Slashdot Mirror
Rice Genome Mapped
rampant_gerbil writes: "Apparently a company called Syngenta has sequenced the entire genome of the rice plant. Here is a link to the corporate press release. As the story points out, "Rice is the model for the other grasses, including corn and wheat," so this sounds like quite a milestone.
Now if only they would engineer some nacho cheese flavor into those rice cakes..."
Consider: a lot of the "vegetable" rennet used to make cheese in the USA comes from E. coli bacteria which have been genetically modified to produce rennin, an enzyme that is good at curdling milk proteins. Natural rennin comes from the stomachs of calves, and AFAIK the natural and engineered versions of the enzyme are chemically the same (as opposed to, say, curdling enzymes derived from plants, which must be chemically modified before they can be used to make cheese).
I think microbial rennet is considered vegetarian, despite being an enzyme of animal origin. I know that cheese made with can be labeled kosher.
Masses _already_ feed themselves. That is why they are masses. The thing to be careful of is that you don't introduce new more efficient forms of, say, rice- that require a well to be drilled, that require fertilizer and herbicides and the whole agribusiness infrastructure of the _American_ industrial farming system.
And these GE variations on rice DO require these things.
Just because masses in the third world subsist feeding themselves on indigenous crops does not mean they can afford to buy five pounds of Monsanto herbicide and drill a well to water the hungrier crops. The evidence is, you tell the farmers very persuasively that they will have 100X the rice, they buy into it, are given the rice to start off with, can't afford to maintain an industrial farm, go several lakhs in debt and die.
The idea that this is a good or benevolent thing is, to say the least, curious.
Put it this way: I daresay a lot of intelligent, educated, professional slashdotters are continually on their guard, aware of the various instances in which vast companies try to outwit them and put them in a dependent position- whether that's with software APIs, license agreements, terms of service for services, whatever. Most slashdotters are probably aware that it is necessary to be at least mildly vigilant, or you get hosed and other slashdotters laugh at you and call you a sucker.
What justification is there for requiring poor subsistence farmers in India and other countries to be comparably well educated, wary, and informed on agricultural technology? What justification is there for expecting _them_ to 'know better'?
And again, masses feed themselves. That is _why_ they are masses. Places like Somalia become hells of starvation for _political_ reasons, such as freemarket gangs with guns seizing all the food. These are not agricultural problems...
Seems this wonderful technology is causing farmers to go bankrupt, commit suicide, sell off their kidneys to survive, not to mention the idea is to make a Wonderful Perfect Monoculture. Can we say 'incredibly, criminally stupid'? I would love to think that people can learn to associate focus-group tested spiffy names like 'golden rice' with the reality that this is a straight-out power grab that will _wreck_ large portions of the world, sabotage their economies and make them slaves to Monsanto, the 'benevolent provider' of the wonderful 'golden rice'. Read the article, "assistance" means video trucks sent into villages to convince farmers to switch over wholesale to the new crop- first one's free kid! and this spells the death of the farmer. Read the article!
I'm sorry, in many ways I think this is more genuinely evil than anything that (for instance) Microsoft has done. MS tries to leech off rich yuppies and control what you think and how you communicate. Monsanto is _killing_ poor farmers by conning and lying to them.
Now moderate me down, because I chose not to 'moderate' my opinion this time and say 'but gee, I'm sure they're all good people'. There's a limit.
It's hardly hypothetical. Loads of farmers in places like India have gone from being subsistence-level (not 'hungry', just 'poor') to being bankrupt with a pile of fancy seed and unable to make the payments on the infrastructure. At first they tended to commit suicide but apparently selling off kidneys has become a more popular option, at least to start with- death is probably still the end result.
It's not the food, not at all- it's the freaking process! You can't convert subsistence farmers to USA-style agribusiness. They can't afford crop dusters...
Posted by Kewlhandtek:
maybe now we can find out what is wrong with those guys that put coffee can exaust pipes, big spoilers and yellows stickers on thier honda civics and think they can beat a mustang
Apparently you do have something against christians...you called them stupid.
Actually, I think I agree with what he said. He said "...those stupid christians in office." To me, that means those stupid people who are christian and use it as an excuse for their views of things. Religion is a shitty choice of things to use to justify a view that otherwise might be considered a bit out there.
I am a christian and I have nothing against genetically modified rice or crops or whatever. I don't have a problem with artificial insemenation (sp?), in vitro fertilization, or genetically modified people (clones included). But one should be ready to face the consequences of such actions. A lot of christians believe that damnation is a consequence of some of this stuff. Seems like a pretty harsh consequence... if I knew an action of a friend was going to have some major consequences, I'd probably talk to them about it.
I personally find that the idea of eternal punishment for a finite infraction to be a very intolerant, and very sick idea. What justifies permenent suffering for limited fault? Perhaps murder, but I very much doubt that making a slightly different plant is a valid reason.
Doesn't monsanto or someone have modified corn and grain? I believe, and I could be way off here, that they just use it as livestock feed. But we are still ingesting this indirectly.
AFAIK, their modified corn & grains are eaten by humans, directly.
The thing about genetic engineering is that what is done is that the genes that decide what proteins that a organism produces are changed. It's not that the DNA of the plant (or animal, etc) is ingested in a way that it is incorperated into the DNA of that which eats it.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
http://gabrielcain.com/
I thought not.
http://gabrielcain.com/
I wonder if the end of "Road Trip" will actually come true when some hardcore science stoners come up w/an altered Marijuana plant that doesn't show up on tests, and becomes incredibly strong...
;)
ahhh, the wonders of modern science
Also, there is talk about making seeds that are only good once. So farmers have to buy seeds each planting season. Poor countries would be indebt forever.
Well, we just have to wait and see.
-Brook Harty
--
It's kind of fun to do the impossible. -Walt Disney
This is the most privatized genome sequenced to date. The company does not intend to submit
results to public databases as all previous
sequencings have done, include the human.
They will make small piece availabe to academic
investigators who request. However, it can be
had to knwo what you want.
As a vegetarian, the thought of rennet coming from E. Coli rather than cow stomachs is actually more comforting. Why? I don't know; probably because I grew up as a rancher, and memories of the slaughter house contributed to my being vegetarian. FWIW.
Interesting and Informative post, BTW.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
What if you couldn't feed your family? or pay taxes to avoid jail? Here's the gig, pete, when we say "subsistence farming" it's not a job, it's a way to "subsist". Maybe if you were faced with death by starvation you would say "Damn. What a gyp. Now I have to sell my kidney".
And people are getting desperate enough to farm out organs when their land's no longer profitable.
here's what we in the big fancy internet world call "search engine results" :
wow! it's like a miracle.
Look, your fears seem real, but they are based on precautionary demagougery. To wit, do you imagine we fully understand chemistry? And do you acknowledge the potential for some VERY nasty compounds, yes? But just because the potential exists to cause massive harm, doesn't mean we shouldn't learn. And the ONLY WAY to learn about these matters, is to DO.
What precautions that are reasonable and prudent, are being taken. Nothing more can be done, until we know more. And the only way to know more, is to do. If we KNEW what precautions to take, we wouldn't have to do the work, would we?
But this nonsense of a "chain reaction".. please.. More detail.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
(Geez, I've got a +1 Bonus, and I haven't had a chance to use it yet. This is too off-topic to waste a +1 on).
That's a reference to the "Monkey Island" adventure game from Lucasarts. They had an adventure game before that called "Loom", and in "Monkey Island" one of the pirates wears a pin that says, "Ask me about Loom".
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
no they aren't.
They have been smoking geneticlly engineered crap for a long time and they smoke more than americans.
...when can we expent the patent on the gene sequence? Just one more thing for 'em...
Right is wrong when left is right.
From my point of view, as a so-called "ethical" vegetarian, if they genetically engineered a plant that had meatball-like objects hanging on it like fruit, I wouldn't be morally opposed to eating them. For me, the main reason to avoid eating meat is that someone had to kill an animal as the direct product of my meal.
Now I know that there are all sorts of secondary, tertiary & so on, food (and other) products, which didn't directly require an animal to die on my behalf, but that's not the point of my post here. If genetic engineering puts a flavor in a plant product, that happens to be just like the flavor of a meat product, you still have to consider that you're only eating a plant that grew out of the ground, not an animal.
- Mike
Seems those miniature scribes are out of business. You can now grow entire rice crops with your name printed on each grain.
I'd still be impressed to see someone engrave the entire rice genome onto a single grain of rice. Long-grain will be accepted.
Do you think it's possible to re-arrange the genome to come up with personalized rice!
I seriously doubt, if a more abundant and hardy breed of rice is created to feed the world's hungry, that many third world inhabitants are going to turn down food on the basis that it's "unnatural".
I seriously doubt, if an expensive patented gene technology will ever find its way into the stomachs of the world's hungry. Or was this an open-source project?
Eh? Must be a slow day at slashdot. Rice Genome. Good grief.
I vaguely remember hearing that there is at least one law which requires that photocopiers modify the image at least slightly (shrink or expand, stretch or degrade) so that people couldn't easily make decent copies of paper money.
People are going to have to get used to choosing genetically modified crops.
--Scott
Apparently you do have something against christians...you called them stupid.
I am a christian and I have nothing against genetically modified rice or crops or whatever. I don't have a problem with artificial insemenation (sp?), in vitro fertilization, or genetically modified people (clones included). But one should be ready to face the consequences of such actions. A lot of christians believe that damnation is a consequence of some of this stuff. Seems like a pretty harsh consequence... if I knew an action of a friend was going to have some major consequences, I'd probably talk to them about it.
Right now I don't have a clue what the consequences of eating genetically modified rice are, so I can't be ready to face them. And as for modifying people...I'd probably avoid that one too. Probably. If I knew that my kid had some kind of disease that could be 'cured' with genetic modification, well, maybe I would do that.
Doesn't monsanto or someone have modified corn and grain? I believe, and I could be way off here, that they just use it as livestock feed. But we are still ingesting this indirectly.
You are wrong about the DNA. Well, right in most cases, but I believe viruses (virii?) inject DNA (or some kind of genetic material) into cells, changing what they do (causes the cells to produce more virus particles or orangisms.)
Dorking around with corn and grain or whatever could have the same affect.
I'm not going to harp on religion much here, but come on: "Religion is a shitty choice of things to use to justify a view that otherwise might be considered a bit out there." Please.
Oh please. Knock this crap off. You just might get taken a little more seriously if you tried using reason instead of emotion to make your points.
The only alternative to being a farmer is suicide or selling off your own body parts? I'm not a farmer, but I have a specific job, and if for some reason I couldn't do that job (even if it was because of some Evil Greedy Corporation) I wouldn't say "Damn. What a gyp. Now I have to sell my kidney."
Another guy who argues with emotion instead of reason. Would you still be against abortion if it happened in some more pleasant manner? I don't think you would. And if not, then you shouldn't be using this as your argument, because it has nothing to do with your stance.
Another good reason for colonizing other planets. Experiment all you like. As long as you don't develop rice that can build a spaceship and conquer Earth, you should be OK.
Do not be alarmed, Huma...uh, Buddy. We^H^H They don't exist. No insects have mutated in sentient beings poised to take over the world as soon as you drop your.... I mean as soon as We drop Our guard. Really. Take it from me. Honest. Here, have some rice.
I doubt anyone (or very few) have heard of Syngenta, but I worked for their former named company so here's the scoop.
They were just incorporated on Jan 1, 2001, as the result of the merger of 2 Novartis divisions and Zeneca. Novartis/Sengenta is an agriculture company (not really biochem) that specialize in herbicides and seed treatments for farmers.
I'm wondering if this is a workup towards a "resistance gene", like the one that Monsanto inserted into a strain of corn to resist their Roundup herbicide.
Novartis has dozens of herbicide products covering everything from wheat, corn, fruits and vegetables, turf, and flowers. All those plants and all those products make for some funky gene splicing.
"There is no knowledge that is not power"
I ask this because its not like this is in short suply or is hard to grow
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
I would much rather see something like this placed in the public domain, or better yet until a GNU-type license! Which brings me to the point of this: Is there anything like the GNU license for biological products?
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
It's rather like the case of drug side-effects, except for the fact that, once you let a GM plant 'into the wild' it's almost impossible to recall it. By the time you find out that a plant is really bad to have in existence in the wild, the seeds and pollen could be far beyond the fields they're planted in.
The CBC has an in-depth report about a lawsuit stemming from the problem of rogue seeds. (These plants, thankfully, don't seem to be malignant.)
`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
The apparent purpose of the lawsuit is to create a chilling atmosphere for other people so that they'll be afraid of using a seed if they even think that it could be one they claim ownership of. (up to this point, they've been relying on contracts with farmers that restrict them from using monsanto seeds without paying a fee. Unfortunately seeds don't know anything about contracts (the farmer in this case has not signed any sort of contract with the company.
The extreme case for this sort of lawsuit would be where a company claims 'ownership' of a human genetic mod. Can you imagine the idea of a company claiming royalties for your children?
`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Rich
You have a very good point. With all of our technological advances and the ability now to make digital "copies" or clones of everything why can't Xerox or Canon come up with a copier that actually doesn't severly downgrade the copied image from the original. I mean come on the scanners we have now can handle resolutions far beyond our own optical resolution, and the color/black and white laser printers are very impressive. Actually the more I think about this the more I realize that the technology is there but no one has made it affordable yet...
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
Domain Names for $13
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Its certainly amusing that one one hand you have a plant like Cannabis, which has been subject to more tests than any other plant, and which has not been connected to a single death, and the verdict is `it may be harmful, we cant legalize its use`, and on the other hand we create all these new gm plants with bits of fish and got knows what else, and the verdict is `we`ll try them and see if anything bad happens`.
You dont think its got anything to do with money, does it?
Just announced. Tastes just like steak (lobster flavor out soon), contains all the required vitamins and minerals. Only 2 calories.
5 cents per pound.
Fight Spammers!
i can't wait for rice on the cob.
"Ask me about Loom"
Have they found the part of the genome that leads to the creation of Rice cars?
im rather impressed by this, solely for the reason that eventually, this will greatly help the world's food supply issues. to genetically engineer grains and rice to say, for example, be resistant to disease, or yield greater supplies, will change the world.
or glow-in-the-dark rice. that would rule.
-agent oranje.
e.coli bacteria genome (that is one nasty-arse bacteria)...
off-topicish, but id disagree. e.coli is used extensively for genetic research. inserting dna into e.coli's bacteria allows for much of the genetic research in vitro today. splicing vectors in and out allows you to research what genes in humans, and other animals, are responsible for production of certain proteins, etc.
being familiar with its genome would only serve to strengthen such research.
-agent oranje.
Can't you do this already? Just boil the rice in schlitz or golden annivesary? =P
E.
www.randomdrivel.com -- All that is NOT fit to link to
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
> Charging people money for something that could potentially solve a world problem should be criminal.
By that logic, every farmer who has ever sold a bushel of corn or wheat should be in prison.
If you want to go and spend a couple million dollars on gene sequencing equipment, pay a few dozen scientists living wages for a year or two, and not ask for any money in return, go ahead. Really. The world can only benefit from it. Maybe we should start a non-profit organization to promote public domain genetic research. But if you don't have several million dollars to blow, then you're gonna want some return on that investment.
Many recent patents on biotech, genetics, and technology in general are absurd at best. That doesn't mean the whole idea of making a profit from investment and hard work (yes, some of the people involved actually put forth a hell of a lot of effort) is fundamentally evil. Outright exploitation, as we see so often today, is definitely evil.
Our patent system is fucked up in a big way, and some people exploit that to eliminate anything that might keep money away from them. But just because a company tries to make money from doing genetic research doesn't make them evil. Just because a company files a patent doesn't make them evil. Exploiting already impoverished people would make them evil. Restricting scientific research would make them evil. So far, I don't see the company in question doing either one of those. Until they do start exploiting people, or using the patent office to stifle science, or anything else generally shitty, I won't get too angty at them.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
Since I've commented on this before, all I will say in passing is that I take it to be the equivalent to having successfully transcribed the alien equivalent of the dead sea scrolls. Now they got to figure out the language and find out what it is saying.
I suspect that, like all good code, the educational part will be in the comments.
A similar situation was the speculation about Egypt before the rosetta stone. The fantastic phantasies that were spun are incredible. And it turned out to be very different from what they imagined. So the scientists have a big job ahead of themselves.
as a side note, I do not think that they should be able to patent anything from that gene sequence until they can explain in full detail what each encoding means and how it encodes what it does.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Well, I suppose it could be considered to contain meat, but then so does everything we eat. They're are microorganisms and even insect parts in anything we consume. It doesn't seem to make lettuce any less vegetarian. I don't see why having minute DNA strands of animals in plants would make it any less vegetarian.
-----------------
It's not really funny, unless someone doesn't get it
-----------------
It's not really funny, unless someone doesn't get it
I don't know if I would say it is a model for the other grasses. Many plants have genomes which are vastly larger than that of even advanced mammals. Rice is an exception to this, with about 430 million base pairs, compared to humans with about 3000 million. Wheat and Maize, however, have over 10000 million base pairs (most of which is not used, obviously). There is still much we don't know.
call me simple.... all these gene work, cloning, genome mapping etc.. all i want to do is be able to go to kinkos and make a damn black and white copy turn out the same as the original. come on people, lets get our priorities straight.
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
Now with a company claiming to have mapped the genome of rice, will they try to restrict use of genetic modification to those who pay royalties for use of "their" genome? Before you pass judement on this line of thought, you may want to consider the fact Potrykus wants to provide his rice at cost or lower to ensure the people who need it are able to afford it. In today's cutthroat legal world, I doubt a company (or more specifically their lawyers) would idly stand by and watch someone give away something they could sell for profit.
For more information, see this article in Time.
"To travel the paths of human imagination you have to be willing to unlearn all you know"
Apologies: drunk
Those who can, do. Those who can't, post on Slashdot about it.
What i've wanted to know is if you have a plant (say rice) and engineer into it some genes from an animal (say steak or meatballs).... and heres the tricky part......... would it be vegeterian or not??
-------
Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
-------
Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
Censorship?
Will code a sig generator for food
Don't f... with mother nature.
Sure it's neat to just remove a few unwanted features or maybe add a few. But who can predict what small changes will have in 20 years. And then it might be to late because the original has been lost in time. Has happened before with animals where they now try to breed it back to the "original version."
Does all the mean that we wil have people coming out in their little ships chaining themself to the next big shipment of rice. And if they do, will anyone care, I think not. Personally I'd rather be watching TV.
--------
so this sounds like quite a milestone. Now if only they would engineer some nacho cheese flavor into those rice cakes...
Oh yeah, that would be great. Especially for all of us out here who are geeks as a direct result of childhood irritable bowel syndrome and an inability to digest milk products.
Here's my story. Sixth grade...start getting the good ol' green apple quickstep really bad for no reason. By eighth grade I had no social life because I was afraid to go out with anyone I didn't know very well because of how embarassing it could be if I disappeared in to the bathroom for a good twenty minutes. It wasn't until ninth grade that I discovered that in actuality it never would have gotten that bad if it hadn't been for milk.
No, it doesn't sound bad. But look at it this way. Everything with the least amount of a milk product in it, even something like butter flavor (in Kellog's Rice Krispie Treats), or milk protein, or whey...and that means virtually everything prepared in a food chain restaurant or a factory...was causing me to have painful, embarassing diarrhea. And since I hadn't known what was causing it, and had no way of predicting when it would happen, I was constantly anxious about it; this anxiety increased tenfold when I was doing stuff with friends, or doing something public. Or, in class. Anxiety triggers irritable bowel syndrome. And irritable bowel syndrome triggers anxiety. So it got worse and worse until I finally went to see a gastroenterologist (and it turns out that no, it's not an allergy, just a bad reaction--a very bad one). Luckily, things have gotten better now that I'm a junior in high school, and I can have a social life. But still no milk. Stupid *explitive deleted* pizza... And never will I be able to lick whipped cream off of my lover.
Well, anyway. I imagine that if they were ever able to make rice milk flavored, many, many people would die before it was over, and there would be far fewer nerds sitting at home reading slashdot because they couldn't have a social life due to an undiscovered case of irritable bowel syndrome combined with a milk allergy.
Just my 8192 cents.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
I seriously doubt, if a more abundant and hardy breed of rice is created to feed the world's hungry, that many third world inhabitants are going to turn down food on the basis that it's "unnatural".
Of course, feeding the poor offers little financial gain, so they likely won't much care about the wishes of the penniless.
---
Cholera (I assume mapping the genome is the same as decoding it ? I am not sure on this one)
I suppose we can just sit back as people decode anything within reach - Still I don't like it when we(humans) mess with the building blocks of life - I'm sure we'll stuff soemthing up.
--
Jon - TheSpork
This will Never be usefull in the united states with all those stupid christians in office(I have nothing wrong with christianity, I just think that Religious and moral arguments and ideas should be left out of Politics). This is more a triumph for the Third world. Now india can grow crops with twice the nutritional value, and produce twice as much in the same amount of area. The United states has enough food anyways, but beef flavored rice would be nice!!!!
-The oh so nervis one ----"Casius Senex Mucidusque Est" -me
Speaking of which: http://www.abc.net.au/specials/shiva/shiva.htm
Yikes, what an extraordinary piece of communist literature that is!
For anyone inclined to believe this statement:
Seems this wonderful technology is causing farmers to go bankrupt, commit suicide, sell off their kidneys to survive
I encourage you to follow the above link and read it. That level of hatred of capitalism and free markets thrives in this world, and it's scary. It's scary because the people with all that hatred exaggerate the extent of the problems and their causes. It's scary because the only solutions that these people offer are the dismantling of capitalism and free markets, and a dramatic shift toward communism.
Communism failed, people. Despite tremendous opportunities around the world, communism totally and utterly failed. Why oh why are people still making excuses for it and trying to sell it to us again in a new shiny box?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
We see any number of stories saying how wonderful it would be for rice and other plants to be enhanced using genetic modifications, but I wonder what might be the possible negative effects of proposed GM modifications:
There might be a net gain from creating GM plants for certain applications but I think publications writing about absolutely "wonderful" new GM plants should try hard to give a balanced discussion of risks as well as of benefits.
Scroogle
By that logic, every farmer who has ever sold a bushel of corn or wheat should be in prison.
No, farmers sell corn to make a living, and most of them cannot even do that. The government pays a lot of farmers NOT TO farm becuase if there is too MUCH corn the market prices on it will drop! If you think i'm full of crap go do some research and you'll find some very interesting things.
I do not mind companies making money, if it sounded that way I apologize. My problem is companies patenting things they never made, DNA, they were just the first ones to sequence it. So what. Aspirin was never patented becuase it was Natural and by wording anything that comes from nature cannot be patented. Their claim is that the DNA is natural but the sequence of it had to be researched and therefore a patent can be made on the specific sequence, which does not make any sense.
I'm tired and rambling, but you do have a good point, I agree that making money from investment is good, just dont let money be the guiding factor in anything that can become potentially dangerous.
Lord Arathres
stainless steel
Monsanto, the biggest developer of genetically modified crops in the world, made the rice genome freely available last year. Press Release: href="http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto/media/00/00 aug4_goldenrice.html
You need to register (on paper!) but the genome itself is available here:
http://www.rice-research.org/>Rice Genome site.
Much hoopla about this at the time.
So what's the deal?
(golden rice in the press release refers to rice with extra beta carotene for developing countries. They're offering the regular rice genome plus assistence in developing golden rice crops).
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
The problem in feeding the world isn't with growing enough food as much as it is with disributing the food we have efficiently; there's already enough food grown to feed the world over. Growing more food locally decreases the numbers of people that go hungry because local food is more easily distributed. If large scale distribution could be improved, perhaps a faster solution to this problem could be reached.
I question just how useful this will be until the debate over genetically modified crops is resolved; these companies will have to come to terms with the resistance to the use of crops like this.
This will also help with the splicing of genes that make vitamins like golden rice that gives a person their daily requirement on beta carotene Imagine a day where al of your dietary needs are in a rice cake.
Beer flavored rice!
Vegetarians as a rule oppose GM foods, and prefer to eat organic. And if you've not been eating meat for more than a year, just the smell of beef will disgust you, believe me.
Vive le Québec libre, 'sti!
I just thought I'd add that the countries with the most malnutrition, for the most part, have food production surpluses-- they grow more than enough food to feed their country, but which is more profitable to export to rich countries where people have several times more food than what they need.
Vive le Québec libre, 'sti!
Well, assuming that most nations adopt a sane stance to genetically engineered food (like that's going to happen), then this would be a Good Thing. Rice is incredibly easy to grow and a large percentage of the world population is already accustomed to eating it.
How about a strand of rice high in all major vitamins and minerals? This would go a long way to help out with feeding the masses in third-world and so-called "body" nations.
--
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
How about "Get a job." Sheesh.
--
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
The real first step in deciding issues like this is having a government that doesn't drop in its knees when big business calls... we can talk about GNU for DNA till we're blue in the face, but it's never going to happen while big money runs the country.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche