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Snot Eating Bacteria

Snuff for the 21st Century
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Back in olden times doctors would often prescribe snuff for the common cold, while often inducing sneezing and temporary relief (not to mention a buzz from the nicotine) it really wasn't up to the task.

Fast forward to the 21st Century, Dolly is a reality, armies of clones are just around the corner, yet come winter millions of noses succumb to the dreaded drippiness...

The solution... bioengineer those greedy oil eating bacteria to aquire a taste for snot, a small pinch of 'Nosnot' snot eating bacteria from your newly fashionable snuff box et voila, they munch on the snot releasing different flavors of oxygen (depending on brand) as a biproduct. No more snot, pleasant aroma, and an excuse to carry a jeweled snuff box...

zeoslap, Feb 07 2002

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       *Might* be useful if they had a limited lifespan. Otherwise your nasal passages (amongst other orifaces) will end up dry, cracked and bleeding.
phoenix, Feb 08 2002
  

       Tip to kids: Powdered snuff makes for an excellent pseudo-diarrhea effect. Pour a little in commode, stay home from School. Worked for me.
thumbwax, Feb 08 2002
  

       Sure but what would we do for entertainment while sitting in a car waiting for the lights to change without snot?   

       I have so few pleasures in this world....don't take that one away!
RobGraham, Feb 08 2002
  

       Eh?
phoenix, Feb 08 2002
  

       Kids ? Broccoli ? Huh ?   

       Come on this is genius, you mop up that drippy old snoz and get a gentle waft of oranges or croissants as the little buggers (pardon the pun) chomp through the goop.   

       With regards traffic lights, far be it from me to take that guilty pleasure away, this would be used exclusively for the dribbley goopy snot, not the good crunchy kind.
zeoslap, Feb 08 2002
  

       Snot? Traffic lights? Huh?
waugsqueke, Feb 08 2002
  

       "those greedy oil eating bacteria"... I learned about the microbiological principles behind bioremediation very recently, and can say that this idea is *very* possible. Microbes will metabolise anything they come across, but especially like things with a composition close to the ratio 160:280:80:2:1 for Carbon:Hydrogen:Oxygen:Nitrogen:Sulphur... i.e. similar to their own make-up. (You can see why they like oils so much then). I don't know what the composition of snot is, but it must be reasonably nutritious (to a bacterium, that is, traffic lights notwithstanding!).
Anyway, microbes cannot metabolise what they have not yet encountered, so all you need to do is to introduce a population of very mixed bacteria to a lot of snot: what will then happen is called Plasmid Exchange which is basically where the bacteria get together and swop sections of DNA so that they can build a new strain which will deal with this new 'food'. [[I have no idea how long this process takes. But, as a guide, it has taken 25-30 years for bacteria to get to know how to metabolise off a Chlorine molecule since ICI first made (and someone spilled) chlorinatd solvents. However, this may be because the bacteria are not really interested in those chemicals because it takes a lot of pointless removal of the chlorines to get down to the basic hydrocarbons which is where the good food is for them]].
sappho, Feb 08 2002
  

       oh, and what I was getting at was that "Fast forward to the 21st Century, Dolly is a reality, armies of clones are just around the corner ... bioengineer ... bacteria" is not really a very efficient way to do this because it will take you at least as long to synthesise a bacterium for snot as it would for them to bioengineer themselves.
And you still have to deal with the problem of how to make them stop, as phoenix said.
sappho, Feb 08 2002
  

       Once the food source was depleted (snot is mainly sugars, proteins, and water while boogers are junk you have breathed in coated in said snot) the bacteria would die and be blown out of your freshly cleansed nose.
zeoslap, Feb 08 2002
  

       Or else they colonize and dry out the rest of your mucous membranes and you die an excruciating, ridiculous death but everyone at the wake peers up your nostrils admiringly and the speakers talk warmly of your remarkable nasal hygiene.
Monkfish, Feb 08 2002
  

       Naw, these are nice bacteria :) Like the ones that live in your stomach, very few dellusions of grandeur, happy to gorge and die a noble death.
zeoslap, Feb 08 2002
  

       Just keep 'em away from your eyes...   

       Some people here seem to know entirely too much about boogers and bacteria for my comfort.
RayfordSteele, Feb 08 2002
  

       -"He was a bad husband and father, he ruined the family business, but the inside of his nose was really something quite astonishing -- like winding twin caverns of polished pink marble, those nostrils were."   

       -"It's a shame he wasn't a taller man."
Monkfish, Feb 08 2002
  

       Most of the time you can blow it out in a hankie.
travbm, Oct 29 2015
  
      
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