, a simple, single-celled organism that grows in fresh water, trumpeted as a solution to food shortages, a potential replacement for fossil fuels and a way to reduce CO2 emissions, has been making headlines lately in Japan. Stock in ., a company founded at Tokyo University in 2005, has soared 10-fold this year and the . that a film made from a carbohydrate found in euglena called is effective in healing wounds, is bound to further boost the huge buzz around this rapidly expanding bio-tech company.

Euglena, which are also known in Japanese as midorimushi,?are 1mm long thin organisms that give water a greenish hue when they multiply in ponds. Though often classified as algae, they are in fact a curious mix of plant and animal, able to both photosynthesize like a plant and consume food like an animal. Incredibly, these slightly fishy-tasting oddities are teaming with almost all the nutrients humans need to stay alive, including vitamins C and B2, calcium and iron. It¡¯s not hard to see why Mitsuru Izumo, co-founder?of Euglena Co., saw its potential as an ingredient capable of solving the world¡¯s hunger problems.

Euglena Co. has been mass cultivating the stuff since 2005 and euglena is now not only available to buy as a vitamin supplement, but has also been successfully marketed as an ingredient in confectionery.

Fancy a?? There¡¯s even green-tinted sold at a restaurant adjacent to the University of Tokyo campus. Just last month,??and were introduced to the market.

But wait . . . there¡¯s more! Because the organism grows by photosynthesis, it¡¯s capable of . Euglena Co. carried out a successful experiment in 2009 at a coal-powered thermal power plant in Okinawa. Passing waste emissions through a euglena culture tank, it was observed that the organism thrived, thus demonstrating ¡°an effective and potential solution to the global warming,¡± according to the company¡¯s website.

If that wasn¡¯t enough, the company is now developing jet fuel, yes, jet fuel, made from euglena and plans to produce a steady supply by 2018, a promise that has . Furthermore it was just announced that the company won the , pushing the profile of this high flying bio-tech company even higher.