(Describer) Streams of light collide to create a globe filled with water. Title: Science Nation. A man is shown a tall, thin tree.
[explosion]
(male)
Yes,
small round leaves.
Tell us about how it's used
for women's medicine.
(male narrator)
Over his 50-year career,
Montana State University
plant pathologist Gary Strobel
has traveled
to all seven continents
collecting samples from remote,
sometimes dangerous places.
Ah, this should be good.
It's got nice fleshy tissue.
(Describer) He cuts open a stalk.
(Strobel)
We found a fungus
that makes Taxol.
First billion-dollar
anticancer drug.
Fungi that make
new antibiotics.
(narrator)
With support from
the National Science Foundation,
Strobel and colleagues
have also discovered
that certain organisms
within plants called endophytes
have the ability
to make diesel-like fuels.
(Strobel)
Endophytes are microorganisms--
bacteria, fungi--
that live within
the living tissue of a plant.
(narrator)
One hydrocarbon-producing fungus
comes from the omo tree
of Patagonia.
Another is a citrus fungus
from Florida.
Okay, bud.
(Describer) Strobel and another man work in a lab.
(narrator)
Strobel and engineer Eric Booth
showed us how they make
the diesel-like fuel,
putting the citrus fungus
in a paleobiosphere.
The idea is to mimic
and simulate
important parameters
from an ancient forest--
water circulation,
air circulation--
(Describer) Booth:
into something we can use
in the laboratory.
(Strobel)
You see the fungal growth
(Describer) Strobel points inside the container.
as it has started
to decay the leaf material?
(narrator)
It takes Mother Nature
tens of millions of years
to turn organic material
into fuel.
Strobel and Booth
can make a small amount
in three weeks
using the paleobiosphere.
The fuel is the real thing.
We can tell
if hydrocarbons made today
are identical
to ones made then.
(Strobel)
The fungus does not require
sugar, starch, corn to grow.
It'll grow on leaves.
A given amount
of plant material.
(narrator)
Strobel says the goal
is to improve the process
of using microbes
that degrade plant material,
especially agricultural waste,
to make economically feasible
quantities of hydrocarbons.
Here's the flame.
That's totally fungal biodiesel
that runs that.
(Describer) It runs a tiny machine.
(narrator)
In addition to fuel
and medicine,
Strobel says fungal products
could also be useful
in plastics and green chemicals.
All from a little endophyte.
That's music to the ears
of this plant pioneer.
(Describer) A globe turns.
For Science Nation,
I'm Miles O'Brien.
