Word: bacterias
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...increased demand for nitrogen, source of both explosives and fertilizers. Though chemical plants now building will soon triple U.S. capacity to produce nitrogen from the air, TNT production is fast approaching 6,000 tons a day. But chemists and farmers have a partial substitute for fertilizer-nitrogen-fixing bacteria...
...found in most good farm soils. They live in nodules on the roots of leguminous plants (peas, beans, alfalfa, clover), contribute twice as much nitrogen (33% of the return) to the soil as manures and chemical fertilizers together. But their natural activity can be artificially increased if more bacteria are mixed with legume seed and planted with it. This process is called soil inoculation. Farmers buy the inoculating bacteria in cans of moist humus or bottles of sugary jelly. Enough bacteria for an acre cost from 25? to 40?, will fix from 100 to 200 lb. of nitrogen. This...
Result: the biggest jump in the history of the bacteria industry. From seed stores and mail-order houses, farmers are buying 25% to 50% more bacteria than last year, when they bought the estimated $1,000,000 output of a score of commercial laboratories...
Caused by comma-shaped bacteria known as Vibrio or Spirillum cholerae, which dwell in sewage-contaminated water, cholera drains body tissues of their fluids, causes intense vomiting, diarrhea and violent muscular spasms. More than a third of its victims shrivel up, turn dark grey or violet, die, sometimes within a few hours...
...cellulose-digesting bacteria are of the aciduric group, akin to the Lactobacillus acidophilus of Bulgarian buttermilk, which (some scientists think) helps un usual numbers of Balkan rustics to fill themselves full of years. Taken in liquid form, the bacterial cultures taste like chocolate syrup. They become permanently established among the intestinal flora in about a month. Cost: $2 per person...