BUG THAT GOBBLES SPILLS

A General Electric Company has created in the laboratory a man-made organism designed to attack oil spills on waterways, digesting the petroleum and converting it into a form that can be eaten by marine life. Petroleum is a mixture of many different types of hydrocarbons, and any individual strain of oil-digesting bacteria can digest only a few of them. Attacking oil spills with mixed strains of bacteria also has proved unsatisfactory--because the competition between strains hampers their growth. This problem has been solved by combining the genes from four different strains of oil-digesting bacteria into a single "super-strain." In laboratory tests, it has grown at a much faster rate on crude oil than have any of the individual strains.

• Corporate Authors:

  Intec Press Limited

  3 Station Parade
  Whyteleafe, Surrey,   England 
• Publication Date: 1975-10

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 16
• Serial:
  • Tanker and Bulker International
  • Volume: 1
  • Issue Number: 6
  • Publisher: Intec Press Limited

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Biodeterioration; Oil spill cleanup
• Old TRIS Terms: Oil spill control
• Subject Areas: Environment; Marine Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00128917
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Intec Press Limited
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Feb 4 1976 12:00AM