10. Found wherever Panda Poo is collected or sold
But the bacterial digestion hoopla just never dies down. Over at Mississippi State University, researchers discovered that microbes found in the feces of giant pandas can better breakdown the tough cellulose that has been in a barrier to cellulosic ethanol production. Presenting at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Denver, the researchers said the bacteria they found were similar to those found in the guts of termites that facilitate breaking down the cell walls. The researchers spent a year analyzing panda feces at the Memphis zoo.
Ashli Brown, assisstant professor of biochemistry and leader of the team at Mississippi, commented: “The time from eating to defecation is comparatively short in the panda, so their microbes have to be very efficient to get nutritional value out of the bamboo. And efficiency is key when it comes to biofuel production – that’s why we focussed on the microbes in the giant panda.
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