AUSTRALIA: Scientists have developed a serum to reduce methane gas in burping sheep, cows and other ruminants to combat global warming, a German magazine reported on Monday.
The Hanover-based monthly Technology Review will report in its July issue that Mr Andre-Denis Wright, a molecular biologist at Australia's CSIRO Institute, has found a vaccine that reduced the methane emissions of sheep by eight per cent.
The magazine said that scientists believed the amounts could be reduced even further and more testing was planned on the revolutionary serum.
Sheep produce 20 grams of methane each day, or seven kg per year, the magazine, which has 80,000 subscribers, reported.
Cows produce about 114 kg per year of methane (CH4) -- a gas 21 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for driving up temperatures.
Much of the methane gas comes from agriculture, such as livestock emissions from cows and sheep, and waste dumps.