To: blowfish
No, but they do produce methane, which IS a hydrocarbon....
It does not strain credibility to think that engineered bacteria (maybe starting from the ones in cows that produce methane) could possibly produce some other type of hydrocarbon.
22 posted on
04/21/2008 1:35:15 PM PDT by
clee1
(We use 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, and 2 to pull a trigger. I'm lazy and I'm tired of smiling.)
To: clee1
No, it is *theoretically possible* that a bacteria (or other microorganism) could be found that converted specific natural materials to larger hydrocarbons. Note that the bacterial production of methane you cite is quite specific to methane and would not lend itself to larger molecules.
This has been a subject of active research for a long time.
37 posted on
04/21/2008 2:01:38 PM PDT by
blowfish
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