By The Way...

Being that my western and southern neighbors are, in fact, fields of corn or soybeans (depending on the year), I'm always very interested when scientists find new ways to extend the use of agricultural products. So this story in Wired News is encouraging: It's about how a new process can allow more of the corn plant to be used for things like ethanol production and the production of textiles, which in turn can make the cost for these things cheaper over time.

One has to be reserved in one's enthusiasm, mind you -- there's always some new "breakthrough" process that will make ethanol and other agricultural deriviatives something more than what they are now, and yet I'm still not filling my car up with the stuff on a regular basis. But I always want for it to happen, if for no other reason than I'd rather fill up my car's tank with a renewable energy source literally grown by my next-door neighbor, than an increasingly scarce energy source dragged out of the ground half a planet away. I am drastically simplifying the situation, obviously. But I think you know from where I'm coming.

Also, I think that corn-based clothing would be just cool. Well, maybe not cool. But certainly it would be interesting. And when Athena asks where clothes come from, I can just point across the street. Won't that blow her little mind.

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• #1 Comment from andreakingme 
  10/14/03 3:07 PM | Permalink

  It'd blow my kid-like mind. I'd probably even peer at my clothing fibers to try and spot something that looked like a corn kernal.
  
  And then I'd ask, "But hoooooow?"