Panda poo is powerful stuff. A researcher in Japan plans to use bacteria from the animals鈥� guts to power a combined hydrogen fuel cell and waste-disposal unit. Fumiaki Taguchi of Kitasato University, Tokyo, reasoned that pandas must have bacteria with superlative digestive abilities to digest extremely tough bamboo.
From panda dung donated by Ueno Zoo, his team isolated five strains of bacteria that are extremely efficient at digesting proteins, fats and sugars, even at high temperature. Within 17 weeks, the bacteria reduced 100 kilograms of raw vegetable waste to just 3 kilograms of residue. Each kilogram of waste also produces 100 litres of hydrogen which can be used to power a fuel cell that Taguchi plans to showcase at the World Expo in Aichi prefecture in 2005.