More on the improbable rush for green fuel...

In the form of an article, Gut Reactions, in the Atlantic Monthly about the energetic promise of termite guts. It's by the very excellent Lisa Margonelli, who lets loose with an interesting bit of food history towards the end of the article:

Blanch has experienced the pitfalls of research driven by political goals. In the early 1970s, he worked on creating faux meat products from petroleum, which was then thought to be a cheap way to feed the world. For example, single-celled “chicken” proteins were produced by yeasts that fed on oil by-products, and then draped around plastic bones.

Mmmmm.... Oil-fed yeast chicken. If only that pesky oil crisis hadn't intervened.