Slashdot Mirror
Would You Like Drugs in Your Rice?
Digitus1337 writes "Wired has the scoop on a new type of rice that was just approved for production by a narrow vote. 'Ventria believes growing drugs that produce proteins like lactoferrin and lysozyme in rice could be a cheaper way to develop drugs than building and maintaining expensive manufacturing plants... Opponents say growing the crops in open fields endangers organic and conventional crops, as well as human health...'" Update: 03/30 23:15 GMT by T : That should probably read "growing rice that produces proteins like lactoferrin and lysozyme."
Before you know it we will have sarin producing dandelions and botulism producing crabgrass. Once the gate is open who know what comes thru.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Have you ever posted to Slashdot......on rice?
You had me at 'drugs'.
of cross pollenization should be important in determining what plants and drugs should be used. While protein enhancements spreading to other plants or fields could be beneficial, other drugs such as the human growth hormone would have a definite risk.
Maybe I'm really naive, but why can't they grow this sort of crop indoors?
I know that it would probably cost a lot more, but by growing it indoors you cut down on the possibility of cross contamination quite a bit. Also, if you're growing a crop to use it for pharmaceuticals wouldn't you want it to be grown in a bit more of a controlled environment?
"There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," - Bill Gates, about Google
I hope they test the hell out of these types of "medicine" and their effects on their surroundings. What if a large amount of the chemicals they make adversely effects another species in the area? I'm all for production of GM foods that help, but not those that hurt as well just to save a few pennies.
So we're just going to feed antibiotics to the general population even though most of them don't need it?
Aren't we already encountering problems with drug resistance because doctors are over-prescribing antibiotics, and patients don't follow the dosing instructions?
Or are these not antibiotics? I'm confused.
This is really an interesting question. For example Monsanto has sued farmers that are growing "their" soybeans, yet these farmers are actually growing from stocks of their own crop that has been contaminated by virtue of cross pollenization. Sort of the Genie out of the bottle thing.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Does anyone else see this as just another thing thinkgeek can sell, caffienated?
--
The last digit of pi is four.
Really, must these liberal whiners continue to degrade the march of science based solely on their opinion? I eat genetically engineered food, and there's nothing wrong with me! And besides, the third hand really helps to type! Seriously, though, It really comes down to what is necessary for survival. Glo-Fish? Faddish, but really laying the groundwork for the next generation of bio-reactors. And franken food? There's already a huge industry out there for "Organic" food, why can't both co-exist? I'll take my golden rice steamed, and my Kobe Beef fresh from the secluded, beer fed haven it grew up in.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
No.
Scary...
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
My workplace is anti rice. Three people have been fired recently for eating rice in their cubicle. *Takes another hit*
If they're willing to grow it in secure environments far away from me, then it's all nice and good. However, if they grow it within a 5000 mile radius of my rice, there's gunna be some hurtin'.
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
Ever tried to put 50 acres under a roof? How about 1,000 acres? Then ther are all those other minor details that are required for sustaining life under a roof, sun light, temperature and humidity control, water, minerals and ferilizers.
There's a fair bit more to large-scale hot-house or hydroponic farming than you have had to deal with when you grew a little pot in your closet.
All of a sudden, I have this punny feeling that someone will make a comment about this technique being used to grow ricin...
I have absolutely not problem with genetic engineering ... granted that the following conditions are met.
1. the product is clearly labeled
2. it is NOT grown in open airspace.
The reason why the latter one is important is because the second anyone releases a genetically modified crop into open air (even in a contained farm) birds and other creatures will eat the seeds (or the wind will blow the seeds) and slowly but surely this crop will leave the controlled vicinity. When this occurs, you will have not only begun to make the natural genetic code of said crop a fading tradition, but there are also possible health risks that could potentially be involved. Plus has anyone other then me noticed that organically grown food just tates better (Yes I even did a formal blind taste test experiement once with raw oranges.)
This is also bad news for organic farmers because it cost a lot of money ( thousands annually IIRC) to get that certificed organic label placed on products.
Just take a look at the mess canada is now in as well as the western part of the usa with organic (or lack there of ) cannola plants. Its near impossible now to grow actual organic cannola.
here for more info
This is some scary news. Also consider this, once the naturally genetic code is gone... there is no getting it back.
As long as the rice tastes better and i won't need viagra to counter the effects of the chemicals in my rice i'm ok with anyting.
Whats next, strawberry flavoured rice???
Lord of the Binges.
Rice in my drugs.
I hate it when they cut it with rice.
What about genetically modifying sweetwater seaweed to contain THC? No need to grow marijuana, and who can ban you from swimming in the lakes?
Definetly, it would be fun what can politics do in such situations.
And it is not as extreme as it could be at first sight...
-FL
Speaking as an extended member of the asian community, I propose the idea that rice IS a drug. It's damn addictive -- just ask most asians! Gotta have rice on a daily basis, if not at least twice a day. Otherwise you start getting the shakes. Potatoes don't cut it, bread certainly isn't it, and pasta just can't compare to the asian grain of choice.
:)
Low carb diet? Might as well call it detox!
Worse yet, its multi-cultural nature can lead to cultural degradation through Ricism. Asian rice tend to be smaller and stick together, texas long-grain tend to be big and separate, and brown rice is "out there" as far as culinary acceptance goes.
So rice with drugs is harmful. Rice IS already comparable to drugs without the additional drugs.
Great. Maybe this'll finally do something about the great acid shortage of the past 5 years. Do your country a favor, bring back the acid.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
Heh... I was reading Reefer Madness recently. I guess it's hard to cultivate enough medicine under grow lights in your basement unless your're medicating yourself with marijuana.
Thanks for the perspective.
"There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," - Bill Gates, about Google
With all this genetically modified food being pushed forward for the betterment of mankind, has anyone ever questioned what would happen to the immune system if we are so hellbent on preventing disease from food sources. Everyone is so cleanliness obsessed that they disinfect everything, but as a child, your immune system has to be built up to defend itself against diseases, with these GM foods being created to basically prevent disease, does that not weaken our immune system, and wouldnt this make us more susceptible to diseases such as the common cold? Fair enough these chemicals are good at for us, and are needed in prevention of certain diseases, but to actually battle the disease and win, our immune system must be up to the task.
A French man and an Asian man were conversing:
Asian guy: "Did you get drugs for your rice?"
French guy: "Drugs for my rice?"
Asian guy <points to French guy's head>: "You know, drugs for your rice."
I beleive the plan is to grow the rice, and extract the drugs from the crop, rather then using standard manufacturing techniques.
If that is the case, then I think its a neat idea. However, I also believe that measures should be taken to ensure that the pharm-crop cannot get loose into the general food chain.
END COMMUNICATION
I guess now you don't have to own a four cylinder car to be a ricer....
I think you just wanted to poke at the guy because you think he grew a little pot in his closet.
Agreed. Though, as you pointed out with the canola example, I don't see any real effort to enforce responsible practices. There oughtabealaw!
-FL
There have been documented problems that can occur after harvest as well.
I personally don't have anything against generically engineered organisms, only that you have to be very careful managing them. While they shouldn't be able to compete as well as "natural" varieties, all it takes are a few big screw-ups to destroy the industry.
Indoor growing helps, as do a number of other controls that can be put in place. Moderate regulation is a good thing, in my opinion.
Opponents say growing the crops in open fields endangers organic and conventional crops, as well as human health...
Grow them in buildings, in a clean enviornment.
He was sued for GM Grain blowing into his field. So what's going to stop this rice from spreading? Because once it gets loose (and it will inevitably), it will mix with regular crops and before long there will be no way to separate it from regular rice.
Fact one, slashdot is populated mostly by geeks. Geeks are all for stem cell research, embryo harvesting, genetic research, etc. Oddly enough though altering the good ol' rice our mother earth has been producing is a travesty. Pesticides alone are enough to worry about (hey it is that or watching locus eat your years supply of food) not to mention pollution in the air and water. So who cares if our rice is genetically altered.
The best thing to do would be to tweak the plants so they are sterile, and thus, incapable of cross-pollinating. This should be a very easy thing to do.
The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
But how exactly are you going to get it *in* the rice? If it were mac and chesee you could put it *in* but rice, no sorry don't see it, next...
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
I don't know about the specifics of what kinds of proteins they want to produce with rice, but I do know that it is much more efficient and safe to produce proteins with E. Coli.
Although they're going for 'out of the lab production' with rice, the potential for problems is just too great. Unlike crops which are genetically modified to produce more of their own proteins or molecules that will be in their environment anyways (like Round-Up), the rice would be producing proteins/molecules/drugs which are completely foreign to the crop environment. What really irks me is that they are producing drugs which will possibly be leaked into the ground after degradation or harvesting. If there happen to be bacteria in the ground with some sort of drug resistance that can be transmitted to other bacteria by plasmids/recombination through contamination of the crops, there will be big problems.
The use of E. Coli in the production of pharmaceuticals is much more efficient and can be grown in larger quantities using huge vats in research labs.
On a much more practical note: how exactly are they going to extract the drugs from the rice? Would the rice be sold with the drugs inside and then cooked prior to ingestion? Or would they be steamed and the resulting water ingested?
Bottom line: using ANY crop for pharmaceutical production is inefficient and dangerous and impractical. E. Coli can do what crops do but with much higher efficiency and practicality.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
Breast-feeding right through to adulthood. I'll sign up.
sig free since 1993
From the article:
"Even food-processing corporations are very upset about this as well, because they know all you need is one shipment of corn flakes that has a contraceptive in it and there's a real problem, obviously," [Paul] Achitoff said.
Yes, well obviously ... errr ... yes, a condom in a shipment of corn flakes would cause a problem... not sure what that has to do with genetically engineered rice, but, well, errr ... yes.
Someone give the man a cigar!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
The biggest concern I have with GE/GM is that too many people think that genetic material can be contained and controlled. Pollen carries genetic material and can easily be blown around the world (let alone over the road into the neighbours crops). Furthermore, viable pollen has been found that is hundreds of years old. So folks, do we really want to let these kinds of things out of the lab?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You can build a pretty big geodesic dome in a day or two. It might not take that long to cover 50 acres. Transparent panels will fix the sunlight problem. Minerals and fertilizer can be brougth in through...the door? :-) I've seen some fairly large greenhouses(not 50 acres, obviously) used for growing flowers, but the idea is there. What would really be cool is some kind of floating farms out in the middle of the ocean. You know, A gigantic inflatable swimming pool half filled with dirt. Yes, no, maybe?
What?
Yeast producing alcohol?
Several months back I was browsing at well-known national bookseller and came across a book that had a section on how genetic modification could be used to splice into the rice genome a gene that encoded for beta carotine (promotes good eyesight).
Googling for more info just now turned up this web page saying that this gene mod hasn't been submitted for gov't approval yet (as of 19 Sep 2003 anyway).
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
They've been searching so obsessively for water on Mars? They want to turn the whole planet into a GM paddy field? Cos otherwise, it's gonna spread. Even then I guess it has the potential to do so.
sig free since 1993
Let's apply genetic manipulation to produce carbohydrate-free rice please. This Atkins diet is killin' me!
There is an equal risk that the patent holders will attempt to extort payments from the farmers who's seed stocks have become contaminated with thier "intellectual property".
Monsanto has already done this. I'm sure that this will not be the last lawsuit of this type, and I'm also sure that the biotech companies are calculating this type of enforcement as an essential part of their income.
Read, L
and in colder climates they're(greenhouses) used for growing vegetables, for commercial sale.
can't imagine it being too expensive for growing rice for medical purposes while making profit.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Even eating organic rice will not save you, since small amounts of rice seeds will surely drift on the winds and contaminate all crops. Do we really want to risk our young daughters eating abnormal quantities of lactoferrin and risking a higher rate of gigantomastia and breast cancer?
..
Just a couple of questions of the kind that often get overlooked
Since when was rice eaten raw?
Since when did cooked (i.e., denatured) proteins retain the hormonal/enzyme activities of the native protein?
There's a whole lot of wild imagination going into the stories of these so-called risks.
-wb-
Maybe one day the meek really will inherit the earth?
Quack, quack.
I don't have any problem at all with genetically modified foods. We've been genetically modifying food crops for thousands of years; we've just gotten better at it lately.
But these aren't genetically modified foods--they are food crops modified to produce drugs. Granted, they seem like fairly benign substances, but I don't understand why they need to use food crops. Surely there are plants that could be used for drug manufacture that are not normally cultivated for human consumption, obviating concerns that pharmaceutical crop seeds will get mistakenly mixed in with food crop seeds, or that pharmaceutical crops with cross-pollinate food crops.
If it "should probably read" that, why don't you just change it?
I think he's talking about haveing a box of cerial that accidentaly has "the morning after pill" baked in. If that hit the press it would be very bad for buizness
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
This type of rice also sees narrow acceptance
Rice Boy Page
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
now, releasing anything you don't fully understand into the ecosystem on a larger scale should be considered as a great risk, and as with common plants having additions of (non-natural) pharmaceutically active constituents ... the way they intrude into systems they don't understand...that really gives me the shivers...
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
Fifty acres? That's not so hard Sun Valley Floral Farms has 50.5 acres (2.2 million sqr ft) of greenhouse. Of course they just grow flowers instead of drugs.
--The best thing about working at home... Homebrew!
You bet I want drugs in my rice! Though if it's not cocaine or marijuana, forget it.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
not offtopic MDMA === X
I'm running free yea.
Do you mean like this project in Cornwall England? It will be the world's largest greenhouse at roughly 160 acres when completed and will cost 79 million pounds to build minus cost overruns. That's $145,000,000US by today's exchange rate and that's just to build it. It will cost millions more to operate.
Operating standard rice paddies in just about any of the rice growing states (Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, California, Florida) would cost a tiny fraction of that. And growing rice in China, the rice production capital of the world, would cost a tiny fraction of what it would cost in the US.
There are certain situations where technology is the wrong answer and to a great extent, agriculture is one of those situations.
Since when did cooked (i.e., denatured) proteins retain the hormonal/enzyme activities of the native protein?
I used to think that too, since most proteins do seem to be denatured by cooking (or even by digestion, which is why diabetics can't just take an insulin pill). But it seems some proteins are remarkably heat-stable. Like those nasty prion proteins. Cooking your cattle brains before eating them doesn't seem to protect against BSE.
Why do I think of Africanized bees when I read this?
-----
If you're not using Slackware, then, uh, you suck, or something. Yeah!
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
I'm sure that everybody here would have no problem growing it. Screw the issue that the worlds rice supply could end up having THC... :)
As an after thought, that IS what pollen was designed to do.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
Agreed. This looks like the classic case for legislation and regulation -- i.e., where the market will not otherwise force an actor to internatlize the costs of various risks and externalities.
I can see it now. Oh, our companay caused enviromental damage to the tune of $1 trillion, and our company is only worth $100 billion? Guess we'll have to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and pay everyone 10 cents on the dollar. Or better yet, call for a government bail-out.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
I'd like Alprazolmam in mine.
Do yourselves a favor:
- Take two days off this spring.
- Take a 2MG Xanax.
- Drink a strong cup of coffee.
- Smoke a joint.
- Enjoy your afternoon.
- Sleep all day the next day.
If only the straights would all die already, and us normals could make this legal.
This is incredible. If babies are getting infections because they are not being breastfed, the solution of the corporations is to engineer rice for processing in some ersatz replacement which will have only a tiny portion of the benefits of breast milk.
Breast feeding is FREE and far superior to the patented alternatives. Yet another company doing PR to convince doctors, nurses and parents that their product is safe will mean fewer breast-fed kids. Dumb security.
Cross-pollination will destroy heirloom and open-pollinated varieties, which offer genetic diversity (resilience), and political freedom from large corporations that would control the food supply. The dream of many such companies? Making seeds that will not germinate unless you have their proprietary chemical (GRM- Genetic Rights Management!).
The farmers that save seeds are food hackers. If this were software, people here would be up in arms. Where's the outrage? Companies like Monsanto are worse than SCO. All of them would destroy the public good to profiteer, including those with such noble sounding motives as keeping children healthy.
Are we all so mesmerized by technology that we can't see the politics?
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Anyone who has bought bulk rice is familiar with the fact that harvested rice is contaminated with bits of debris and wild rice. Speaking in a practical sense, it is clearly inevitable that this GM rice will get mixed in with the food supply.
What is the difference between white and brown rice? Brown rice is unpolished whole grain rice that is produced by removing only the outer husk. It becomes white rice when the bran layer is stripped off in the milling process. source
There is no difference between white rice and wild (Brown) rice. Actually, in other countries people thing that there is something wrong with white rice, since it is white and not brown. So, you have not case in those two getting mixed up.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I've always wondered why they didn't just splice the genes for THC production into some food crops with hardy wild cousins - mustard or some member of the mint family- and then just let it loose in the wild as a type of prank.
Lets see the feds playing whack-a-mole.
Alternatly, I've always thought Monsanto's so called terminator genes were good inventions, used properly. Biotech companies and environmentalists both have the similar desires for biotech plants; that the 'product' does not become part of the wild gene pool. And companies have the capacity to chemically render plants unable to produce viable seed before they're planted outdoors. I wonder what the failure rate of these technologies are...
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
the chinese restaurant strikes back!
SCO never killed people nor caused children to be born with birth defects. Monsanto is far, far more irresponsible with their power. They created Agent Orange, Bovine Growth Hormone, and PCBs and have covered up known health problems caused by them for decades until exposed by whisteblowers. They created Terminator Seeds which destroy the ability of developing nations to maintain sustainable crops, and they've created a whole slew of "Roundup Ready" crops that are genetically engineered to withstand having pesticides dumped all over them (which are suspected to cause cancer). The sue small farmers whose crops are contaminated by pollen containing their patented seeds and financially ruin them.
I don't like to toss the word Evil around casually like some people, but Monsanto is Satan's Flaming, Spike-Studded Cockring.
One of my favorite quotes:
"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) job."
-- Phil Angell, Director of Corporate Communications, Monsanto
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
What is the difference between white and brown rice? Brown rice is unpolished whole grain rice that is produced by removing only the outer husk. It becomes white rice when the bran layer is stripped off in the milling process.
That's true. But I was talking about wild rice, not brown rice.
Actually, in other countries people thing that there is something wrong with white rice, since it is white and not brown. So, you have not case in those two getting mixed up.
In most of the world, people eat white rice almost exclusively. The reason is that the bran of the rice contains oils which can go rancid at room temperature. By polishing the rice and removing the bran, a supply of uncooked rice will last much longer. (without refrigeration)
My girlfriend is just finishing up work on a documentary that deals with this sort of issue in depth:
The Future of Food (site is sparse now, but once they are done working on the film, will have additional video clips and information).
And while I'm not impartial, I think it's a good film that covers the topics quite fairly. The sum of it is that we're not really in control of what's happening with our food supply. As a result of working on this film we now eat organic whenever possible.
GMO has potential, but the science seems to be used to only help the bottom lines of the seed/pesticide companies, and not worry about the consequences. And even in this case, where the rice is being grown with "helpful" drugs, there are risks that are ignored (cross pollination, etc). The quote from the film that got me the most is:
"This is one of the greatest experiments that humanity has ever entered into" -- Ignacio Chapella
But there is very little regulation, and everyone seems to be falling over themselves to get into the biz without any vision of the big picture. If this goes bad, it doesn't mean the drop of the stock market and fiber/datacenters going offline, it means the midwest will become a wasteland.
--
My life is dedicated hosting
It's great! You just need some cocaine, and some baking soda, and I think I tasted cinnamon and egg!
if it's in the rice, that's fine.
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
As the entire planet is being massacred by giant flesh-eating mutant dandelions, the fact that we've got a colony on mars is going to make me feel reeeeealy great.
Generally, anything that has a good chance of resulting in even minor catastrophies should be avoided.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
One of the things that we've seen happening in Canada is that a huge corporation (ie: Monsanto) will sell its genetically modified seed to farmers and charge them an annual licensing fee. The problem arises when some of the seed blows onto neighbouring farmers' fields and starts to merge with their crops. In turn, Monsanto takes legal action against the farmers.
Here's a link to a good, comprehensive story.
Basically, the issue at hand is that even before considering the ethical implications of lacing crops with drugs, we should be thinking about the leverage such enhancements will give to corporate heavyweights like Monsanto in their ongoing struggle to preserve "their" intellectual property.
--
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
Why not make corn and rice generate caffein? Let get our kids hook on grain!!!
If you grey MDMA in potatoes instead of rice, would you get "mashed potatoes"?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
You might be able to do it if you stack the layers. 50 acres wouldn't sound like much if you devised a way to stack 50 layers in 1 acre.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Sort of on topic: http://weev.flippersmack.com/pics/popcorn.jpg
... ASK YOUR DOCTOR OR PHARMACIST IF EASY-TO-INGEST MICROWAVABLE RISPERPOP IS RIGHT FOR YOU.
Think of the possibilities for the pharmaceutical industry this brings... There are already Actiq fentanyl lollipops for terminally ill children..
I can just imagine it now.
*an allegra-style commercial fades in, showing a schizophrenic running through a field of flowers in the springtime, drooling and talking to invisible people*
ARE THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD INTERFERING WITH YOUR LIFE? ARE THEY MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO LEAD A NORMAL LIFE OF SITTING ON YOUR ASS ALL DAY AND WATCHING DVDS? WELL FEAR NO MORE, RISPERPOP WILL SET YOU FREE.
*fade to shot of happy family eating bags of Risperpop(tm) while staring off at the TV in front of them*
Right. You are willing to take chances. Why waste the product? Years ago someone came up with a 'brilliant' idea: why waste some parts of the animals - let's re-use it and feed it back to some other animals. What harm can there be. So years after sheep brains were fed to cows (real carnivours)...... Can you say Mad Cow Disease. And this seems to be much simpler then genetics.
What aggravates the hell out of me is the #1, above- labeling the product. I, too, believe that the consumer should make the choice. The whole "shut up and eat your vegetables, we know what's good for you" sucks. If I have a label on a box of cornflakes or whatever, it tells me what the heck is in there. Why should a genetically modified food be any different?
The typical answer, of course, is that it's already been tested to heaven and back- true enough, but have there been long-term studies done in humans with any of this stuff? No. WE are the sample space, and in 20 years, nobody'll know who ate what. Some of the components we put into plants (the CRY gene from BT, for example, that poisons catepillars) is pretty good stuff; that goes back to the 1960's when we had prisoners eating waste cakes from the processes in which BT was made. If you've ever had salad, you've eaten BT. No biggie. But the agribusiness companies don't give two whits about the long-term stuff, and they sure as hell don't want you to know what you're eating, because they know the perception is that they're not good for you.
What REALLY embarasses the agribusiness crowds is that they can't advertise they're better for you because they get rid of pesticides. No! Really! If you put the human-safe pesticide inside the plant (like the BT toxin, above), you can't very well say "Now we don't have to spray 40,000 acres a year with KillzAll, from XYZ Company!" If you did THAT, after all, it'd look like KillzAll is bad. And guess who makes KillzAll? The same companies that are paying for the rollout of genetically modified foods.
What a load of crapola. They don't want to tell you what you're eating, because They Say It's Safe (tm). So much for personal choice. Ford, GM, and Chevy would love to have that sort of rule over their vehicles- just being able to say their cars meet some certain safety standard, rather than boast about by how much they exceed them.
Sit down, shut up, and eat your veggies, kids. Just don't ask any damned questions!
They could patent this rice too. You can't patent regular rice (IIRC), or regular anything, or, as the original poster mentioned, crossing two tomatoes to make a redder, juicer tomato. You can put your name on it, but this "biotech" stuff can be patented.
The scary part, for the most part, is that it's a business methodology, if you will - it's just an "excuse" to make money, a way to create value - they could probably care less (some of patent-heads do care less) about whether or not the rice would benefit anyone. They would patent regular rice if they could do it, but they can't. The whole biotech movement is almost as much about patents and ways to create value and monetize things as it is about the supposed benefits that these crops have.
It takes longer to develop the crop than it does to respond to the dynamic environmental conditions that the crop is being designed to solve. I thought breast feeding was in style these days. Furthermore, getting the equivalent of a "nutritional label" on real breast milk is impossible, because the nutritional content of breast milk changes from day to day, perhaps even hour to hour - some say this is to adapt to the baby's needs; it's a type of connection between the mother and the child. Given this dynamic nature of breast milk, and its ancient origin, it is ill-advised to even attempt to duplicate its complexity, because we don't fully understand how it works to begin with. You can't mass-produce breast milk - it's not that kind of thing. Human beings are biologically set up to be weaned off of it - some sooner, some later.
I can understand growing your own tomatoes, but growing your own rice is a different story. Not quite the same thing. But it's kind of where we are headed, is having to grow your own if you live in an area where this patent madness is going on.
On the other hand, why pay money to go to a gym when you can save money by working in your own garden? I have figured it out, sort of, that gardening, if you do it right, works out to around $20 per hour or so in terms of money that you save. So get your exercise and save yourself from spending $20 an hour on food that you can grow in your back yard, or someone else's back yard.
Hehehe, first read it as some new Columbian Business Model
why yes, yes i would like drugs in my rice..
In rice they are no longer 'naturally occuring'. With GM (or GE) the naturally occuring substances in one are used in another - all of this is natural but BEFORE they are combined that way.
When babies learn to walk, they use 'baby-walkers'. Once the babies are weaned of the baby-walkers the idea should be to supply them with crutches so they have a constant support. Forgive the sarcasm - but why do we always have to outsmart nature more then it is neccessary?!?! Nature managed to do quite a good job. We can improve some things - but does it have to be with everthing? Watch the commercials - especially the beautie products - they make it look like nature completely failed but if you use these products from the company.....
How is this dangerous? The dinosaurs will never get loose, and even if they do they'll need the lysine-enriched rice to survive. Just in case we'll put up signs at the park that say "WARNING - Do Not Feed The Velociraptors", and the lawyers can't touch us.
What me worry?
Study everything, you'll find something you can use - Jason Bourne
Israel has a large amount of hothouse agriculture
Would You Like Drugs in Your Rice?
No, I'd just like her to testify for the damn 9/11 commission already.
Tweet, tweet.
I see this problem at two levels, the specific issue, and a larger systemic problem...
The first and obvious one, being that the production of crops which have been bioengineered to produce biologically active chemicals and drugs needs to be strickly managed. They must be kept away from other plants, and for that matter, need to be kept away from bateria which can take genetic material and communicate it to wild species (cross species genetic communication is not commonly considered and is a real issue when dealing with novel or unprecedented genetic application.)
Thalidamide looked like a great idea until deformed babies began to happen. Having a genetically altered crop, speading a gene into wild plant species that might have a significant impact on human health and reproduction, or simply further threaten the viability of endangered environments, is a potential disaster just waiting to happen. We need to place care, and responsiblity ahead of the bottom line, or we might just greedy ourselves to death.
The second, is an administration that has ramrodded through the various dept. of government, the agenda "Rubberstamp Anything Big Business Wants". Just today, the EPA was forced to push through new business practices which may cause a 700% increase in mercury in the fish we eat over the next 10 years. This is in an environment where the mercury levels are already high enough to warm pregnant women "That eating top tier ocean caught fish more than once a week poses a significant risk for birth defect".
I'm a firm believer in capitalism, I believe we need to support business, and create a strong and sustainable economy. However, that strength must not come at the cost of social disaster. Our government has become a machine designed to force all resistance including sanity, aside to promote the wishes of large multinational powers. Time and time again the track record is clear. The public is at risk, every single time our welfare come to a head against some D.C. connected industry's profit margin. It's vital that we not try to reduce this to a Republican/Democratic, Conservative/Liberal issue. These are issues involving the fact that our elected officials are too easily bought and sold for the price of funding future election campaigns. We need to change the system, and waiting for the people who benefit from that system, to change it, is clearly pointless. The people need to stand up and mandate a change from the ground up. The quality and longevity of our lives demands it.
Genda
I thought I would give you guys a few links for the paraniod. I've been researching aspartame and other man-made additives/GMO foods for a possible link to obesity and most recently, the rise in miscarriages.
p ://www.lawyerdude.netfirms.com/3916.htmlw ww.ogmdangers.org/docs/geDebate1.htm
http://home.intekom.com/tm_info/index.html
htt
http://
Good Luck trying to avoid them!
TIME is the Aether...
Is this feasable? Would you get sterile rice if they did grow near each other?
Yeah, but you'd never produce prions in this manner, or at all for that matter. Prions do a very poor job of catalyzing reactions and are completely useless for anything other than giving people vCJD. And I can't think of any other proteins that work when denatured. The shape of a protein is what gives its unique catalytic capability, denature it and that shape is gone, along with its functionality.
As for prions, not a lot is understood about them. It seems like they work by denaturing proteins, thus shutting down cell functions and generating more prions. They only seem to be a problem for nerve tissue, perhaps because of its low rate of division, but no one really knows. Also, while they do seem to be a large problem for herbivores (mad cow, chronic wasting disease, and a few other variants) they don't seem to have much of an effect on the carnivores that eat those herbivores. This seems to be true of people as well. Despite the fact that many millions of people (in Britain and elsewhere) have been exposed to BSE contaminated beef, there have only been a few thousand reported cases of vCJD.
Some researchers believe that natural herds of animals rely on carnivores to remove the animals with chronic wasting. While human hunters usually select the largest, healthiest animals, carnivores typically target the smallest, or weakest animals. This is a theory that will be soon put to the test as the elk herds in Yellowstone become infected with the chronic wasting epidemic that is sweeping northward through the Rocky Mountains. Researchers have noted chronic wasting starting to appear in the elk herds in Teton National Park, which borders Yellowstone on the south.
Also, CJD (the original kind of CJD which hits people in the later years of their life) seems to be tied to prions, but doesn't seem to be a problem for young people. CJD hasn't been tied to exposure to BSE, it seems that some people just get it later in life.
Speaking in a practical sense, it is clearly inevitable that this GM rice will get mixed in with the food supply
Sitting smack in the middle of fly-over-country USA as I post this, I'll admit it's a real issue out here that nobody seems to pick up on. For instance:
- GMO gene drift: Last year's harvest was a real issue because everyone kept on finding drift in crops. Even folks who've never planted it. BT corn is a fact of life now and god forbid you're allergic to it. They did a nice PR job making everyone think it got yanked from the shelves (such as Taco Bell pulling BT corn tortillas they found) but the reality is the gene's out there now. These BT crops tend to have a vigor to them that dominates the weaker hybrid strains that have been sold for years.
- BT resistance: Roundup Ready(TM) beans are already finding a bit of a fight. Seems the weeds that don't die are becoming somewhat of a nightmare. Who would have figured? (Why, anyone who saw Jurassic Park would have, but they must not get them good films at Monsanto and such). Prediction from the farmers? 5 years left of roundup-ready GMOs and they're beat. What next? Roundup2? We'll have super weeds soon that will outlast the cockroaches.
Forget about keeping your genes from drifting tho. It's no different than seeing the "first cross" masterpieces that have a vigor that just overwhelmes (I think of that every time I watch MIchelle Malkin). Farmers have known about this first-cross phenomenon for years. Read about the Red Delicious if you're unsure - this chance seedling grew up as an unwanted scrub tree in a farmer's orchard in southeast Iowa. He tried cutting it out several times, but it was so persistant (as most first crosses are) that he decided to see what kind of a tree it would be. A dozen years later, he kept on winning all the prizes for best apple. Stark Brothers of Missouri bought the rights to the tree.
Newly crossed life has an attitude, and your GMO scientists apparently didn't learn this in school.
Why hasn't any hippy /.er said "just tell bush they're wmds and it'll never pass"
>> Ever tried to put 50 acres under a roof? How about 1,000 acres? Then ther are all those other minor details that are required for sustaining life under a roof, sun light, temperature and humidity control, water, minerals and ferilizers.
Well, 18 acres is definitely do-able. Monolithic Domes (www.monolithic.com) can put up a dome they call a "crenosphere" 1000 feet in diameter and 500 feet high, suitable for growing drug-laden redwoods if you wanted.
If you are into hydroponics and grow lights and put used multiple levels, you'd have ~260 million cubic feet to play with. Assuming levels ten feet apart, that's 600 acres of area to grow crops in. A 400-foot diameter costs ~$7.5 million (minimally equipped), and the price of the dome itself should go up perhaps a bit more than the square of the diameter, or about $47 million for the low end price (if the price went up with the cube of the diameter, you're looking at $120 million roughly, and that's a high-end estimate). Just double the price for all the equipment and put it at a quarter of a billion dollars.
Now, the average cost of bringing a drug to market is $800 million. For less than a third that price you can have 600 acres of the perfect growing area for whatever drug-bearing crops you want. It's definitely doable.
Even if you cook it, it's still a penis growing
on each rice grain man!!
... my rice to produce endoglucanase, exoglucanase and beta-glucosidase. That way when I eat it I will be taking in the enzymes necessary to break down cellulose into glucose. And THEN I can eat the rest of the plant, or lawn clippings, or pretty much any plant material at all. As unpleasant as it sounds, it'll probably become necessary, since the patents on "improved" foods will make them cost so much more, and apparently if they cross-pollinate with native plants, the patent holder will own the hybrids produced too, meaning they'll end up owning entire plants species.
While altruism can indeed mexist in nature, it does not exist in the corporate lexicon.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Its far more dangerous than GM food.
OK that's great, but, may I ask how your response has anything to do with what you quoted?? I am confused.
"I get enough drugs *outside* my rice, thank you very... whoa! I'm in a FIELD OF WHEAT! whoaaaaaaaa....."
"Uhhhh... Steve?"
They have multiple redundant backups, regular testing of the backups, and a massively distributed supplementary backup system for the earth's plants. It doesn't get everything of course, but throw in my efforts to back up my genetic code and you have everything you need to save the world or take over another planet.
With some big database fun, remote sensing and GIS goodness you have a good project for he conservation minded geek.
Also, try some bread made with quinoa flour if you get the chance.. It's an interesting change from Wonder Bread.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
Lysozyme attacks the beta-1,4 linkages in the peptidoglycan cell wall of eubacteria (this groups includes E. coli) making them vulnerable to osmotic pressure and ultimately lysing the cell (thus the name). This is why lysozyme is produced by your body on many of your mucous membranes (tears, saliva etc.) Cloning a gene for the production of lysozyme into E. coli would be lethal to any transformed cells.
A common source of lysozyme is egg whites. Lysozyme is used extensively in microbiology research and commercially in several oral care products.
Yeast would be an excellent source of cloned lysozyme as it is a eukaryote and lack peptidoglycan.
Of course rice works too.
AUGAUUUGCGCACAUAUCUCAGCGAAUGAAAGGGAUUAA
And what happens is that "open-source" crops, previously freely available to all to grow without royalties or patents become privatised, the property of the rich few, the new lords of the global manor.
Welcome to genetically-engineered serfdom, everybody.
Simply plant the stuff on Diego Gargia.
gewg_
Well, Condoleezza is not mine, but I'd surely like to see some drugs in her. Maybe she'd relax a little bit.
SCNR
-silence
Dyslectics of the world, untie!
I have not yet seen an animal carrying rice cooker.
And our caffeteria provides rice "al-dente" quite often.
First your questions:
Rice is eaten raw when it is used in the form of ground up rice flour and not cooked.
As for cooked proteins, does the word 'prion' ring a bell? It not a law of nature that proteins loose their shape or their function just because they are heated.
The problem with GM is not so much the danger of accidentally misusing the products, but the very real danger of genetic pollution, which can happen in many more ways than most people imagine. Just to mention a couple:
1. Bacteria and other microorganisms routinely swap genetic material or even incorporate genetic materials from cells of other species, plants included. This is why the multiresistent bugs are not just an isolated problem - it has been found that the resistance to antibiotics can wander between different species.
2. Many of our most important crop plants have near relatives in the wild. Imagine eg. that we have a genetically modified oat field, which produces some dangerous substance. Wild oat is a common weed in oat fields, so we will very soon have a wild plant which produces a dangerous substance. Wild oat spreads very easily - the seeds are light and blow around in the wind - so soon this trait gets into oat meant for human consumption. Even worse - we don't even need a scenario where a wild species acts as intermediary - many crops are wind pollinated, and their pollen can travel for huge distances, perhaps all around the globe.
Only a ruthless, boneheaded and ignorant idiot would let genetically modified crops loose on the world at present, when we don't know nearly enough about the consequences. Unfortunately this is the kind of people that are in power.
... otherwise who knows if she speaks it ? It's probably a "let me take the fall, not my boss"-action anyway...
PCP producing rice bubbles, now that would put some snap cracle and pop into thousands of kids lives!!!
Ohh my spleen
A good percentage of Holland and a growing area in Scotland is under glass / plastic to extend the vegetable / fruit season.
It costs more, but the crops are more valuable. The difference being of course that they couldnt grow these crops outdoors.
With GM 'cancercorn' they can grow outdoors - so it is seen as a cost, not an investment, to grow under cover.
Yet again - if government banned outdoor growing but licenced controlled indoor growing the economics would shift - not stopping, but changing GM development.
1,000 acres? For a bit of medicine? What a waste of space. And people bitch about solar cells for that reason. At least they don't pollute the genepool and poison the food chain.
There's a whole lot of wild imagination going into the stories of these so-called risks.
So you know all the factors right? Or the decision-makers do, right?
History has shown us again and AGAIN that we are NOT able to foresee and predictably understand the consequences of our actions. Therefore, precaution is highly recommended, if you care about our earth, your fellow human beings and your own health. I suspect you do not, or you wouldn't dismiss this out-of-hand. It's time to open up your heart and start..
By using GM crops in the wild, you are taking away my choice to eat organic and natural foods. Hey, these companies have even the nerve to sue farmers that had their own crops contaminated by GM crops! It's time we put our foot down and say: NO! Messing around with nature for profit to the few, while potentially having big long-time consequences for us all, is totally unacceptable.
Yes.
It's Time has come!
Drugs, it's what's for Dinner.
I thought it said drugs in my rice krispies...
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Brown rice is not wild rice. There are two things that are referred to as wild rice. One is this grain that is not really rice that is long thin and black. The other is undomesticated rice. Though a better definition might be rice that propagates in the wild.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Prions do not necessarily maintain their "native" conformation when heated, but maintain the ability to induce a non-native conformation, rather it is a globular form that induces aggregation or what have you. The point is still valid that heating will not necessarily destroy protein function. there are examples of proteins regaining native function upon cooling from heating, such as RNAse. This protein is very troublesome to people that work with RNA because it chops it into bits, but just boiling it will not destroy it and thus it regains normal function with cooling. Any number of other proteins could have similiar fates and we cannot rely on heating to destory. Hormones are a slightly different issue because most of the active ones are not proteins or are very small peptides, which may exist as straight chains or require little energy for proper folding and thus renature properly. I don't know many details about heat stability of the androgens, but since they are made from cholesterol, I imagine they are fairly stable as well.
There is another serious issue that is mostly preventative for these kinds of efforts and that is dosage. The amount of "drug" produced will vary greatly from region to region and season to season and even within batches. I admit i didn't read the article, however, so this may be covered in it.
So you mandate that certain GM crops be grown in isolation, such as in a greenhouse.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
most genetically modified foods aren't made for the direct betterment of mankind. rather they are modified for the betterment of the plant. So, rather than make a tomato that is free of salmonella, they are making tomatos that are yucky to tomato worms (for the most part).
GMO foods themselves don't bother me so much, in terms of eating them. OK, so worry about what happens when you get a successful pest. But I actually worry more about if you don't (i.e. what if all the protections work?).
A monoculture is a paradise for all things that eat a given organism (from animals through fungi through bacteria through viruses). That's the root problem behind modern farming, and why we need to use so many pesticides etc. It's a lot more efficient to grow everything together in one easily harvested clump, but anything that feeds off it that gets into the field can then just hop from one to the next to the next. This is why wild populations tend to be mixtures of things. As one example, there was an interesting paper in IIRC Nature a couple of years ago about the distribution of Black Cherry trees in the wild - turns out that there's a fungus that feeds on the leaves & twigs dropped by a mature tree, that the tree itself is strong enough to fight off. But if a seedling tries to start growing too close to a mature tree, the fungus is likely to kill it - so Black Cherries are scattered through the forest. Even schooling (a la fish) can be thought of in this way - the schools form isolated "islands" of fish in a big empty ocean.
So the reasons why an artificially "weakened" species (remember, all food crops have been bred away from the naturally evolved, robust plant towards "wasting" [from the plant's point of view] energy making big tasty seeds / fruit for us to eat) won't grow on their own in enormous monocultures should be obvious. Now imagine you manage to engineer in enough resistances that all of a sudden it can. Anything that can grow strong & healthy in this harsh environment will grow as well if not better individually. The stated goal of these techniques is to eliminate natural enemies.
Rabbits in Australia, Purple Loosestrife in NorAm, snakes on islands in the Pacific, rats in a lotta places etc etc etc
"al-dente" in the context of rice being Italian for "Will break your teeth"?
---
When I grow up, I want to be a kid again.
Messing around with nature for profit to the few, while potentially having big long-time consequences for us all, is totally unacceptable.
There's people starving in the world. Higher output crops could kind of make some dieing people's day a bit better.
Do I?
I have only pointed out that putting GM crops out in the open environment is a senselessly stupid thing to do. Personally I am not convinced at all that growing things in a greenhouse is much better - the point being that it takes very little to transport genetic material out; a single bee would be able to do it. This is not like a dead poison or radioactivity - a small leakage, while bad, would only be a small leakage. Genetic material, in contrast, is likely to multiply - this is what life is all about. Even if only one strand of DNA escaped, it might be enough to allow it to run riot all over the planet, in the worst case.
We need to place care, and responsiblity ahead of the bottom line, or we might just greedy ourselves to death.
When did "greedy" become a verb?
Brings new meaning to words toasted rice.
"Only a ruthless, boneheaded and ignorant idiot would let genetically modified crops loose on the world at present, when we don't know nearly enough about the consequences. Unfortunately this is the kind of people that are in power."
:)
Well, duh, you put it in a huge greenhouse with negative airflow, like they did in The X-Files.
"Didn't you take your medicine?"
"Sure I did. Worked like a charm, too. But for some reason, an hour later I was sick again."
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Try a google search on the phrase "heat stable protein" or even just "heat stable" to discover just how wrong you are.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Sounds like a good question, but the biochemical companies must have thought about this as well. How do they get benefit out of it? And hopefully their denatured state is not a dangerous one...
I agree with your sentiments, but am dismayed to find other people who would prefer to show caution hurting that very position.
Of course, it is possible that you are out there pretending to endorse a cautious approach in order to sabotage those arguments from within - but the only thing I can usefully do is take your words at face value and try to contribute productively.
SO -
1. Please remember that virtually ALL arguments that contain personal insults are, at best, disregarded. More often, they are taken as evidence to the contrary.
2. If the presentation of your opinion contains no analysis, and only blanket generalizations... ie. using words like "Genetically Modified" as if it was specific and impact-distinguishable from other types of crop breeding... then readers assume that you are expressing an opinion formed without research and revert to conclusion #1.
I strongly agree that we need to place tight restrictions on what can be field-grown and field-tested. And like you, I also hope that or Peer Review and Regulatory experts can muster the expertise to ensure that risk is maintained at, or below, the same level it's been over recent centuries.
I was on a Canadian national panel for 6 months examining GM foods 6 years ago. At the time, I became comfortable that the Canadian Analysis and Restriction system was adequate, but needing some changes for future security. But as we are so close to the USA, we also examined the FDA and associated systems there and were horrified at level of risk that is accepted and the influence of corporations on Decision makers.
That was 6 years ago , so I am no longer up to date on the concerns. Things change - I would be interested to hear anyone's more current take on the control systems now in place.
The dominant issue at the time (Globally) was Substantial Equivalence VS Safety. Obviously - you can not prove something to be safe. It can even be dubious to prove something Un-safe at times. Most of the governments who have addressed GM Food Safety have attemted to put in place a mechanism requiring new crops to be proven to be basically the same as existing crops. This is also exceedingly difficult since the list of things to be considered equivilent is incredibly long: No new proteins in the field, no new chemicals produced, amounts and combinations must be similar to historically proven crops, environmental interactions must be unchanged, IIRC, on the Japanese board there was even discussion on requiring proof that societal reaction to the crop must be shown to be equivalent.
I know that this principle must surely have become the core of the FDA system too, but I would apreciate some updates on the systems you use to accomplish this. State of the art from other countries would be appreciated too.
...self-control; i.e. abstinence and fidelity. We seem to have forgotten about it and it's advantages. But these concepts have a way of being remembered due to the many negative consequences of the alternatives.
Drugs in Rice?
Yeah like some fucking truth syrum would be pretty cool.
Or, do you mean genetically alter Rice? Sure. I'd go for that. I'd give her a mouth that can't open so I won't have to listen to her bullshit. Oh, yeah...and I'd give her bigger tits.
There is more than enough food to feed every single human on the planet right now. A third of world is hungry to starving. Another third is fat to obese. Coincidence?
It's not the amount of food produced as much as it is the distribution system. Our economic system keeps/moves the food not to where it is most demanded, but to where the biggest markets are. Volume (and quality) move to where the money is while the rest battle for the table scraps. People go hungry because they have no money, not just because the country can't grow enough to feed itself. That just makes matters worse.
Doubling output is no guarantee of feeding anyone who isn't already being fed, especially the way farming is becoming more and more corporatized and geared toward cash crops feeding world markets.
Brazil is a decent example. Rainforest traditionally got cut down by desperate farmers looking to feed themselves. Today, corporations increasingly shove out those farmers and cut out their own patches. Why? To grow beef and cash crops that almost exclusively go straight to America.
Doubling their output means double the cash crops going to America. That drives down food prices in America. That hurts American farmers. They demand and get large subsidies (which go mostly to corporations) and cash payments to grow nothing. Also, tarriffs on foreign foodstuffs generally remain high in the First World to protect producers.
In the process, large foreign producers make their money on volume. However, small scale foreign farmers' products get squeazed out, depriving them of American cash and forcing them to deal in domestic markets and those that offer a lot less money. It may even put them out of business.
Generally, other than crop failures, people are hungry because they are broke or landless . It's about distribution of food, wealth and land. Amount of crops just shift the margins around a bit.