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  1. #1

    Cockroach milk is the next "superfood", scientists claim.

    http://time.com/4424290/cockroach-mi...od-scientists/
    http://www.sciencealert.com/scientis...cockroach-milk

    An international team of scientists has just sequenced a protein crystal located in the midgut of cockroaches. The reason?

    It’s more than four times as nutritious as cow’s milk and, the researchers think it could be the key to feeding our growing population in the future.

    Although most cockroaches don’t actually produce milk, Diploptera punctate, which is the only known cockroach to give birth to live young, has been shown to pump out a type of ‘milk’ containing protein crystals to feed its babies.

    The fact that an insect produces milk is pretty fascinating – but what fascinated researchers is the fact that a single one of these protein crystals contains more than three times the amount of energy found in an equivalent amount of buffalo milk (which is also higher in calories then dairy milk).

    Clearly milking a cockroach isn’t the most feasible option, so an international team of scientists headed by researchers from the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in India decided to sequence the genes responsible for producing the milk protein crystals to see if they could somehow replicate them in the lab.

    "The crystals are like a complete food - they have proteins, fats and sugars. If you look into the protein sequences, they have all the essential amino acids," said Sanchari Banerjee, one of the team, in an interview with the Times of India.

    Not only is the milk a dense source of calories and nutrients, it’s also time released. As the protein in the milk is digested, the crystal releases more protein at an equivalent rate to continue the digestion.

    "It’s time-released food," said Subramanian Ramaswamy, who led the project. "if you need food that is calorifically high, that is time released and food that is complete. This is it."

    It’s important to point out that this dense protein source is definitely never going to be for those trying to lose weight, and probably isn’t even required for most western diets, where we are already eating too many calories per day.

    But for those who struggle to get the amount of calories required per day, this could be a quick and easy way to get calories and nutrients.

    "They're very stable. They can be a fantastic protein supplement," said Ramaswamy.

    Now the researchers have the sequence, they are hoping to get yeast to produce the crystal in much larger quantities- making it slightly more efficient (and less gross) than extracting crystals from cockroach’s guts.
    Would you drink it?

  2. #2
    Scarab Lord Mister Cheese's Avatar
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    Sounds like something you'd drink for a bet.

  3. #3
    Reforged Gone Wrong The Stormbringer's Avatar
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    If it was made in a lab instead of out of a cockroach, yeah, I'd drink it. It sounds like the sort of thing that would be mixed with some other nutrients and vitamins and sold as a 'meal on the go' sort of drink, or possibly even a super-ration if it can be stored for long periods.

  4. #4
    This is probably one of those things you are just better off not really knowing where it came from, as good as it is for you.
    "My successes are my own, but my failures are due to extremist leftist liberals" - Party of Personal Responsibility

    Prediction for the future

  5. #5
    How is it even feasible to milk incredibly small amounts of milk from millions of cockroaches. How could this ever been automated or possible in practice?

  6. #6
    Never going to overcome the irrationality of 1) the 'yuck' reaction and 2) the 'omg it was made in a lab' reaction.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Vellus View Post
    How is it even feasible to milk incredibly small amounts of milk from millions of cockroaches. How could this ever been automated or possible in practice?
    They're trying to grow it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zantos View Post
    There are no 2 species that are 100% identical.
    Quote Originally Posted by Redditor
    can you leftist twits just fucking admit that quantum mechanics has fuck all to do with thermodynamics, that shit is just a pose?

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Vellus View Post
    How is it even feasible to milk incredibly small amounts of milk from millions of cockroaches. How could this ever been automated or possible in practice?
    Giant mutant cockroaches.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    you don't need science to make a superfood. just take any edible product that sounds unusual/weird, spin some pseudoscience around it, talk abit about your "special" production procress, and sell it with a huge markup.

    For example beef jerky could easily be sold as a superfood if you talk abit about how it has more protein per gram then regular meat, how you use a special process to turn regular meat into your supermeat, how only a special kind of beef can be used, etc.

  9. #9
    No I will never drink that horse shit.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Him of Many Faces View Post
    you don't need science to make a superfood. just take any edible product that sounds unusual/weird, spin some pseudoscience around it, talk abit about your "special" production procress, and sell it with a huge markup.

    For example beef jerky could easily be sold as a superfood if you talk abit about how it has more protein per gram then regular meat, how you use a special process to turn regular meat into your supermeat, how only a special kind of beef can be used, etc.
    I eat tons of beef jerky, I love it.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Hooked View Post
    No I will never drink that horse shit.
    Well you're in luck, it doesn't come from horses.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zantos View Post
    There are no 2 species that are 100% identical.
    Quote Originally Posted by Redditor
    can you leftist twits just fucking admit that quantum mechanics has fuck all to do with thermodynamics, that shit is just a pose?

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by AlarStormbringer View Post
    If it was made in a lab instead of out of a cockroach, yeah, I'd drink it.
    Why? A clean cockroach from a FDA- or EFSA-compliant food farm is just fine. Cockroaches are bleh because they subsist on detritus and are carriers of diseaes, but clean ones would be just as edible and tasty as any other arthropod.

  12. #12
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Hooked View Post
    No I will never drink that horse shit.

    - - - Updated - - -



    I eat tons of beef jerky, I love it.
    could you try to explain why you feel that milk from a non-common source is gross, but dehydrated astronaut food is not?

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Vellus View Post
    How is it even feasible to milk incredibly small amounts of milk from millions of cockroaches. How could this ever been automated or possible in practice?
    It wouldn't be farmed from the cockroaches themselves, they would either try to grow it in a lab or genetically modify another animal to host it. Kind of like those goats that produce spider silk.

  14. #14
    I am Murloc! shadowmouse's Avatar
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    Crystals, produced in bulk by yeast. I can easily see that getting treated much like spirulina and getting sold as tablets. It may be a bit too dense in calories and nutrients to be distributed as a powder by itself, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it get a fancier name than cockroach milk and then ending up as a supplement in powders.
    With COVID-19 making its impact on our lives, I have decided that I shall hang in there for my remaining days, skip some meals, try to get children to experiment with making henna patterns on their skin, and plant some trees. You know -- live, fast, dye young, and leave a pretty copse. I feel like I may not have that quite right.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Celista View Post
    Giant mutant cockroaches.
    Wouldn't work with cow-sized (or larger) cockroaches - they would run out of oxygen since they don't have lungs.

  16. #16
    Yeah i see this no different then any other things we put in food ... like yeast or red color ( it is crushed bugs you know ) this is not going to be something you pick up by the liter and put in a glass to drink.

    If they can make it in a lab and it really has a very high calorie count combined with being healthy i can easy see this used, energy bars, food for people that has issues with getting enough calories ( medical reasons or whatever ) and so on.

    Ofc. it is going to be sold under a different name or a number.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    I rather not drink cockroach milk and die 10 years earlier.

  18. #18
    Futurama predicting the future as usual :

    Mother pus bucket!

  19. #19
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by tankbug View Post
    Futurama predicting the future as usual :
    why is there hay bails glued to the roof or is it an anti gravity cockroach milk farm

  20. #20
    Deleted
    If there's anything positive about having to die in most likely just a few decades at the latest, it's that I don't have to eat insects.

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