Covering the business of education and training

The Delft University of Technology and Bird Engineering has learned that elephant dung has a fungus (other things, too) that helps produce a yeast which can efficiently ferment wood sugars and help them break down fibres and wood into biofuel.

The discovery is considered a technical breakthrough.

Bioethanol firms extract sugars from crops like grains and sugar beets and some are developing technologies to extract energy from fibers such as wheat bran, straw or wood.

With the help of elephant dumpings...the Dutch think they can be cost competitive within five years.

What I want to know is, who in the world thought, 'well, maybe if we throw some elephant crap into the mix we might be able to get this to work?'

Who comes up with such ideas?