The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: June 8, 2008

Official News page 8


REAL LIFE NEWS: THE FLATULENCE VACCINE

by Hazed

Scientists claim to have developed a way to stop sheep and cows from emitting methane - they have an inoculation that should cut down on the belching and the farting. The announcement was made by Phil Goff, the trade minister for New Zealand, where there are a whole lot of sheep. He said, "Our agricultural research organization just last week was able to map the genome that causes methane in ruminant animals and we believe we can vaccinate against flatulent emissions."

This is excellent news, since methane is implicated in global warming, and much of it comes from sheep, cattle, goats and deer as their multiple stomachs digest grass - animals are responsible for about a quarter of the methane in the UK, but in New Zealand the figure is about 90%, so cutting that out would make a big difference.

But stopping animals from belching and farting is all very well. What I want to know is: can this technique be used on humans? No, let's be specific here - male humans. Because we all know that it's men that suffer the most from flatulence; or rather, it's the women in their lives that do the suffering. So the sooner scientists come up with an innoculation to put a stop to it, the better!


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