BioHeap, as Titan dubs its process, uses bacteria that the company has developed by selective breeding over the past five years.

ECONOMIST: A cleaner and cheaper way of refining ore is to use bacteria

In both cases, domestication and selective breeding have produced huge numbers of different breeds - each with a distinctive physique, colour and even behaviour.

BBC: Pigeon DNA gives up fancy secrets

At one time or another, indigenous people in tropical Africa and South America knew how to cultivate and prepare nutritious food by selective breeding of as many as 30, 000 species of plants.

ECONOMIST: Growth and geography