How a Biotech Company Almost Killed The World (With Booze)
As those of you savvy enough to read bylines know by now, my name is Robert Brockway. What you may not know is that I wrote a book called Everything is Going to Kill Everybody. Now, I don't want to overstate anything here, but I heard it wins the Pulitzer next year, reading it raises your IQ by a factor of 460 points, and I once saw it kill a guy in a bar-fight (you wouldn't have heard about that; the police covered it up because they couldn't catch it. It's really fast.)
It's a non-fiction book about the apocalypse - and while that sounds like I'm proclaiming myself a prophet, I assure you that it's all quite factual, so there's no need to burn me at the stake. Everything is Going to Kill Everybody runs down the many bizarre, frightening, and very real ways the world may soon - or already almost did - die screaming. This is a sample chapter pulled straight from the book (though we've added images and other such shiny things, because the internet is a very distracting place):
In the 1990s, A European biotech company prepared to commercially release a genetically engineered soil bacterium for use by farmers. They were operating under two very reasonable assumptions:
1. Nobody likes plant waste.
2. Everybody likes booze.
Whereas the common man might address these issues by simply not doing any plowing and opting to get plowed instead, scientists at the biotech company thought of a much more elegant solution: Engineer a bacterium that aggressively decomposes dead plant material--specifically wheat--into alcohol. And in 1990, they did exactly that. The bacterium was called Klebsiella planticola, and it nearly murdered everybody; you just don't know it yet.
What the Hell Was It?
Klebsiella planticola is of the enterobacterium family, microbes that typically reside inside the guts of mammals, but this particular strain inhabits the root systems of most terrestrial plants. Actually, every root system that's ever been tested for the presence of K. planticola has come up positive, so it is as near to a universal plant bacterium as there has ever been (you should remember that part, because it's going to come in handy later). In its pre-modified, natural form, K. planticola is partly responsible for the decomposition of all plant matter--a vital step in the natural life cycle--and it's notoriously aggressive in this role. That's why it was picked out for experimentation in the first place: Like an Old Testament God, K. planticola is both omnipresent and incredibly belligerent.
Biotech researchers saw these traits and thought they seemed perfect for an agricultural problem they were working on. Burning off dead plant material, as was the standard practice, severely pollutes the air and damages the lungs of farmers.
So What Did They Do?
What if, instead of the regular old largely useless sludge that decomposing plant material result in, we could alter that sludge into something more useful to humans, thus eliminating the desire to simply burn it away? What if we could ferment it, and turn it into an alcohol, a fuel or a hyper-efficient fertilizer? Or better yet, all three! Why not get blitzed off of it, piss it into your gas tank to power your car and then puke it up into the yard to make your garden grow?
Suddenly alcoholics are useful members of society again. Hell, they're practically heroes: brave men and women sacrificing both their livers and their dignity to bring us power, food and alcoholic-inspired confidence!
Well, that's the noble goal biotech researchers had in mind when they spliced an alcohol-producing bacterium into K. planticola. Once their product was released, farmers would simply gather the dead plant matter into buckets and let it ferment into alcohol. Alcohol that could do everything they hoped: Be distilled into gasoline, sowed as fertilizer, burned as cooking fuel or just drunk by the filthy, dirt- tasting bucketful. Their bioengineered K. planticola would create a beautiful, Eden-like garden paradise. So it was all with the intent of doing good that they engineered this microbe, but you know what they say about "the best intentions," don't you?
That's right: They inevitably result in pestilent, humanity-destroying plagues.
See, it was that fertilizer part where things got, shall we say, fucking horrifying: Once the fermentation process necessary to turn that dead plant material into alcohol occurred, the sludge left over would be rich in nitrogen and other such beneficial substances, making it an ideal fertilizer. The plan was to spread this sludge fertilizer back on the fields, thus eliminating all waste from the whole process.
What Went Wrong?
The fermentation process didn't kill the modified K. planticola--it was still there, ready to turn dead plant material into alcohol. The bigger problem? It didn't even wait until the plants were dead to start. The normal K. planticola bacterium result in a benign layer of slime on the living root systems it inhabits, but the engineered version would also be producing alcohol in this slime--with levels as high as 17 parts per million, and anything beyond one or two parts of alcohol per million is lethal to all known plant life. So the engineered K. planticola basically gives all plant life it touches severe alcohol poisoning, putting them more than 10 times over the lethal limit of fucked up. Like a frat house during pledge week, K. planticola would force all new plants it encountered to drink well beyond their reasonable limits. But unlike frat house rushes, it's not just freshman idiots who are affected, it's everybody. So maybe that analogy isn't entirely accurate: It's more like a bleak dystopian future where frat houses rule the world with a tyrannical fist, hazing and beer-bonging humanity into the grave. Because, you'll remember, K. planticola is present in all plant life.
Every species.
Every variety.
Poisoned.
To death.
Now those wonderful traits that made it such a good candidate for modification in the first place--its notorious aggressiveness and near omnipresence--are no longer such good things, are they? Because if there's one thing you really don't want your poison to be, it's "notoriously aggressive." And if there's one place you absolutely do not want your "notoriously aggressive poison" to be, it's "everywhere." Keep in mind that this was not a theoretical scenario; far-flung, fictional and unlikely to ever actually occur. This bacterium was going to be released; it had all of the necessary approval. It was only a matter of proper marketing and shipping at this point. It was only by virtue of a random review by an independent scientist (Dr. Elaine Ingham, a professor at Oregon State University and possibly the savior of all mankind) that it was caught in time.
How the Fuck Could This Possibly Happen?!
How did the leading biotech researchers of the day not realize that they had engineered a bacterium that would kill all plant life it touched? Did they not test it on any, you know, plants?!
Well, for all intents and purposes: No, they didn't.
See, the Environmental Protection Agency was the only overseer for all biotech releases, and their policy was to test new bacteria in sterile soil. The problem here being that the real world is not sterile; it is the antithesis of sterile. The whole point of sterility is to zap all normal, unexpected elements out of a sample environment so that the scientists can see its effects in a pure, untainted environment. They deemed the modified K. planticola to be safe in sterile soil, but apparently just totally forgot that its intended use was in the fucking dirt, which is a notoriously dirty place, isn't it?!
Luckily, Ingham and her group took it upon themselves to study the bacteria in a more realistic scenario, using normalized samples of unsterile soil and three different sample groups. There was a group absent of K. planticola entirely, a group with the normal K. planticola present and a group with the genetically modified K. planticola in it. They planted wheat seeds in all three groups, and then let it sit for a week. When they came back they found the first two groups doing fine, while all the crops from the GM sample were dead. Dead in less than a week. If released from the lab--which, I cannot stress enough, it very nearly was--the modified K. planticola would have spread worldwide in a matter of months, killing all plants it touched within a week, and turning all soil-based plant life into sweet, sweet liquor.
Like a twisted hillbilly fantasy, the world really very nearly drowned in moonshine.
Related Material:
Klebsiella planticola--The Gene-Altered Monster That Almost Got Away
A GE Bacterium That Could Have Killed All Plants
"Effects of Klebsiella planticola on soil biota and wheat growth in sandy soil." M.T. Holmes et al., Applied Soil Ecology 326:1-12, 1998
Buy Everything is Going to Kill Everybody! And read his weekly column Robert Brockway: Word Puncher.
Or, head to the Death at a Funeral caption contest to see a screen grab from Martin Lawrence and Chris Rock's controversial new ad for Oreo Double Stuff cookies.
"Like a twisted hillbilly fantasy, the world really very nearly drowned in moonshine."
ReplyAnother precious gem, Brockway, reducing me to tears of hilarity!
Capitalism is so cool. I feel as though making a profit is all that matters. I really hate when all of these "tests" have to be run when all I want to do is release a product and count the revenue.
ReplyHang on, why exactly would this virus have spread? If it kills every plant it comes into contact with, it really wouldn't spread very far would it? That's not a competitive advantage over the original strain, so it wouldn't replace the original strain. And Bacteria don't breed with other bacteria, so it wouldn't have got into the "everywhere" that normal planticola inhabits. It would have killed a few farmers crops, pissed everyone off and left a small crater of nothing, until the bacterium starved.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesThis "virus" was a bacteria, which is a little bit of a difference, sinde 2. bacteria CAN move, spread, and pretty much do everything a virus can not do without a host. 3. Very far? I mean, I didnt think you were all that bright to begin with, but are you aware that plants are freaking everywhere? something that contaminates plants is bound to kill everything everywhere faster than something that just moves through the air or however you imagine stuff. 4. Competitive advantage? This bacteria is already in every single freaking plant. Now I dont know, but i'm pretty damn sure, that the original strain is killed by alcohol, as is (check on your lysol) 99,99 % of everything. The new strain produces alcohol, so what do you guess it would survive? 5. "Bacteria don't breed with other bacteria" is among the top 5 of the stupidest things i've ever heard. 6. I hate you for being stupid.
It's not already in any plants. The original strain is. *They are different things*. The new strain has to compete with the old, established, doesn't-kill-its-own food strain.
And bacteria do reproduce asexually.
Gusboy's conclusions may not necessarily be right (?), but the concerns aren't stupid at all.
There was a particular species of plant that would have survived the large amounts of alcohol, but it has since cleaned up its act and now owns a small dry cleaners in Spokane with its family.
We can't say for certain that it would have wiped out all plant life on earth, but it would have wiped out all plant life it came into contact with. I suppose it comes down to how fast the bacteria can spread versus how fast its food is wiped out by its poisoning. I would guess that in the time it takes for an infected plant to stop providing nutrition to the bacteria (completely decompose), the bacteria would have had plenty of time to cover the plant's entire root system and spread to other roots.
The one thing that the scientists don't seem to have tested for is what happens when the normal bacteria and the engineered bacteria are both placed on a plant. When the infected bacteria was alone, it produced 17 times the amount of alcohol necessary to kill plants, so, even if the modified bacteria were only to gain a 6% "market share" of a plant's roots, it would be lethal (assuming the "benign slime" produced by the ordinary bacteria didn't protect the roots to some extent). I think it's safe to say that the modified bacteria would have little difficulty producing lethal results in most plants' roots and spreading to other plants.
I need to get ahold of that stuff and release it everywhere. You know why? f**k humanity! We can all die!
Replyf**k the EPA.
ReplyI don't know why, but I approve!
Ice 9.
Replyperfect Vonnegut reference!
K. planticola 1 said to K. planticola 2, "I am sick and tired of living in this horse's colon. I heard that the heart and brain are the places to be. You with me?"
ReplyK. planticola 2 was nervous, but didn't want to be left alone. "Sure."
So, they set out along the inferior mesenteric towards the heart. K. planticola 1 said, "I am going to take a short-cut through the celiac axis." K. planticola 2 said, "I think I am just going to continue up to the superior mesenteric. It might be slower, but I feel better staying the course."
So, K. planticola 1 took a right into the celiac axis, and was immediately devoured by a host of white blood cells.
Moral: Don't change streams in mid-horse.
Ha!
Har har!
Seriously, that was great.
I've been meaning to buy this book for a while. When I saw the plug in the top, I opened it up on amazon and decided I'd buy it if this article made me laugh. Little did I know the article would be an excerpt.
ReplyI am now buying the book.
I wonder if Brockway has read exitmundi.nl...
ReplyI've loved almost everything you've written on here, Mr. Brockway, I shall definitely pick this up. I am laughing at the comments though, especially the people that think this is Serious Buisness. I think the book will be a good laugh, to strike a little fear in our hearts at what could have happened to kill us all. Who needs exact science when you have humor involved. Well...unless it's one of the Science of Discworld books, but that's a completely different thing.
ReplyWhy don't you think that was serious? Ok, so it would be unreasonable for it to spread, but s**t could it f**k up some crops.
I am so not reading this as I'm getting this book for my birthday. It was released in the UK today (6th April) and I'll be getting it next month so I wanna wait till then to read this. :)
Replyafter reading this, im like "OH SHIT!" this shouldnt be in a book, it should be in the f**kin newspapers, news and in the f**king history books
ReplyExcept it really isn't true. Still think that Cracked is "just a comedy site" after comments like the above?
I too have tried to use this article in my PhD thesis on advanced quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, the science behind the text is not appropriate at all, seemingly dealing with some sort of plant instead of physics. I was left highly disappointed. Please, revise your book so that I can use your research in my paper.
Reply Hide All See All 8 RepliesThe aim of cracked writers is comedy you complete and utter f**king douchenozzle.
Why would anyone care about your dumbass f**king paper?
The irony of the person replying missing the point of both the article and the comment entirely and then commenting on said commenter's paper with critical analysis such as "douchenozzle" hasn't been lost on me at all, since he is clearly under the mistaken impression that he is the smarter one. Tyyson, please consider your impaling wit to be universally accepted and go back to your forty.
@allears: I, too, was completely dumbfounded by the sweet, sweet, alcoholic irony that was condensing on my PC monitor from me reading Tyyson's reply.
Although, to be fair to Tyyson; he's probably 11, so the term 'irony' probably doesn't exist in his vocabulary. He probably thinks you mean that he had an iron-like, bulletproof reply.
The true irony? Nothing said here was irony (except the irony of people preaching irony and then not actually knowing what irony means and no, the preceding sentence wasn't irony)
Ironically enough, Airlord, Tyyson's reply was 100% situational irony, as he was flaming dracken for missing the comedy, when it was he who was being too uptight.
The humor of something or another wasn't lost on me, but maybe it was.
im so lucky only the first two replies showed! i laughed louder and longer than is acceptable at 3:19AM on ANY day of the week. thanks be to all 3 of you - this is what makes the webs the crowning achievement of mankind!
How in the name of flying f**k are you supposed to write a goddamn thesis on quantum mechanics based on a f*****g plant article anyway?!
If you really want to know how it ends, read Nostradamus.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesA guy named Dr Strangelove prescribes Paxil for a world leader.
Der leader gets one of the eight dozen side effects you have to listen thru during one of their commercials - namely, "hurry up, give someone else a turn".
One dark and stormy night Der leader shouts for some paregoric
and faithful and whipped Nurse Eyegore knocks over the paregoric
bottle and thus substitutes laudanum, which contains 25 times more
morphine than paregoric.
Oh, no! (lightening strikes a cherry tree outside, singeing a nest of Robins into a cloud of feathers). As everyone that knows
everything knows, you don't mix morphine and Paxil.
"The Football" - no! not THAT football - is ordered and the Red Button is presented to Der Leader. Nurse Eyegore would have talked Der Leader into reconsidering, but lingered (Dear Gott, who knows why?) too long in the bathroom.
The Final Line of Nostradamus' quatrain is correctly translated as, "Flushed, the eyes bugout as the sound of missles shouts"
Nostradamus was the Ron Hubbard of his time, minus religion.
Many of the wurld's mysteries are under appreciated.
For instance,
the more religion I get the less religious I am.
WHY doesn't it work the same way with Cracked?
You mean: The more Cracked you read, the less cracked you actually are?
I could have sworn that when I first read this article last night, that that the image near the top showing a woman with her arms around the man had a drug weed reference underneath it. Now it's making the tamer joke of weed "whiskey". Don't tell me that someone actually complained until the image was changed...
ReplyThis would be a really cool movie put in the right context and the theme was written, produced, and played by Brendan Small.
ReplyFuck that, they should make it the sequel to The Happening. And bring back Marky Mark!
Well, now I'm definetly certain.
ReplyI'm buying this book!
Kudos to ya, Brockway, here's hoping you turn a pretty penny off this, or scare a few snot-nosed brats s**tless. Both are pretty good, actually.
Brockway is getting involved in the comments?! This is the first time I've seen a Cracked writer actually respond to anything since Swaim and G-Stone stopped doing it a while back.
ReplyRespond to me! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Also I thought the excerpt was alright, but I much prefer your insane, stupid humor to your informative, intelligent humor.
And to any other members who are scanning the comments section waiting to jump on me for calling it "informative" even though they have evidence it's completely false: I don't care.
I'm only doing it because it's my book. I'm trying to treat it like a Q & A for people on the fence about buying it. After this, I am never coming into the comments section again.
Damn. Well it was nice to see a writer back in the comments section, even if it was just for a day or two. I appreciate you responding to my completely inane comment, and best of luck on the book sales. If I come across it in stores I may have to buy it. I don't think I've ever read a "humor" book that actually made me laugh, but I'd be willing to give yours a shot.
For a rebuttal to the assertions made by Ingham, google: ingham rebuttal pdf
Reply Hide All See All 8 RepliesI know this is just a comedy article, but we could have a serious discussion of the risks involved and how to better handle those risks. However, this article adds to the illusion that GM products are evil, and should never be allowed. Yes, GM crops have the potential to hurt the environment, but also the potential to help the environment and save billions of lives everyday. I'll admit that we should be careful with any new GM product, but I refuse to believe that Prometheus should have the fire thrown back in his face.
No, this article does not add to any illusions. It makes some jokes, though. You're thinking of magicians.
It's too bad that people don't apply the "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" thinking to government and regulation.
I don't see how this article ever implies that GM products are EVUL. The EPA just f**ked up, s**t happens.
The title of the article was "A biotech company almost killed the world with booze."
Does it say murdered? no, it says 'killed' that's a pretty nuetral term. So where the hell did you pick evil out of that?
Hmmm, murdered/killed. It sure is a grand canyon of difference there.
Is there really confusion on the difference between killing and murder? You believe that when the newspapers say that an earthquake "killed" 100 people, that the earth straight f**king murdered them? That it willfully and purposely opened up and swallowed the s**t out of those 100 people because one day, the sentient earth just said, "Seriuosly, f**k those guys?"
The difference between killing and murder is intention. Specifically, killing implies no intention whatsoever, and merely implies the act of making something not alive anymore.
When a person or group of people is said to "kill" another group or person, it usually implies "murder." At least manslaughter or negligent homicide. Either way, it is intended to overdramatize the dangers of bioengineering and even the damage a corporation can create in general. We all know where cracked is going with this kind of thing.
Brockway, you continue to impress. I'm on the fence about your book, though. Is there anywhere I can read one more excerpt?
Reply