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Farmers who want to produce bigger chickens, fewer greenhouse gas-filled cow burps or healthier animals are increasingly able to turn to one tiny source: microbes.
Although probiotics, which contain microbes, and prebiotics, which encourage the growth of microbes in animals' guts, are already used in the animal health and growth, there is little understanding of how microorganisms and animals interact.
"It's quite unbelievable but … the way probiotics and prebiotics are discovered is by trial and error," said Dr. Antton Alberdi, assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
"Someone will say: "This microbial strain looks really good, so let's try giving it to 10,000 chickens." Usually there is almost no tracking what happens inside the animal."
Dr. Alberdi is scientific manager of a project called HoloFood, which aims to strengthen the evidence surrounding microbes and how they interact with animals, and help companies develop more effective products.
Eventually companies could make more targeted products for farmed animals that use microbes to improve the ratio of muscle to fat, make animals less stressed, stop them from getting infections, or make them grow larger with less food.
The idea is that if plants and intensively farmed animals need fewer resources—like food, antibiotics, chemical inputs—and there is less waste caused by disease and spoilage, it will decrease pressure on the environment.
"It is about meeting the need for cheap protein in a way that's environmentally responsible," said Tom Gilbert, professor of palaeogenomics at the University of Copenhagen, who leads HoloFood.
"The more efficient the food conversion … the less polluting it is," he added.
[...] Other microbes under study include those that may help produce health-boosting fermented foods, or even reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cattle and other ruminants.
"If we can kill those methane-producing microbes—either through the introduction of other microbes or specific types of food—then there's a great deal of benefit that can be gained from that," Dr. Cotter added.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @07:10PM (5 children)
Yes. On the other hand, *everything* is bacteria-infested. You have more bacteria cells in your body than you have "human" cells.
Anybody who is scientifically literate enough to see past the marketing spin of the term "probiotic" is also smart enough to know why it doesn't matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @08:26PM
i am curious to know your scientific methode of "counting" or even weighing this difference?
probably there are tons of bacteria everywhere (except maybe the fab photonizing the next locked down baseband chip) however my take from the "probiotics" spin is that a selection of MULTIPLE bugs is better then trying to go bug-free, creating a situation where one hardy nasty can take over the whole lot? my enemies enemy is my friend -thing?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday August 07 2019, @08:50PM (1 child)
It's not at all clear that it doesn't matter. In fact, there is strong evidence in the opposing direction. Unfortunately, most of it is about things to avoid rather than to encourage. (For obvious reasons.)
That said, the evidence in favor of most (all?) commercial probiotics is, to be polite, weak.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 08 2019, @12:26AM
(The same AC as the one you are responding to.)
I actually had meant "doesn't matter" in the sense that "yes, that 'probiotic yogurt' you are eating is full of bacteria. Who cares? It's not like eating (most) bacteria is bad for you."
That being said, you are also correct that it would be equally applicable to say that it "doesn't matter" in the sense that for the vast majority of cases, eating a few million more bacteria will have a negligible effect.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 08 2019, @07:33AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 08 2019, @09:26AM
Chemicals make you too strong and fast, and that's awful [xkcd.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford