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They say that ignorance is bliss, but since you asked... here is one http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/grocery_shopping/fruit_vegetables/14.genetically_modified_papayas_virus_resistance.html

From that page
Papayas are grown in many tropical countries. But papaya cultivation is being threatened by Papaya Ringspot-Virus, a disease that is sharply lowering yields.
In the late 1980s, the University of Hawaii began developing a papaya cultivar resistant to Papaya Ringspot Virus. To do this, certain viral genes encoding capsid proteins were transferred to the papaya genome. These viral capsid proteins elicit something similar to an "immune response" from the papaya plant. These new, genetically modified papaya plants are no longer susceptible to infection, allowing farmers to cultivate the fruit even when the virus is widespread.

Also various variations on rice: http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/grocery_shopping/crops/24.genetically_modified_rice.html

That mentions Golden rice (increased Vitamin A) and allergen free rice, as well as (gasp, horror) some work on (what is the world coming to) pesticide resistance.

GMO crops have many more purposes than pesticide sales and are being worked on by many researchers outside of the big agri biz labs.

They say that ignorance is bliss, but since you asked... here is one http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/grocery_shopping/fruit_vegetables/14.genetically_modified_papayas_virus_resistance.html

From that page
Papayas are grown in many tropical countries. But papaya cultivation is being threatened by Papaya Ringspot-Virus, a disease that is sharply lowering yields.
In the late 1980s, the University of Hawaii began developing a papaya cultivar resistant to Papaya Ringspot Virus. To do this, certain viral genes encoding capsid proteins were transferred to the papaya genome. These viral capsid proteins elicit something similar to an "immune response" from the papaya plant. These new, genetically modified papaya plants are no longer susceptible to infection, allowing farmers to cultivate the fruit even when the virus is widespread.

Also various variations on rice: http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/grocery_shopping/crops/24.genetically_modified_rice.html

That mentions Golden rice (increased Vitamin A) and allergen free rice, as well as (gasp, horror) some work on (what is the world coming to) pesticide resistance.

GMO crops have many more purposes than pesticide sales and are being worked on by many researchers outside of the big agri biz labs.

To try to get some insight on how many genetic changes there are in insects I churned a few numbers:

1. * Life cycle time is takes a full year for most insects
2. * Number of offspring per female 100 - varies a lot
3. * Number of insects per acre is 10^8 (100 million)
4. * Number of acres grown under GM crops 3x10^8
5. * Mutation rate is about 10^-8 per base pair per generation
6. * The number of genome base pairs 1.4x10^8 (fruit fly)

Multiply that and you get 10^18 insect offspring per year; a mutation rate of about 1 per individual per generation. So the number of mutations is a very large number. This means a large number of ''natural experiments'' done, one of which may result in an insect a bit more resistant to a GM crop, this will give the insect an advantage and so be able to have more offspring all of which carry the advantageous gene. So advantageous genes spread rapidy, through sexual reproduction are combined with other genes and the best combinations flourish.

WARNING: very rough calculations, most insects die before they have the chance to reproduce and so most mutations are 'lost'. The numbers that I obtained are very likely wrong - but even if each one is wrong by a factor of 100, it doesn't make a huge dent in a very large number.

Certainly GMOs should be labeled as such so that consumers can make an informed choice and pressing governments to introduce such legislation should be encouraged. However, in Belgium, EU laws clearly state that products which contain GMOs must be labelled as such. In addition genetically modified crops must be handled in such a way that 'normal' crops are not affected. So in this case it would seem that these activists were not so much concerned with regulation but rather with the very existence of these GMO crops. http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/regulation/regulatory_process/156.european_regulatory_system_genetic_engineering.html

I don't know about that, I would be surprised if there was one that went through a decent approval process that later turned out to be dangerous. There have been some before, but I really don't think catching it is that big of an issue. Now, could one in a country with less developed regulation let one through? Maybe. Could someone develop one as intentionally dangerous? Unfortunately, that is also possible. If you have the right genes, equipment, enzymes, ect., people would be surprised at how easy it really is (I've made them before. It's nothing like what you see in the movies. It's a lot less flashy unfortunately). Maybe in the not too distant future there will be a DIY Biology community, and who knows what will come of that. Strictly speaking, it's possible, but I for one have a fair degree of confidence that someone will catch it before it is too late. If any problem does happen, it will probably be due to corporate greed, not unexpected science, which is why it really would be a good idea to step up public funding for these sort of things. Funny thing is, so many of the same anti-GMO people who complain about private corporate GMOs then turn around and complain that their tax dollars fund public research for university made GMOs!

You are right that it is progress. Not only can this make agricutlure more efficient, productive, and stable in developed countries, which is certainty great, but everyone should also know that there is something bigger here. By 2050 the population is expected to be 9 billion. That has significance. We will either need to make a few billion people disappear (not a very pleasant idea), increase our cultivated land (goodbye Amazon rainforests, Congo jungles, and Borneo cloudforests), or develop an ever increasing agricultural science and technology, including new input reducing methods, new improved chemical inputs, and new biotechnology. I read once (haven't confirmed if this is true) that if we still used the same farming techniques we used in the 50's we'd need an additional cultivated area the size of North America to feed everyone. We need to go forward. Sitting still is not an option.

Good to see that you and a few people other get it. Most clearly don't, and I think I just wasted six and a half hours banging out a dozen responses that aren't going to change anyone's mind anyway. It just baffles me that people who don't know anything about this subject, who don't even think out logical thoughts on it, still think they know more than everyone who actually studies it because they saw some jackass on a Youtube video. Bah, with the attitudes of the anti-GMO crowd I don't know why I even bother. No wonder so many biotech students get MBAs instead of working in the most misunderstood and hated field in science.

Having said that, we really don't know enough to be certain of the long-term effects. Much more research needs to be done, but companies like Monsanto are forging ahead now, and from what I can tell, with little regard for consequence.

I gotta disagree with that one, because there has been quite a lot of research on GMO crops that have found no significant difference between them and normal crops. They are not known to produce any compounds that they're not supposed to, and the idea that the gene itself will hurt you (which is an argument I have actually seen) is just silly, considering that normal breeding and mutagenesis produces far more altered genes than GM, and besides, your body can handle everything from kepel fruit to kangaroo, and that's a lot more new genes than simple genetic modification. One could make the argument that the Bt protein used in insect resistant GMOs (also used in organic farming) is harmful, but I've never seen a shred of evidence to indicate it.

Could there be long term consequences of eating GMOs? Absolutely. They could kill us all tomorrow for all I know. I can't disprove the possibility that there is some sort of complex interaction via presently unknown mechanisms that will ultimately hurt us. But as Stephen Gould said, 'Apples may start rising tomorrow but such a possibility doesn't merit equal time in physics classrooms.' The smallpox vaccine might have some sort of sort of long term effect, so could cell phone and wifi radiation, but, like GMOs, we have no evidence to indicate that they do, and until there is, I wouldn't really worry about it. Yeah, there have been those 'smoking gun' type studies, they always turn out to be baloney. And keep in mind, when you reject scientific consensus to hastily over a single study, bad things can happen (remember the Wakefield study?). And of course, there is no reason to assume that all GMOs are good, they can be pretty complex when you're running a gene that produces a certain compound in one plant through entirely different pathways, as this potentially harmful GMO demonstrates, but notice that the problem was found and explained. No one has ever found, let alone provided a science based reason for the existence of, and causative agent for the harm that GMOs are occasionally claimed to cause.

Now, had you said ecological long term consequences, that is a much more complex issue, but there, if we use GURTs, genetic use restriction technology, which we are not currently using due to protests from the anti-GMO crowd, that can be kept to a minimum. And of course, there they do not need to be perfect, only a net positive over agriculture without them. For example, they currently provide known ecological benefits, so in the case of this escaped canola, it is not a matter of 'How bad is the canola' but of 'Is this worse than the damage that would be caused to the soil and water and local flora/fauna without GMOs.' I think we still come out ahead, as it isn't like this canola is some sort of 'superweed' or whatever just because it has an extra human inserted gene.

I agree with your first paragraph, just pointing out that human health is one of the least likely areas for GMOs to come back and bite us in the rear.

As for the Brazil nut soybean, it should go without saying that you can use genetic engineering to make things like that. A known allergen in something else, it's not too surprising that it turned out that way. You might as well point out that you can put anthrax in an apple if you wanted. You can put arsenic in a cake, doesn't make baking bad. A better way to put that would be no commercially approved GMOs have been shown to be spontaneously harmful. The only example I know of where GMOs were potentially harmful was detected and discontinued long before it was put into use. I've seen the 'smoking gun' studies, they come and go every now and again, but no one has ever been able to find a reason for the alleged harm, no causative agent, no chemical pathways producing that agent, no genetic reasoning for it.

And yeah, the principles of genetic engineering are a lot like breeding. I didn't say it's the same thing, nor should they always be treated the same, but in both cases, you're still changing the genes. One is just a lot more precise with a wider range of options, and it doesn't really matter that it is less natural, what matters is the end result. Does it matter if you insert a gene from a fish or breed it for a million years for the plant to produce it itself?

And Monsanto, they're not your friends, that's fair to say, but saying that because they're bad GMOs are bad is like saying that because the RIAA are pricks you shouldn't listen to music. What the Monsanto does says nothing of the worth of the product, and it certainty says nothing about unrelated people, just like what the RIAA does says nothing of the actual pieces of music, and absolutely nothing about, say, indie bands.

Do we need GMOs? Do we really need agricultural improvements? We could get by without a lot of things, but that's no reason not to use them, and no small amount of people in relevant fields seem to think biotech will be pretty significant.

Actually, the thing that showed up on /. a while back alleging organ damage from GMOs is what was debunked. The people who 'debunk' the 'myth' that genetic engineering doesn't give you [insert disease here] are usually the same people who, in their next post, wax about the virtues of homeopathy. As far as science is concerned, no horticulturist or biologist I've ever met could find a shred of evidence that GMOs posses any health risks. Plenty suggesting otherwise though. People claim that Monsanto is covering up all the proof that GMOs are dangerous. Conspiracies are not an arguments, they're a denialism tactic, an ultimate defense against evidence. What, I'm supposed to believe that Monsanto is bribing off the vast majority of relevant horticulturists, botanists, agronomists, microbiologists, geneticists, zoologists, ect in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, Israel, Egypt, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zeland, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, ect.? Bullshit. Heck, scientists in Iran and China, the last places an American company is going to take over, have developed their own strains of GMO.

Really, I'm sad to see tripe like this on Slashdot. Anti-vaccine=anti-science. Anti-GW=anti-science. Anti-evolution=anti-science. Anti-Genetic engineering=oh so enlightened and wise. I can't believe that so many people have fallen for the agricultural equivalent of vaccine denialism. It's a little disheartening.

And sure, let's be fair, there's always the possibility that a GMO could be harmful. Here's one that was. But that does not imply that they are all harmful. In that case, they found the compound, the harm's causative agent, that was potentially harmful, the chemical pathways that produced that protein, they found the problem, and moved on. How many anti-GMO cranks can name a single causative agent for harm in an commercial GMO? Zero. Never happened. Not once. So, they fall back on vague appeals to long term health, although never say when we will have enough proof for them. Sound familiar? Like people who only want 'one more' transitional fossil? You can make these vague claims about anything, I could claim that the smallpox vaccine has some sort of crazy complex intergenerational side effect that will kill us all in a few years, and you can't disprove that (ain't non falsifiability grand?), but we have no evidence to suggest that is the case. Same with GMOs. I can't disprove that they'll kill us all, but that burden of proof doesn't rest on me. It is like saying that pork should be banned until we know that it won't cause eternal damnation. It's not a very rational position.

We really need to do for science based agriculture what was done for other areas that skeptics espouse, like science based medicine. Sure, Monsanto can be pricks, but I don't care if the CEO eats a bowl of kittens for breakfast everyday, that says nothing of the science behind GMOs, and one company does not own an entire branch of science. More people need to learn about the science, not the weaselly fearmongering you see from NGOs like the Union of Concerned Scientists [sic] or Greenpeace or the Organic Consumer's Union. The actual scientists have done the research, the evidence is in, GMOs are safe, they are effective, and they are the next big thing in agriculture. We need more people to be more aware, more scientifically literate, less magically thinking, about plant science, and to me as a one who studies horticultural, seeing so many poeple, on this site o

I already saw that. I wasn't impressed enough to even remember it. Considering that A) wasn't long ago that the Russian Ministry of Health was blaming swine flu on GMOs B) that the vast body of current evidence says GMOs are, in general, safe, C) we've been eating GMOs for years and there has never once been a single human health problem linked conclusively to GMOs, and D) they were, as usual, unable to find a causative agent or a chemical pathway for the creation of said agent for these problems (nope, just happens cause their genetically modified by man. A billion years of mutations and natural foreign viral DNA insertions is dandy, but insert one single gene in a lab and it's deadly. It can be done.), color me skeptical until I see more details (I can't find anything about their methodology of the line of GE soy they used) or preferably, someone a bit more high profile doing it.

Either way, one study vs the whole of science...it might be accurate for whatever line they used, it isn't impossible, but I'm doubtful. Here's a whole bunch of studies proving homeopathy works; do you, in light of the whole of scientific opinion, question those studies, all of them, and have skeptical suspicions, or do you accept that massively diluted stuff that's really just water is an effective way of treating disease? Same thing here. Ok, there' s yet another study 'proving' that GMOs are going to kill you. So what? That doesn't amount to jack, at least not yet, and the burden of proof rests on them to prove their findings to the world, not for someone to prove them wrong, and I'm not going to assume they're right until poo-pooed by various regulation agencies (like what happened with the French corn study). Remember the last time a big scare story broke? Bloke by the name of Andrew Wakefield had a study too, and tons of people believed it without waiting for the scientific community to confirm his findings. Remember how that one worked out?

I'm not trying to accuse you of crankery here by mentioning the homeopaths and the anti-vaxxers, but I point those out to draw the similarities between alternative medicine promoters & vaccine denialists and genetic engineering denialists, and to say that patient skepticism is a virtue.

This is entirely incorrect. Soy is never used to feed cattle in Brazil, and I doubt it is used (much) anywhere else. Maybe you mean corn ? That would be correct. But 99% of the soy produced in Brazil is indeed exported. Mostly to China and USA, if I'm not mistaken.

You might want to check such things first ;) Yes - exported, for - like I said - feed.

"Soy meal is the single most important animal feed in the EU, accounting for 55 percent of protein-rich animal feed."

"Cattle fattened in feedlots are fed small amounts of hay or straw supplemented with grain, soy and other ingredients in order to increase the energy density of the diet."

I could go on, that's just a couple of the links when I googled for "soy cattle feed." Soy is very, very much present in livestock feed. To an extreme amount. Enough such that, as I already said, were the soy alone (ignoring all other feed given to livestock) merely given directly to humans for food (since soy is a complete protein), then there would be more than is actually needed. Did you look at the link I provided that 99% of Argentinian soy is used for cattle feed in Europe and the US? Seems quite a bit exaggerated to me to be honest, but the point remains that a substantial portion of livestock feed is, in fact, soy.

That being said, it isn't as common in South America, because it is more expensive. We use it here where a large part of the cattle population is never actually at pasture, and starts their lives already in feed lots. And cattle can spend quite a bit of time in feed lots here. The demand for meat is so incredibly high in the US that we have to make sure we can get as much meat per acre as we can, so we stack them in feed lots and pump them with hgh, soy, and rendered low grade animal byproducts (byproduct feed supps are more common in the EU, which is why madcow is more common there).

Now, what I said before about "So, soy production per pound (since soy is a complete protein) needs merely be less than 10 times more damaging to the environment than feed grain (if cattle only ate grain...), for it to be an overall improvement." - well guess what, we're in luck - soy is actually extremely productive per acre compared to grains. my point is merely that even if it were 10 times worse, it would be ok, but hey! It's not worse, it's better, so we're even more ok.

Despite being vegan, I don't fault non-vegans; it's their choice. I do fault people who claim to be environmentalists, and yet eat meat with almost every meal; that's simple hypocrisy/ignorance. Some people though can't be healthy without meat; all humans are considerably different. My body responds to nutrition, pathogens, time, sunlight, and all other environmental factors different than even my wife - and we've been together for 15 years, and are ethnically fairly similar (I'm 3/8 french, 3/8 german, 1/8 british, and 1/8 cherokee; she's 1/4 british, 1/2 german, 1/8 french, 1/8 cherokee). She gets sick from things that don't affect me in the slightest. She tried being vegan, but got too sick; we ate the same things, and I have a much higher protein and calorie need than her (from running and working out, and in general being 50lbs heavier), but her body just couldn't adjust. Mine can. So, I'm vegan, and she eats eggs from free-range chickens, and drinks "organic" milk - ie, she's vegetarian.

Point though is that we (western civilizations) eat WAY too much meat, and have it as part of our psyche that a meal has to have it or else it just isn't healthy. That's straight up wrong. Some people can be healthy without any meat at all, most people need a little bit (or, need none but need to be really careful and use supplements). But no one needs the amount of meat that the average American eats. The cows they shouldn't be eating eat e