What life form can use materials as nutrients that we, and most other animals, would consider waste products?
None other than the giant cockroaches that infest sewer systems and erupt from people’s bathtub drains, according to scientists Nancy Moran and Zakee Sabree of the University of Arizona, and Srinivas Kambhampati of Kansas State University. The researchers published their results in last week’s issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Uric acid and urea are nitrogenous waste products not useful to animals as food. But by teaming up with a bacterium, cockroaches can use them as sources for making their own proteins. “It’s an example of a symbiosis,” says Moran, “that allows a whole new way of life.” One day, it might help us better understand how animals successfully store excess uric acid, a problem in human kidney disease and other diseases. Insects are the most abundant and diverse animals on Earth, says Matt Kane, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s division of environmental biology, which funded the research. “Through genom
