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So you're into sci fi? But what about sci fact? Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction...

Each month our very own Voyager Science Queen* will bring you interesting, quirky and downright bizarre tasty morsels from the world of science. And its all completely, totally, 100% true!

Science Page January 2011

Lets us start the New Year on a hopeful note. I hope you and all you hold dear had a safe holiday season. Some of you have been affected by the flooding; my thoughts go out to you and hope for only good things for the rest of the year.

The New Agriculture

For those of you who follow the Science Page (hi Mum), you might remember I mentioned about the looming threat of shortages of both fuel and food. Well, some boffins have come up with a way of solving both.

So, what is the new agriculture? This is the development and cultivation of ‘engineered bugs’. Bacteria are being genetically altered to consume organic waste material, for example: agricultural waste such as wheat chaff or wood chips, and convert it to a substance equivalent to crude oil. This is both a profitable use of resources and an eco-friendly recycling of waste products.
As well, there are new developments in using yeast to create new sources of edible protein. One of the major problems with growing cows or sheep for meat is the inefficiency of the land usage; the equivalent use of a field for growing vegetables yields a much greater mass of food. However, yeast can be encouraged to convert a slurry of organic by-products into protein, in the same way yeast converts grapes into wine or hops into beer. After all, this is what vegemite is ... the dumped yeast by-products from beer production converted into an edible food source.

They are using turkey dropping to fuel power plants. There is already one such fully-fledged power plant running in the United States, and there are plans to built more. The waste from most poultry sheds is a smelly concoction of droppings, wood chips or straw, feathers and spoiled or uneaten feed. Sometimes it is recycled as fertilizer, but there is always the risk of spreading disease through this practice. When the mix is used as fuel, it is cleansed of any contaminants by the fierce temperature of its burning, and the ash can be used as fertilizer.

Using the poultry waste is efficient because is it relatively dry and odour free, unlike the waste from cows and pigs. It isn’t as efficient a fuel as coal, but as it is already part of the biomass produced by agriculture, it doesn’t contribute to global warming or pollution on the same scale as coal. It replaces the need to burn wood as fossil fuels become scarce. All-in-all, it is an elegant solution to combat the future fuel shortages.

The new agriculture is all about adapting our waste production into commodities that create a new source of food or energy while at the same time conserving and preserving the resources we already have. This is considered the fastest growing area of scientific exploration and invention of the 21st century. I don’t know about you, but I think this is what science should be all about; science should not just be benefiting mankind, but the entire planet.

*The Voyager Science Queen is also known as Lynne Lumsden Green

So, who is this woman who attempts to entertain us with Science?

Lynne Lumsden Green lives on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, and attends the University of the Sunshine Coast. Ever the perpetual student, she is adding a B.A. in Creative Writing to her B.SC. in Zoology (Jennifer Fallon is her role model). As one of the founding members of Scriber Space, the site for USC creative writers, she hopes to create a writing community as lively and as close as the Voyager writing community. She spends her non-study hours volunteering for writing-related events, writing, reading, and – oh yes – looking after her family. She is still passionately interested in anything and everything, and enjoys the opportunity to share this passion via the Science Page. Terry Pratchett, Isaac Asimov, Neil Gaiman, and all the Voyager authors are her favourite people on the planet...and one of her goals is to meet all of those authors, well, at least those authors still in the land of the living. Recently, her own writing efforts have been meeting with better success. She is putting this down to her excellent lecturers and persistence, and to the fact that you can eat chocolate while typing.

Read previous Sci-Facts

Looking for more scientific oddities? Have you checked out Dr Steven Juan's website? He is, quite literally, the wizard of odds!