What was the name of the short story Isaac Asimov wrote about the future, when the last remaining non-human animals are killed, leaving only trillions of people and oceans filled with algae for food for the humans?

Thanks!

Are you sure it's by Asimov? I think I have read all his short stories and all his novels (except the Lucky Starr ones) and don't recall it. A list of short stories can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_A...s_bibliography and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...y_Isaac_Asimov and the titles don't seem to suggest it.

All is not lost though as I was reminded of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiotimoline (that is, all is not lost for me - it's no use to you )

Oh. Maybe it was Bradbury or Heinlein... I'll check the lists.

Thiotimoline? I don't get it.

Sounded a bit like "Soylent Green", the film. So I checked with Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green

No, not that, but it is similar.

Could it be: Paul McAuley's The Quiet War?

@ BrianL -- when I first read the thread, I too thought of Soylent Green

@GrapefruitGirl & @BrianL - Nah, you see, I know what Soylent Green is made from...

@Gray53 - Thiotimoline is the subject of a scientific treatise Asimov wrote. It was debated by scientists and it was believed that he had discovered something new. Thing is, the paper was a complete fiction which he wrote to amuse a friend.

Was it 2430AD ?

The plot looks like it could be ...
http://wapedia.mobi/en/2430_A.D.

Lots more here ..
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Isaac_Asimov_...bibliography#3.

@XavierP - Thiotimoline actually came about when Asimov was preparing for his Doctoral thesis.

The story of the genesis of this spoof was one of Asimov's favorite personal anecdotes, one he retold a number of times in print. In the spring of 1947, Asimov was engaged in doctoral research in biochemistry and, as part of his experimental procedure, he needed to dissolve catechol in water. As he observed the crystals dissolve as soon as they hit the water's surface, it occurred to him that if catechol were any more soluble, then it would dissolve before it encountered the water.

By that time Asimov had been writing professionally for nine years and was shortly to face the challenge of writing up his research as a doctoral dissertation. He feared that the experience of writing readable prose for publication might have impaired his ability to write the prose typical of academic discourse, and decided to practice with a spoof article (including charts, graphs, tables, and citations of fake articles in nonexistent journals) describing experiments on a compound, thiotimoline, that was so soluble that it dissolved in water up to 1.12 seconds before the water was added.

Asimov wrote the article on 8 June 1947, but he was uncertain as to whether the resulting work of fiction was publishable. He finally offered it to John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, his preferred publication outlet. Campbell was delighted with the piece, and accepted it for publication, agreeing to Asimov's request that it appear under a pseudonym in deference to Asimov's concern that he might alienate potential doctoral examiners at Columbia University if he were revealed as the author.

Some months later Asimov was shocked to see the piece appear in the March 1948 issue of Astounding under his own name. In later years Campbell insisted that this was an oversight, though Asimov maintained a suspicion that Campbell had acted deliberately out of greater worldliness, for, in Asimov's words, "The Columbia Chemistry Department proved far less stuffy than I had feared" and his examiners effectively delivered their favorable verdict on his dissertation by good-naturedly asking him a final question about thiotimoline.

From http://wapedia.mobi/en/The_Endochron...d_Thiotimoline

That sounds familiar - I read it about 20 years ago so my memory is slightly rusty Thanks

2430 A.D. is it! And Wikipedia even told me the collection it was published in.

Oh no. He miss calculated. With the current birthrate it will (only) be around 460billion people here. Oh well, we can call it 0.5trillion if you like

...

i saw surrogates last nite. it is pretty good. is it that ?