NEW TECHNOLOGIES SERVE HUMAN WELL-BEING

PART 1

Even a simple enumeration of the spheres of human endeavour which can be placed on a basically new level would add up to an impressive list and the agency which can make this possible is microbes. They exist everywhere — on land and in the air, in the Arctic and in hot spring lakes, amid mountain ranges and in the depths of the sea. However, the richest storehouse of microbes is soil. And each microbe may be considered as a chemical plant of tremendous capacity. While some microbes feed on complex vegetable or animal proteins, others confine them- selves to ordinary wood wastes and still others simply make do with atmospheric nitrogen or carbon dioxide.

Considering all this, laboratory experimenters are advising special artificial media in which microbe “food” is dissolved. Here microorganisms rapidly multiply and in the process of their life activity synthesize food, medicinal and other substances.

Factories in Russia alone produce more than a million tonnes of feed additives of microbial origin which contain more than 50 per cent of protein. However, in proportion to expended fodder only 20 to 30 per cent of meat and milk can be obtained, and only from rapidly growing young animals. And still less — only to 10 per cent — from adult specimens. A question arises is the connecting link of animals necessary? Perhaps nutrients which are fed to them can be used by man directly? Perhaps, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, etc. can be used directly in processing into full-valued foods suitable for man?

It has been demonstrated that by combining products derived from microorganisms with traditional type of food man can obtain dishes well balanced in terms of content and protein composition. For example, more than 60 types of “meat” products including beef, chicken meat, ham, chops, cutlets, bacon and frankfurters are currently being produced from soya beans protein in the United States. Russian production engineers have evolved a process growing ordinary baking yeast on an ethyl alcohol basis and wheat bread can be enriched with this new variety of yeast.

Agriculture requires large amounts of nitrogen fertilizers. The problem can be resolved by bacteria capable of absorbing and fixing atmospheric nitrogen thus enriching the soil and sharply increasing harvests.

Moreover, bacteria can help agriculture in the creation of water bodies. Ponds and lakes are becoming an integral part of farming areas However, they cannot be created everywhere. In some spots the bed fail to trap the water, which escapes. Researchers of the Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Land Improvement found the way to compact ground artificially using anaerobic bacteria— microbes capable to live and develop without free oxygen.

In nature microorganisms make an enormous contribution to the formation of some rocks and minerals and to the destruction of others, as well as to the formation of oil and gas deposits. Naturally, such all powerful bacteria should be made to work for man in these fields as well.

Usually from 5 to 20 per cent of the ore in depleted ore deposits remains in the earth defying extraction by modern technical means. Perhaps the only way this

underground “cemetery” can be reached is mobilizing billions upon billions of bacteria including sulphur and iron ones, otherwise known as thionic microorganisms. They dissolve the metal contained in ores in mine water, which can be extracted without any particular difficulty.

Russian scientists have discovered among the microorganisms “experts” which make it possible to use bacteria in prevailing underground explosions. Methane, for instance, forms an explosive as it mixes with the air. Then one spark is enough to send a tornado of fire rolling through the mine. Associates of the Moscow Mining Engineers’ Institute have developed an original method of combating methane based on the ability of some organisms to absorb this gas.