|
|
|
WIRED MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 1998 | CRUCIAL TECH
BIOSCIENCE Green Peace The US military has more bombs than it knows what to do with - so many, in fact, that top brass are frantically trying to find new ways to dispose of the current 500,000-ton stockpile. Trucking explosive devices cross-country, where they're dismantled and incinerated, has worked before, but it's an expensive and clearly risky operation. Under the auspices of a US$1 million research project, Manish Shah and his team of researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, proposed an alternative that has government agencies lining up. Shah discovered that certain enzymes in spinach actually eat explosive materials, transforming them into safely "digested" by-products that can be converted to carbon dioxide and water. "The reaction rate is really fast," says Shah. "With the enzymes we can degrade TNT in minutes to hours."
Copyright © 1993-2002 The Condé Nast Publications Inc. All rights reserved. |
