Thursday, October 18, 2007

Bacteria Making Silk, Insulin, Chocolate and More

From Article "Miracle Bugs" at Creation Moments

The silk of the golden orb spider is five times stronger than steel, yet more elastic than any similar material we could manufacture. It could be used to make light and comfortable bulletproof vests and helmets. The problem is, it takes over half a million spiders to make a pound of silk. So scientists have taken the spider gene that makes the silk and put it into a harmless bacterium. When that bacterium divides, it makes more bacteria complete with the gene. Today there are millions of bacteria making usable amounts of spider silk.

This technology has resulted in what has been called the greatest revolution since industrialization. Bacteria are now making insulin, vaccine, and even chocolate. Today, bacteria are mainly used to manufacture medicines.

Visit Creation Moments for entire article.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please I read that bacteria help in making the chocolate. Could you tell me the process of making it? Thank you.

sharingsunshine said...

Here's a link describing the entire process of making chocolate from harvest ... which includes the bacteria factor: Making Chocolate.

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