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People eating ‘grass and peanut shells’ in Darfur, UN says, as hunger crisis engulfs war-ravaged Sudan (edition.cnn.com)

submitted 6 months ago by boem to c/world

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Humanitarian crisis for sure.

Tangent. If I was a mad genetic scientist with no ethics, there are a few things I'd do -- engineering a virus to deliver a few "software patches" to our DNA. One of those things would be to engineer the production of cellulase as an enzyme in our digestive system -- so we can get energy from grass and such in an emergency. Probably the Law of Unintended Consequences will make this worse for humanity somehow (Begun the Grass Wars have!). Mosquitos also get blood sucking removed, in an attempt to make them purely pollinating insects. Vote for Troy as mad scientist!

Won't help the hungry in Sudan now, though. So I'm open to better ideas. Sadly, I largely have bad ideas. If I'm on the side of full external military intervention, it would be considered "colonial". It's hard to propose any solution that isn't just "send aid" -- and you don't want to do that because it gets seized by the parties involved to support their conflict. Do we just watch it play out and accept refugees? That's lame -- how many millions will die in each of the above scenarios. Fuck.

[–] FlyingSquid 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Not sure if you're interested, but John ~~Wyndham~~ Christopher wrote a book about how all grass in the world dies out (including grasses like wheat) and how it destroys civilization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass

(Edit: Wrong British sci-fi writer named John who wrote stuff about the end of the world.)

[–] gimpchrist 7 points 6 months ago

If I was a mad scientist with no ethics I would just plant malunggay trees all over Sudan. Invasive species be damned.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 6 points 6 months ago

I think it is more complicated than lacking an enzyme. Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't pretty much everything that eats grass need to do tricks like eating feces, or having multiple stomachs, or chewing cud, or eating gravel to get nourishment out of it?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

There's gotta be more to it than just an enzyme cellulose. Cows need 4 stomachs and chew their cud to digest that stuff.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Well, yeah, bit it would still likely help gain some nutrition from something that would otherwise pass clean through you. Our poops would look more like horse turds than cow pies. Just dense barely digested grass.

[–] wunami 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

So....the top priority is to do widespread genetic modifications so people can get a minor or negligible amount of nutrition from eating something most people don't normally want to eat?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Nope. Just so that you don't starve in a crisis. Grass tastes gross. ;)

[–] John_McMurray 2 points 6 months ago

And horses don't

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Data encoding into DNA. Let everybody have a subconscious Wikipedia search engine

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

Sad. Eating grass is a real thing we can do, and there's evidence to suggest our ancestors had hardware to do it more efficiently.

It's still not something you can do to survive, just survive a bit longer and not feel so ravenous.