'Self-digesting' biofuel plants could ease food crisis
Make clean fuel or feed the world? That's the dilemma facing biofuel producers now that the world food crisis is making the turning of food crops into biofuel seem increasingly irresponsible. But maybe there's a way out. Mariam Sticklen of Michigan State University in East Lansing and colleagues have engineered a fuel plant to make its own cellulases - a bit like oil that refines itself into petroleum.