Merideth McMaster Bujold's latest Vorkosigan novel, 'A Civil Campaign',
features for comic relief an absent minded genius who has genetically
engineered a rather unattractive bug that chews up any vegetation and
regurgitates a 'bug butter' that is perfectly balanced for human
nutrition. The bug is primarily a vegetation chomper for a suite of
microbes in its gut that do the real work.
BTW: I never knew that vegemite was made from actual bugs. I assume that
it is considered a meat product?
"Extropian Agro Forestry Ventures Inc." wrote:
>
> Over 20 years ago a prof. at Montreal , Quebec, Canada grew "rusty grain
> beetles" on ground up wheat, seived out the spent grain dust, dried the
> beetles, ground them up and made a "beetle bread" from them. The bottom
> line is that people so long as they have no compelling reason ( like
> utter starvation or a loaded weapon pointed at them) to consume this
> kind of stuff and avoid it like the plague. In time all our food might
> however be rebuilt like soy-burgers or "assembled" to resemble
> "heritage food".
>
> John Marlow wrote:
>
> > I really don't know what to say. I've known a few
> > Australians. I wouldn't rule it out.
> >
> > john marlow
> > --
> >
> > Emilyn wrote:
> >
> > Its a tiny mite that eats the crops here. They collect
> > them, and mash them
> > into an edible dark-brown paste, which we spread on
> > bread. Mmmmm.....
> >
> > Emlyn
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "John Marlow" <johnmarrek@yahoo.com>
> > To: <extropians@extropy.org>
> > Sent: Monday, January 08, 2001 6:47 PM
> > Subject: you say vegemite, I say nannite
> >
> > > Possibly; but nano to nannites seems to follow some
> > > kind of basic grammar. Nanites looks as though it
> > > would be pronounced nay-nights. (Then of course you
> > > have lovely terms like hippopotami.) And "molecular
> > > assemblers" is right out.
> > >
> > > What the heck is a vegemite, anyway? Been wondering
> > > that since Men At Work.
> > >
> > > john marlow
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Michael Broderick wrote:
> > >
> > > At 02:51 PM 7/01/01 -0800, John Marlow wrote:
> > >
> > > >I prefer nannites; call me eccentric.
> > >
> > > Shouldn't that be `eccenntric'?
> > >
> > > Damien Broderick
> > >
> > >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:17 MDT