Last year, I wrote about LS9, the scrappy Bay Area-based company that's engineering microbes to churn out transportation fuel. Now, LS9 has joined forces with Procter and Gamble--an upstart-titan partnership that could potentially speed the entry of LS9 products into the marketplace.

Can P&G take LS9's technology from promising concept to commercial reality without squelching the off-the-beaten-path spirit that makes LS9 unique? It's a safe bet the alt-fuel community will be watching closely to see what happens.