Eating Junk
A design fiction: the “Human Hyenas”
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The Human Hyena is a synthetic biology project created by Paul Gong. This project aims to address the problem of increase food shortage and food wastage by introducing microbes into humans so that we can consume rotten food.
This theoretical project employs three tools: the hyena inhaler, the smell transformer and the taste transformer. Each of these tools utilize genetically modified microorganisms to allow humans to consume spoiled food safely, without gagging at the taste or smell.
Since I did my undergraduate studies in biotechnology, I find it much more difficult to suspend my disbelief and buy into this idea compared to a design fiction based on computer science or physics (a field that might as well be magic to me). I wonder what microbes are used? What do they do? What other nutrients are left in rotten food once they have been consumed by moulds, yeasts and other bacteria? Do these special “hyena bacteria” transform all the fauna in the human gut? What about other conditions like the pH or air composition? I feel like I need proof, which admittedly goes against the whole idea of design fiction.
And on a non-scientific note, rotten food looks gross. There are fuzzy bits and surface slime, discolouration and gas production. These microbes may change the way the food tastes and smells, but the culinary arts is just that, an art, and I cannot imagine a way that rotten food can look appetizing.
