14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, a team of Virginia Tech researchers announced that they had succeeded in turning non-edible plant materials into a potential food source.
What they basically did was figure out a way to turn cellulose into amylose (i.e. a component of starch), Inhabitat reports.
Despite its being the most abundant organic material in the world, cellulose cannot be digested by humans.
Because of this, its being turned into something edible by these researchers stands to bring forth solutions for the food crisis that environmentalists and specialists keep warning us about.
According to the same source, the process that allowed these scientists to turn cellulose into amylose is referred to as (take a deep breath before trying to read this) simultaneous enzymatic biotransformation and microbial fermentation.
A detailed account of this research was published in the Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.