Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: DoctorBeaver on 09/08/2008 08:53:45
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extract from The Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4483757.ece)
Australian scientists have come up with a unique way to combat climate change: eat kangaroos and save the world.
A study claims that farming and consuming more kangaroos instead of cattle and sheep will reduce carbon gas emissions.
According to the scientific journal Conservation Letters, the Australian icon produces far less methane than sheep and cattle. Methane is one of the worst causes of greenhouse gas and in Australia alone sheep and cattle produce 11 per cent of the nation’s total emissions.
Kangaroos, on the other hand, produce relatively small amounts of the gas because they are not ruminants; as with wallabies, the microorganisms in their stomachs differ from those found in sheep and cattle.
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Kangaroo milk is supposedly very nutritious...
"I can see potential applications particularly suitable for very tiny embryos because a kangaroo embryo is about as big as a pea when born," said Prof Graves.
"It doesn't even have some of its organs yet so the milk is packed full of growth factors. Such milk might be very useful for very young and premature infants."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3604045.stm