Darpa, the Pentagon's way-out research arm, has a giant array of programs, meant to make soldiers stronger, smarter, and more resilient than ever before. I profile a couple of these efforts in this month's issue of Wired. The story, "Be More Than You Can Be," should be online Friday. But the thing is, the agency has so many performance-enhancements projects going on, it'd be impossible to squeeze 'em into one magazine piece. So over the next week or so, I'll try to run down as many of these projects as I can.
Let's start today with one of my least favorite subjects: pig manure. Under a Darpa contract, microbiologists at the Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) in Ames, Iowa have been sorting through swine poo, to try to figure out how Wilbur and friends digest what humans usually can't: cellulose, the main fibrous part of plants.
With the right "cellulose-degrading beneficial bacteria in the gut," Darpa notes, soldiers could "increase the amount of energy" they get, "from either food rations or non-traditional foodstuffs."
"Non-traditional?" You mean like troops grazing on grass in a pinch, if their MREs run out? Could be...
Phase 1 of this effort, dubbed "Intestinal Fortitude" has already wrapped up, according to the scientists at ARS' "Swine Odor and Manure Management Research Unit." Over 1,700 degrading bacteria -- many thought to work at digesting cellulose and hemicellulose -- have been isolated. "In preparation for Phase 2 of the grant, we have been characterizing 125 human cellulolytic and xylanolytic bacterial isolates obtained from human feces that were isolated by our collaborators at the [Army's] Natick Soldier Center," the researchers note. "Twelve isolates have been identified as potential fibro-biotics."
Smells like a winner. And it's only one part of what Darpa hopes to do with its "Intestinal Fortitude" project. The other element -- sorry to get all scatological again -- is about diarrhea. During the early days of the Iraq war, the Agency observes, "70 percent of soldiers experienced at least one episode" of it. Darpa would like to dial that number back, by boosting "beneficial bacteria in the gut to protect soldiers from enteric disease and to increase energy derivation."
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