A Novel Plot

Consider the following a novel plot. Joe, a brilliant young scientist, becomes obsessed by the deadly crisis confronting our species. Over half of the more than 6,500,000,000 humans are dying, directly or indirectly, from malnutrition. Experts have attempted a reallocation of resources and other stop-gap measures with little lasting success. Joe conceives a truly transformational solution that will end hunger as well as greatly extend our life span.

Joe sees the major cause of man's abbreviated and troubled life span to be our personal system of nutritional processing. The ingestion, mastication, glutition, digestion and elimination of food is extremely inefficient. The body wears iself out processing large quantities of food in order to reap relatively minute amounts of nutrition.

Joe develops an Alternative Nutritional Delivery System (ANDS). His machine manufactures individually designed patches that deliver personalized optimal nutrition into the bloodstream, bypassing the primitive, debilitating, wasteful procedure we have unquestioningly accepted.

Powerful forces compete to capitalize upon Joe's invention while other seek to destroy the invention and Joe. On the one hand, whoever controls the patent for the individual machines will have more wealth and power than anyone in history. On the other hand, entrenched business and religious interests would be greatly threatened.

Life as we know it will alter radically. Our teeth and digestive apparatus will become as vestigial as the tail. Food markets, restaurants, dentists and toilet paper will become unneccesary to name just a few of the more obvious changes. There will be no obesity, diet related diseases or hunger. For those who say it cannot be done, in a sense, it is already being done. Coma patients are kept alive for years with intravenous feeding.

Joe evades those who would steal his invention as well as those who seek to destroy it.

Now consider that this story is not a plot for a novel. His name is false but his invention is real. I know Joe.