Despite the gloomy fact that last year was the worst in recent memory for the biotechnology industry, Nature Biotechnology is pleased to announce that innovation in some areas is as fresh and vigorous as it always was. At least, it is if you believe news released in December by the American Chemical Society.
Late last year, the society announced a special report to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The report divulged exciting news about plans to create "green cows." No, no, not green-colored cows (the press release helpfully points out), but environmentally cleaner cows!
The big problem, it seems, is that all these cattle lowing in the mangers and fields have been chomping the cud and producing too much methane as a result of digestion and "belching" (thankfully no other bodily functions are mentioned in the release). Methane is bad, apparently, because it is "a major contributor to the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere (second only to carbon dioxide), which many scientists think contributes to global warming." Although the ACS supplied no figures to quantify methane emissions from cows, a quick search of the literature reveals an estimate from the US EPA that domestic livestock contributes 20% of the total methane in the atmosphere. At this stage, Nature Biotechnology remains uncertain as to the extent of the threat posed by bovine-derived gas to global meteorological systems.
Whatever the case, all is not lost (here's where biotechnology comes in). Researchers are apparently working around the clock to alter the digestive process in cattle, either by removing the microorganisms that produce methane from their stomachs or by creating microorganisms that can produce metabolic products other than methane. As the release puts it: "end result: green cows."
Here then, at least, is one application where agbiotech comes up smelling like daisies.
