Let 'Em Eat Grass

Like mad Nebuchadnezzar, who sheeplike browsed Babylon's pastures, U.S. parachute troops and other isolated forces can subsist on leaves, wood and grass. At least, Biochemist Gustav J. Martin of New York thinks so. But, as he told the American Chemical Society in Memphis last week, soldiers' guts first have to be conditioned to this allfours diet, by getting certain harmless bacteria domiciled among the trillions of other bacteria normally present in the human intestine.

The cellulose-digesting bacteria are of the aciduric group, akin to the Lactobacillus acidophilus of Bulgarian buttermilk, which (some scientists think) helps un usual numbers of Balkan rustics to fill themselves full of years. Taken in liquid form, the bacterial cultures taste like chocolate syrup. They become permanently established among the intestinal flora in about a month. Cost: $2 per person.

Martin's audacious theory (already tested with rats and chicks) will be tested later this month on a volunteer group of Sing Sing convicts, who are now guinea-pigging the darkening effects of a B vitamin (para-amino-benzoic acid) on grey hair (TIME, Feb. 16).

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