(...)
Warnecke doesn't want the termite's plumbing to get torn and its contents mixed around. It's the contents he's interested in. The gut has bulbous chambers that are swollen with vast quantities of microbes that the termites employ to break down cellulose from the wood or grass the insects consume.
When he's not calling termites "cute little animals," he refers to them as "walking bioreactors," and considers their juicy interiors a kind of liquid gold. For now, he's interested only in the biggest bulb on the string, what's known as the third proctodeal segment, or, in the vernacular of microbial ecology, the "hindgut paunch." This microliter-sized compartment—much larger than the surrounding gut sections and easily distinguished with the naked eye—is home to a distinct community of microbes that some people think may help solve the energy crisis.
Warnecke, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California, has been generating lots of attention lately for his work with termites. The insects are remarkably efficient at turning cellulose into sugar—the first step in making fuel from plants like switchgrass or poplar trees. Scientists can't compete with termites. They can break apart cellulose's tough bonds in the lab, but the enzymes they use are wildly, prohibitively expensive. That's where Warnecke comes in. His research has some people salivating at the prospect of dipping into the termites' microbial stew and pulling out a few enzymes that would finally make it possible to produce ethanol from cellulose on an industrial scale.
Laying aside the forceps, Warnecke picked up two long needles and pushed away the termite's limbs and carapace. He put a drop of buffer solution on the gut to keep it moist and then proceeded to attack the bulging hindgut paunch, repeatedly stabbing the shiny bulb until its contents spilled out and mixed with the buffer to form a slurry of enzymes and cellulose fragments. With his pipette, he sucked up some of the liquid "mash" and squirted it into a plastic tube. He hopes to identify the cellulose-degrading enzymes in the mash, but he first has to figure out which gut-dwelling bacteria make them, and which ones actually work at digesting cellulose.
On weekday mornings when the weather is good, Warnecke bikes to the BART train and takes it from Berkeley through the hills to the upscale suburb of Walnut Creek. At the train station he hops back on his bike...
