"

and yes, I piss off panda people for my enjoyment 8D

[info]einprosess

October 2 2009, 14:15:15 UTC 2 years ago

These are IgNobel winners, not Nobel Prize winners.

[info]lo8a

October 2 2009, 14:47:26 UTC 2 years ago

Pandas "actually good for something after all", scientists say, story at 11.

[info]flewellyn

October 2 2009, 18:00:23 UTC 2 years ago

Ahh, the power of panda poop.

[info]brich_ka

October 2 2009, 23:08:32 UTC 2 years ago

So crap will be commercialized! Yeah, brave new world!

[info]coerciveutopian

October 4 2009, 18:44:07 UTC 2 years ago

Poop to Power

At UC Denver we are working with the Denver Zoo on a project called Poop-To-Power (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/18753218/detail.html). We take the waste water from elephant dung (the zoo workers have to do it, not the grad students) and put it in a microbial fuel cell that makes electricity directly. We are also working on producing electricity from food waste collected from the convention center and DIA. There has been a lot done with MCFs but all at a very small scale unfortunately. Bacteria are a fickle lot and its tough to get them to do what you want.
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