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Will Cow Genes in Corn Improve Biofuels? PDF Print E-mail
Written by Erika Fredrickson   
Wednesday, 09 April 2008

Turning corn to fuel is costly and requires chemical processing. And even then, only the kernels of corn have been used to make ethanol, leaving the stalks to waste. Enter, the cow.

A cow has microbes in it's stomach that can break down corn into simple sugars, which is exactly what's needed to make ethanol. Researchers at Michigan State University have figured out a way to insert cow stomach microbe genes into the corn cells.

The new corn, with the highly sci-fi name, Spartan Corn III, can also break down stalks, providing more cellulose for more fuel. The enzyme has to be inserted into the corn vacuole (otherwise the corn would end up digesting itself in the field) where it sits until harvest, at which time it can be processed.

Two problems:

  • Fiddling around with genetics doesn't really alleviate the issues with large scale monocropping, nor change the fact that swaths of good, CO2-sequestering land are being destroyed for biofuel crops.
  • DNA assembly of the microbe requires heavy modification in a lab – apart from being a creepy process, is it worth it?

Source: Science Daily

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