They always need smaller one than one. Jobs of Gary Strobel, to the University of Montana (United States) prove him one more time. The scientist discovered that the mushroom Gliocladium roseum produces hydrocarbons when the oxygen is absent. A cocktail of substance which is not without reminding of the diesel fuel.

Strobel is not an unknown. He goes through the world in search of useful microorganisms installed on plants. They notably owe that him discovery in 1993 of a mushroom which allowed to conceive Taxol, an anti-cancerous powerful. He also discovered a bacterium about fifty of molecules which antibiotics (1) are drawn today. But in 1987, he had driven an illegal bacteriological trial in a forest of Montana to try to cure of trees victims of the Dutch illness of the elm, which nearly ruined its career. Very controversial, the researcher has never stopped his search of microorganisms.

This month, the magazine Microbiology publishes therefore the discovery of energy virtues of Gliocladium roseum. A mushroom which was already used in the biological lute against the grey rot of strawberries. Outside, in trees from the north of Patagonia where Strobel discovered them, the micro-mushroom issues gases. But in an atmosphere impoverished in oxygen, it is the whole series of hydrocarbon volatile molecules that they find ordinarily in the diesel fuel who are liberated. The microorganism feeds on cellulose. Of what to provoke the interest of the industrialists who search means to produce agrocarburants without entering competition with feeding.

Strobel naturally locked the rears. Its "myco-diesel" is patented, and it began deciphering the genome of the parasite to discover genes responsible for the production of hydrocarbons. But years will be needed probably to know if the greeting of the car is in a micro-mushroom.

(1) The scientific magazine Science dedicated a portrait in Strobel in its edition of May 31st, 2002