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Smart Breeding to Beat Biotechnology?
divisionbyzero writes "Scientists are developing superorganics made through improved traditional interbreeding in order to circumvent Monsanto's patents and finally deliver on the promise of genetically engineered food."
Ever been to Mississippi or Arkansas? I don't *think* so. . .
First it was the pea pods...
Then it was the people
All the remained were Pod People
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I just recently bought Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's & Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding & Seed Saving by Carol Deppe. It's a very good treatment, by a professional geneticist, on breeding your own vegetables, fruits, flowers, etc. It's a testament to the power of more natural and even organic ways of getting what you want out of plants.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
When I can buy tomacco in my local grocery store.
So THAT is why I'm 23 and have never gotten laid. I think they are subtly telling me something. IE we don't want your /. geeky genes murking up the pool.
hot dogs why not genetically engineered food.
And people will still think there's something wrong with this food, that they're somehow splicing jellyfish genes into it or something stupid like that. It makes me so mad when talking to misinformed people who get into these campaigns to ban GM food when all the food you eat is pretty much been GM'd through several thousand years of selective breeding
drunk chemists
Digital Millenium Patent Act. Distributing anything that can circumvent patents will become a crime, so in this case, selling any sort of organism would be a crime.
You think I'm kidding, don't you?
This article is quite typical of the conceptual problem that many people still have with breeding versus genetic "manipulation". Both methods are means to the same end, ergo the introduction of desired genes or variations thereof into an organism. Breeding takes longer and cannot be controlled to the same extent. And don't start about the dangers of vectors, unwanted integration and crap like that. Nature does that every single minute (ever heard of transposons?) and nobody is complaining about that. So, "Frankenfood"? I think not.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
If they can get my kids to eat those veggies I can't seem to get them to eat...
"Dad, can you please pass the Rocky Road Brussel Sprouts?"
Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code...
Call me when this new veggie can make my penis bigger.
Although, you'll have to prove to me that it works better than the few dozen brands of pills and creams that I get offered to me daily in my inbox.
Can someone list any meaningfull danagers of GM food, preferably with something that resembles proof. I'm not trolling for either side here I'm simply curious.
Monsanto is worse than a billion SCOs.
I hope people who work for or invest in Monsanto live miserable lives followed by extremely painful deaths.
There's a very nice summary at the bottom of page 4. I will karma-whore it for you, since I know most people won't be able to maintain their concentration for so many pages.
How Smart Breeding Works
The mission: Develop rice that's resistant to bacterial blight and will thrive around the globe.
SEARCH Food scientists scour the rice gene bank, consisting of 84,000 seed types, in search of varieties with blight immunity.
INSERT MARKER Scientists extract DNA from selected varieties and tag the blight-immunity gene - previously identified by researchers - with a chemical dye.
CROSSBREED A network of researchers around the world cross disease-resistant varieties with thousands of local versions. With some plants, this means merely putting two varieties in a room. Self-pollinating rice requires manual pollen insertion.
ANALYZE The offspring are analyzed to detect the presence of the immunity gene. Those containing the gene are planted in a field.
TEST Mature plants are exposed to bacterial blight to confirm resistance. Those that don't die, and maintain desired traits from the local variety, are distributed. Unless
REPEAT Sometimes, the process reveals several genes responsible for a trait. Three genes confer resistance to different blight strains. In such cases, breeders repeat the crossbreeding until all genes are turned on.
END RESULT A rice plant with broad resistance to bacterial blight that will thrive in local conditions.
150 years later and we have a new fancy name for selective breeding and we've gone full circle . . .
Deja vu
My mothers brother's uncle is me.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
What about us breeding mares?
Who is this patent holder? I smell get-rich-quick schemes circumventing free science.
Could you define "professional geneticist"? It doesn't seem like she's published any research.
This just reinforces the point that genetic engineering has existed on this earth from the first time our ancestors bred dogs for obedience or put the biggest bulls out to stud.
The difference is that now, we have the advantage of looking under the hood at the genes themselves. This new data gives farmers and geneticists an unprecendented level of control in selecting for certain traits.
So jokes about killer tomatoes aside, this is a positive development. I look forward to the day when we develop robust cereal crops that can thrive in the dry, nutrient-poor soils of East Africa. Without being encumbered by patents, of course.
Talk about your actual "Fast Food"!
Where you take a mommy plant and a daddy plant and then make lots of baby plants. The you take the brother plant and the sister plant and create strange uncle Jethro who no-one in the family talks about much but HELL can he survive in hot weather.
Uncle Jethro is currently serving 25 life sentences for a string of murders in Arkansas.
I love it when people talk about "natural" a normal ways when talking about this stuff. Arsenic is a natural product... doesn't make it safe.
The key is safe and not likely to go postal like Uncle Jethro, that means long term testing and genetic strength, something tradtional breeding often fails at (potato blight anyone ?). Equally genetic engineering is not tested in the long term and we have no clue to the effects (thalidomide(sp?) anyone ?).
I want to eat a cow that is not pumped with hormones, wheat that isn't racked with chemicals... and a realisation that we can produce enough food for the world but the west subsidises farmers the way it never would do to steel (except in the US), coal, cars, manufacturing etc etc.
Maybe the solution isn't more products, its a decent and fair economic policy. Shocking I know, but more expensive plants for the 3rd world might not be what they are after, fair access to our markets might just be a better bet.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
With gene manipulation for food we give anmimal and plant deseases a chance to infect mankind not only animals and plants. There is a barrier for these deseases. With GM this barrier may be torn down.
Sadly the EU approved the sale of Monsanto's gene maniplulated corn
If I can avoid GM food I avoid it because of the above reason!
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
From the article:
/.'ers know that patents tend to stifle innovation. However, maybe this is an area where it's good to have the innovation stifled (or at least slowed down) for a while. Since we're not quite sure what will happen when many of the genes inserted via the Monsanto method will do when they get out into the gene pools of wild-plants, perhaps it's good that Monsanto has stifled innovation in this area. It has caused the search for alternatives such as the super breeding outlined in the article. Of course, the other thing that was happening was that Monsanto was basically making it illegal for farmers in 3rd world countries to reuse their seed because the M company claimed that each succeeding generation contained some of their IP.
Opponents have found an ally in crop scientists who condemn the conglomerates behind transgenics, especially Monsanto. The company owns scores of patents covering its GM seeds and the entire development process that creates them. This gives Monsanto a virtual monopoly on GM seeds for mainline crops and stifles outside innovation. No one can gene-jockey without a tithe to the life sciences giant.
Of course we
Interesting side effects of Patents... I recently took an algorithms class where we were discussing various optimization algorithms. A company patented a particular algorithm a few years ago which essentially stopped all research in that direction. So researchers started looking at different classes of alternative algorithms and now have come up with a much better class of algorithms than the patented one - basically nobody uses the patented one anymore. Now, had the company not been so greedy they could have seen further development of their (very promising at the time) algorithm, but now all development in that direction has basically been halted for several years.
The reason there is such a backlash against GM is that it often involves inter-splicing pieces of gene THAT DID NOT EXIST BEFORE in this particular plant species. Careful breeding can only enhance or bring out pre-existing characteristics. The "Flavr Savr" bombed -- not just because it was genetically engineered, but because it didn't taste that great. Firm cardboard doesn't sell as tomatoes, no matter how bright red. The texture was an unexpected side effect. I am curious about one thing, however. I get the impression from these careful breeders that they are bringing out recessive traits. (Believers in evolution should have fun explaining why traits that are more pro-survival are recessive than those that are not.) Won't this result in plants that must be carefully prevented from pollinating with "mutts" - or less carefully bred varieties?
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Welcome our new Genetically-Engineered overlords.
Oh wait... WE'RE going to be eating THEM?
1) Get some plant seed
2) Interbreed
3) ????
4) Profit
This is all well and good untill somebody starts calling it "gene-laundering" or some other such unflattering name that implies that it's just sneaky GM, and nobody will eat this stuff either. Especially if it's essentially the same result. The real problem is that people oppose things they don't understand by default.
From the article;
[Richard Jefferson] is sowing the seeds of a revolt, citing the open source ethos of Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman as inspiration.
Does this mean we have to start calling it Gnu/tomato???
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Remember, Khan and his followers were the products of the eugenics wars.
Khannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!
Can you imagine if the Nazis were up & functioning today? Instead of comparing the results of comparing the reactions to one twin vs. nothing to the other (as a control group) or people in general, they'd be tinkering with bio-sciences. We've all heard the stories about how close they were to beating The Manhattan Project to finishing a bomb. Imagine their same efforts devoted to life sciences. We argue about whether laws are justified regarding whether to use embryo stem cells. If the opposition were living today, they'd do whatever they wanted without regard to these rules, making steroids in the Olympics look like drinking bottled water.
Now, even though the Nazis got their clocks cleaned sixty years ago, ponder whether there are any other governments studying & building life sciences in the same fashion. It's such a new (and popular) topic it's no big deal for anyone to go to any school of choice. So we permit intentional, preplanned brain drain so they can go home, taking educational IP making a road trip to help some up-and-coming despot.
How will we find out about this? When it's too late.
I for one will say that 7/10 geeks do not get their RDA of breeding. I highly recommend a government program to help furnish quality breeding partners for our Smart Masses.
:oD
We can start with a gov't grant, and turn this into a whole industry.
do() || do_not();
Dear sir,
It is with regret I must inform you that you are a failure.
Regards,
Anonymous Coward
I was able to find this link that talks about the Criminal Investigation of Monsanto Corporation for attempting to Cover up Dioxin Contamination in their Products. Here is a preview of the link
"Monsanto covered-up the dioxin contamination of a wide range of its products. Monsanto either failed to report contamination, substituted false information purporting to show no contamination or submitted samples to the government for analysis which had been specially prepared so that dioxin contamination did not exist."
"Another Monsanto study involved independent medical examinations of surviving employees by Monsanto physicians. Several hundred former Monsanto employees were too ill to travel to participate in the study. Monsanto refused to use the attending physicians reports of the illness as part of their study, saying that it would introduce inconsistencies. Thus, any critically ill dioxin-exposed workers with cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (associated with dioxin exposures), were conveniently excluded from the Monsanto study."
Note: this has been posted by r.future (a person who spends way to much time on the internet!)
-Patent the human cloning process -Pass the DMPA -Outlaw birth control -PROFIT!
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
There is only one real danger coming from GM food: the irrefutable proof of human capacity to tinker with life, the God-like power that religious fanatics are so afraid to admit to be attainable. Mediocrity hates achievement of any kind, and that hatred, the hatred of what is the best within us, is the root of all evil propagated by those who refuse to make the choice that makes such achievement possible: the choice to think.
How about the oft-used phrase "Uncle Daddy"?
Doesn't evolutionary biology say that animals will select mates that give them the best chance of passing on their genes? Or something like that?
In today's world the ability to hunt, kill, & drag it home isn't as important as the ability to earn cash. Trump has cash and will almost certainly be able to make sure his kids live thru adolescence. Evolutionarily speaking, he's a good bet.
Practically speaking, what I just said is a load of bull and everyone knows it. Oh well. I'm not bitter.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
I become so angry when people think they should be believed because their word-a-day calendar told them to use "canard" in a sentence.
Many plant genomes are also the equivalent of OpenSource, free for all in educational institutions to peruse. Google Cached Example
OT: Patents may stifle innovation in a current field of study, like genetic manipulation of plants and animals, but leave the door wide open for smarter people to come in with smarter methods( and possibly patent them as well). Just becuase a patent lets a company to slack on R&D doesn't mean other companies have to. The entire computer industry is based on the idea that there is always a better way of doing something.
To elaborate on the danger to the environment, look at this article (www.organicconsumers.org/patent/slowgrow.cfm) to see just how insane things are getting. The nutcases at Scotts have created a grass that can't be killed with most herbicides. Guess what happens when it spreads to "natural" areas (quotes needed because virtually everywhere has been polluted with alien species). Complex ecologies get converted to a golf green, thousands of animal and plant species go extinct, and the only way to get rid of it is with some highly toxic poison.
All this so they can have a nice smooth green for their damned GOLF COURSE!
This is criminally insane. For appropriate handling of such crazies, I'm reminded of the quote from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe: "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came".
I personally think Monsanto is one of the most evil corporations on the planet. Besides their foray into genetically modified food (I have a problem with their patents more than the final products), they are the ones who invented Nutra Sweet (a.k.a aspartame, a tripeptide with who knows what kind of long-term effects). Of course there are many devoted and ethical scientists working there, too, but the corporation as a whole has an atrocious track record.
The worst thing about the cross pollinated crops in this Canadian farmer's field was that he never had any intention of growing Monsanto's corn, but the wind blew pollen into his field, and somehow the courts decided he was responsible. How asinine.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
I'm shocked! Where do I sign up to be part of this study?
Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, how I love it. - Gen. George Patton
Look at dogs and wolves. Dogs evolved loyalty, obedience, and a more domesticated attitude becuase they were carefully maintained in a non-natural enviroment(non-natural in the way that humans were distinctly involved in the procedure). Wolf evolution favored being able to hunt and kill their own food becuase nobody was feeding them.
It "could" be that the loyalty and obedience genes wanted by humans were mutually exclusive to the kill and eat in wolves, which is why it eventually died out in a lot of species of dogs(think poodle, I think you'll agree).
This would also explain that while humans might want a crop to be resistant to a particular herbicide, a crop in the wild would be more concerned with drawing in as much nourishment as possible, regardless of what's in the soil.
Apparently, not that different. Haven't you read about African nations rejecting food aid because it was GM crops? (Of course, the people making the decision probably have Swiss bank accounts, and think less about being hungry than we do, but still....).
And I certainly don't blame these nations for not trusting us. I recall a story (from Readers Digest, who'da thunk?), describing a food program for a famine in Iraq in the early 60s. The US shipped seed grain to Iraq. To ensure that the starving people wouldn't eat it rather than plant it, did they add something to make it taste bad? No. They added mercury. Mercury, a slow acting poison that destroys your nervous system. People ate the grain, and nothing happened! So they ate some more, and some more. Soon, there were countless people who were permanently fucked up, or dead.
Yep, ain't we wonderful.
So what makes this post a troll? I guess you've never seen Penn and Teller's Bullshit...
The author of the Wired article, Richard Manning has an excellent new book out Against the Grain : How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization
His recent piece in Harper's The Oil We Eat is highly recommended and can be found online here
-this is a recording.-
"The U.S. Constitution - not perfect, but its better than what we have now"
My fiance is a Plant Breeder who graduated from Cornell and studied for a time under Susan McCouch. There is a lot of misunderstanding of traditional plant breeding, and while this article touches on some of the more non-scientific aspects of the field, it certainly is right about breeding.
/.ers analogy:
// thisfsoidahu8903w //OWI%#H lkjh // HACK AND SLASH - INSERT RED TOMATO GENE HERE // END HACK AND SLASH
To those of you who think there is no difference between G.M.ed foods and bread foods, let me give you a
Traditional plant breeding is a little bit like editing a makefile. The breeders job consists primarilly of decoding and understanding the contents of that makefile in order to eventually modify it to turn on and off certain features.
MAKEFILE for peachtree.c
# Make sure our peaches are large
FRUITSIZE = HUGE
# Make the shelf life long so
ROTTIME = VERYLONG
# Make the item pretty
COLOR = PEACHY
All of these traits already exist in the target species, or at least in a species closely related enough to cross with it. At one time or another, they've all been expressed, just not at the same time. If you have enough experience with the plant, and know the plant isn't dangerous, you know you can incorporate these traits together into single plants without much worry.
Contrast this to G.M.ed food, which can best be described as a hack and slash modification to the actual source code.
#include peachoptions.h
peachcolor(fruit thisfruit) {
#ifdef PEACHY
thisfruit.color=PEACHY;
thisfruit.stem=SHORT;
#endif
#ifdef PASTEY
thisfruit.color=PASTEY;
thisfruit.stem=LONGER;
#endif
thisfruit.color=RED;
thisfruit.nutrition=TOMATOE LIKE;
thisfruit.stem=VERYLONG;
thisfruit.nutrition=LOW;
if (thisfruit.color==PEACHY) thisfruit.nutrition=HIGHER;
if (thisfruit.color==PASTEY) thisfruit.nutrition=HIGH;
return;
)
OK, this is all fake, but the point is, just like sticking code in software at poorly controlled places can have unintended consequences, sticking genes in to a plant's genetic sequence can also have unintended side effects.
As it turns out, nature can do something similar through the use of transposons: genes that randomly remove themselves from one part of a plant's genetic code and insert themselves elsewhere. However, the chance of producing a dramatic change is not as great, since the transposon gene is not being expressed in a completely different species from the one originating it.
Most of the time, the results from GMing are positive. But occasionally the results are negative, and the real issue is that we must implement safeguards specific to GM crops in order to protect our food supply.
Mother nature does not discriminate one corn plant from another, and many GM projects have the express purpose of introducing traits you would NOT want in your average corn field. Suppose he introduces a gene which turns the corn kernel flesh pink, making a great new popcorn for teens. Suppose this gene also turns out to cause the corn to be poisonous.
Because corn pollen is capable of traveling impressive distances, that corn gene, if not sufficiently isolated, could contaminate a large portion of this year's corn crop. It is important to note that the gene would not cause irretrievable contamination, as today's seed corn is produced in carefully isolated conditions away from stray pollen (both GM and non-GM). But this sort of contamination would cause major headaches for one harvest season, as the StarLink episode in South America demonstrated. We might not know about a given instance until after you've already eaten Corn Flakes contaminated with birth control hormones.
This contamination problem is similar to what would happen to Marijuana plants if industrial hemp were to
Well, if they ate the seed-corn, they were going to die anyway.
What you're saying is true--that both breeding and inserting genes into an organism other ways both modify the genome, but that doesn't mean they have "the same end." We don't know nearly enough about genetics to say that. Look at the differences between cloned sheep and naturally-born sheep. They are genetically identical, yet the clones end up having all sorts of health problems. Now the health of the modified plant is unimportant with respect to human health, but it could be the tip of the iceberg. What if some of these modified foods produce poison, but only under stress? We wouldn't find out until there was a drought/freeze and suddenly a whole field of poisonous corn makes its way into the food supply.
Breeding takes longer and cannot be controlled to the same extent.
True. And all other concerns aside, this is a very good argument for genetically modified organisms.
And don't start about the dangers of vectors, unwanted integration and crap like that. Nature does that every single minute (ever heard of transposons?) and nobody is complaining about that. So, "Frankenfood"? I think not.
All right, I'm sorry, but this last part is utter bullshit. No one is complaining about vectors or unwanted integration? What about all those antibiotic-resistant bacteria that spread around their genes for beta-lactamases? Ever heard of methicillin-resistant-S.-aureus (MRSA)? It's fast becoming the major pathogen people get while in the hospital, and it's a bitch to cure. This is the "flesh-eating bacteria" you see on tv. And the dangers of vectors? There is a slim (but not nil) chance of vectors sticking around, and later integrating into the human genome. In the future that might be beneficial, but right now human gene therapy has had no successes. One prominent failure was the gene therapy for immunodeficient children who ended up contracting leukemia. I'd sure complain if my food gave me cancer.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
We live in a welfare state. Hell, you could even raise a child as a burger flipper.
Don't try to kid yourself. The women want to spend the money! Wouldn't a man not want to do the same thing if he had the chance?
Just like with proprietary software, if you see some nifty new feature you'd like to add you your own application, you can't. In proprietary software you can't just buy the algorithm: you have to buy the whole package (and perhaps the support package and perhaps the computer to run it on). In much of current biotechnology you can't just buy the nifty new gene, you have to buy the whole potato (and you only get a limited choice of potato types if any choice at all) *and* you're just leasing the potato *and* you have to keep buying the upgrades each year. Smart Breeding, in contrast, is a close equivalent of open source software.
Some problems with the current methods of biotech - using software as the analogy / comparison - include:
I bet the patent office will accept "Natural Selection" and "Aritifical Selection" as a new process, based on their history of not noticing prior art. And, the judge is probably anti-evolutionist.
Table-ized A.I.
Not true, actually. It's far more complicated that simply paring two plants with desireable characteristics, although this is how plant breeding WAS done for centuries.
For example, breeding two tall related corn plants can cause inbreeding supressions, which results in a spindly, short, sad little plant.
Plant breeding is a SCIENCE, despite popular misconceptions to the contrary.
Sorry it's "disease" - I wrote that it "can cross" and it "could be that"
Of course Monsanto want's to establish an monopoly on crop. The farmers have to use their pesticides that is engineered for their crop...
And if you are really worried about feeding the worlds poor, western diets are way too high in meat in the first place and it takes 1000 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of beef. And do all your apples need to look so perfect?
There is no food shortage in the world. What's missing is a sufficent and steady distribution of the surplus of food to those who need it.
The companies (crop and chemical) tell the world: "With our products we can ease the lack of food because we protect the crop with chemicals and GM crop is not affected by the local bugs.... "
It's a business world out there!
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
But we mustn't forget one of the biggest lessons from Douglas Adams' work: The society that shipped all of its "useless" people (telephone sanitizers, middlemen of all sorts) was killed off by a deadly virus spread by telephone handsets. The surviving portion of the population (the ones that got shipped off) landed on Earth and displaced the true humans -- a.k.a. Neanderthal Man.
The lesson? Deal with your own problems.
This is just plain silly -- loose vs. well attached genes? How in the world did such nonsense get modded up? I have a doctorate in microbiology focussing on molecular evolution and it just irritates me how people are willing to believe any sort of pseudo-scientific notion if it agrees with their political agenda. Maybe you read something about it in a Greenpeace pamphlet, but that's not a good place to learn facts about science, any more than a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet.
Perhaps, just maybe, you are recalling a half understood description of transposons, which are genes that can change position in the genome but even so, 1) transposons are found in nature -- Barbara McClintock got her Nobel for finding them in corn decades ago 2) only some GM techniques use transposons. So an attack on transposons, if indeed I'm not reading more into your notion of "loose genes" than is merited, makes no sense.
Okay, I get that there is a certain slashdot kneejerk "patents/copyright bad, genetics should all be open source" attitude, but am I missing something? Normally there is at least some rational posts. I'll admit I haven't followed the Monsanto case very closely, but here is my take on the issue:
Monsanto researched and developed many techniques and products related to genetic engineering and then applied for patents and copyright on them respectively. So what? They were the ones who did the hard work and it is now their IP. Noone has any ethical, legal, or otherwise obligation to give away the products of their work for free. It would be cool if they did that, but we don't have the right to dictate their business strategy. Besides, it not like the patents won't run out (although copyrights will probably last forever).
Yeah, I do get that their work is highly derivative. So what? They used a lot of what I would assume is public domain information in their product. Obviously no one is paying them the big bucks for some bushels of corn seed though, they are paying to use the modifications to said corn. No one is stopping them from buying normal seed.
That said, I would be worried if they did something to stop other people from competing in the same field. I am not referring to restrictive patents here, as patents run out relatively quickly. I would be a little worried if they found some way to copyright the *orginal* genetic code in various organisms. If they did that, it would effectively end competitive development forever. That said, I haven't heard that brought up, just a lot of whining about patents and franken-food.
You mean those like Klerck?
Although I have concerns about splicing 'alien' genes into food crops, this isn't my main issue with GM crops.
It is morally repugnant to me to allow the patenting of food. It is blindingly stupid in my opinion to allow patented foodstuff to become the main body of supply for us.
Furthermore, the main advantage with many of the GM crops is not that they are in some way better for us, but that they are resistant to more powerful pesticides and herbicides than non-GM plants, enabling the fields to be blitzed with much stronger chemicals. What do you think that does to local wildlife? To the rivers and streams it runs off to? To the people who live next to the fields?
And what do you think it does to biodiversity? Did you ever hear about the Irish Potato famine? Most of the population depended on a single food crop derived from a small number of imported ancestors. The potato blight came and they were all but wiped out in a stroke.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Pollen isolation is probably impossible, depending on plant breed etc. Some pollen is tiny, light, and can stay viable for quite a while. For pollen to blow thousands of miles is completely possible.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Think I'd be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
The mission: Develop cannabis with enhanced happiness and that will thrive around the globe.
SEARCH Happiness scientists scour the cannabis gene bank, consisting of dozens of seed types, in search of varieties with enhanced happiness.
INSERT MARKER Scientists extract DNA from selected varieties and tag the happiness gene - previously identified by researchers - with a chemical dye.
CROSSBREED A network of researchers around the world cross happiness enhanced varieties with local versions. This means merely putting two cannabis varieties in a room.
ANALYZE The offspring are analyzed to detect the presence of the enhanced happiness gene. Those containing the gene are planted in a field.
TEST Mature plants are sampled to confirm enhanced happiness. Those that maintain desired traits from the local variety, are distributed. Unless
REPEAT Sometimes, the process reveals several genes responsible for a trait. In such cases, breeders repeat the crossbreeding until all genes (and scientists) are turned on.
END RESULT A cannabis plant with enhanced happiness that will thrive in local conditions.
Heisenberg may have been here.
I'm talking about horizontal gene tranfer. Transgenic technologies, by definition, use techniques that make it easier for genes to move from one species to another; I don't think it's silly to speak of that as "loose".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Excellent post! I've seen several so far. If I understand the point it's like editing a config file versus edit source code. Editing the config file might get you what you want with fewer complications. Editing the source code might introduce much unexpected results. Results you wanted and those you didn't. Given the complexity between a config file and source code.
Essentially, if mother nature doesn't want something crossbred or developed in a plant species it probably wont happen. Versus GM, which directly modifies the genes and can most certainly produce unexpected results. Like a programmer who might understand the basics of coding but doesn't really understand the language.
Richie
Sig? What Sig?
Why those genes are dormant. Either nobody told me or nobody knows.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Lets say that the state of California collectively wakes up and knows it should be strong like Schwarzenegger. Comparing the two methods:
- For selective breeding, the state would set up tax breaks and other incentives to get as many people to use as many WWE members as egg and sperm donors as possible, and also to pay non-strong people to move to Nevada. After a few generations of intense ad campaigns about how great it is to use fertility clinics and how sexy it is to bench-press Mini Coopers: voila- stronger Californians.
- For genetic engineering, we'd go out and find the different muscle gene that makes chimps 10x as strong as humans. Substitute that into all new CA embryos: voila- stronger Californians in one generation. Unless of course we accidentally spliced in multiple genes: dunno the results but hopefully they'd use Bonobo not troglodytes...
Although perhaps chimps aren't the best example- we could probably use selective breeding for that as well- just a little tweaking needed on chromosome 23. (If Chimps and Humans were essays, the plagarism detector would spit back "98%+ similarity. Human has 23 paragraphs, Chimp has 24 paragraphs, but Human 23 is just Chimp 23 and 24 smashed together with a run-on sentence...")In this thought experiment- are selective breeding and genetic engineering the same? Stronger humans through ad campaigns are the same as stronger humans through splicing Carnivora genes into primates? That because humans have already done a wonderful job of SB through sexual selection [especially wonderful given the low genetic diversity our species has overall (compared to most other mammals- even the 40k chimps have more diversity than all 6 billion humans)], we're not doing anything new by splicing genes from elsewhere?
Sexual selection within humanity has resulted in both the !Kung and Watusi in the same geographic regions. If we really wanted to we could get all humans to looks far more !Kung or Watusi - using that massive ad campaign first developed in California- without any genetic engineering at all. But that's far different from bringing in genes from other orders/classes/phylums, isn't it? [Speaking of which, perhaps some rhodopsin could be nice for the days you want to work outside but you forgot your lunch. Any Genies (genetic engineers) out there wanting to give this a go?]
The problem is that Companies have tried to patent genes, if not whole cells. While a year old, they are the top hits on google (so they must be right!) you should look at Organic Consumers Association and The Detroit News
I make my face look like this and concerned words come out.
But I guess it has to stop now because some company is doing it. I know you retch at the fact Monsanto collects patent royalties and it makes me sick also, but it doesn't invalidate their work. Have a look at this page or read Sagan's books for more hints.
For the Northeast, I recommend High Mowing Seeds in Vermont. Tom's a visionary, and he and his crew do great work. I took a seminar from him once: he's passionate about what he does and really knows his stuff. (No financial or personal interest involved.)
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Horizontal gene transfer is a completely natural phenomenon, which is actually one of the forces behind evolution at a molecular level, While it is certainly possible that an introduced gene could be horizontally transfered, there is no reason to assume it would happen more often than with any other gene in general.
Saying, as the article you linked to says, that horizontal gene transfer of GM genes has been detected is a bit like saying people who eat carrots have been known to have strokes -- true, but deliberately misleading. But that's intentional -- The "Institute of Science in Society" isn't a real research institute, nor is the article, cleverly disguised as a real scientific publication (with references, even!) , a genuine peer reviewed piece of science.
New business plan, call my upstart ACO
1.Buy patents involving using bacteria to insert foreign DNA into organisms
2. Wait 10 years
3. ?????
4. Sue everyone in the whole goddamn world
5. Profit!!!!
it's not just for IT. Monsanto has openly admitted it's part of their strategy.
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Thats it... I'm not renewing my subscription to Wired anymore... I pay for pulp, but less than a week later, the stories are online... whats the point? Tired of it.... About the only thing I get for the pulp is more Ads that I cant avoid unlike web surfing with popup blocks enabled...
I remember when Wired first came out, that was the Mag to read... ahhh.. the 90s... I miss them.
-Steve
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Further,
Last year Ethiopia's population grew by 2.7%; according to this article: 'Most years, Ethiopia has to depend on some level of food aid as it rarely grows enough to feed the whole population.' The reliefweb article also states: 'many impoverished rural families say they have no choice but to have large families to help raise their incomes.' This strongly suggests that poverty is a vicious circle: because people are poor and famine-stricken they have more children; which leads to even greater pressure on food production; which, at its non-GM present state, is unable to answer with requisite increases in the amount it yields; which leads to even greater poverty; and so on and on and on. A way to break that vicious circle would be to provide people with the means to farm their own food locally and with better chances of success. In their article Technology That Will Save Billions From Starvation Prakash and Conko write:
It is estimated that Vitamin A deficiency leads to some 1,000,000 children dying and some additional 300,000 being struck by blindless every year. According to the WHO between 100 and 140 million children are vitamin A deficient and between 250,000 to 500,000 children per year become blind due to Vitamin A deficiency. If, as Patrick Moore says, 'adding a daffodil gene to rice in order to produce a genetically modified strain of rice can prevent half a million children from going
The liver is evil and must be punished.
Yes, this is the /. view! Technology good. Patents bad. But you got the artificial scarcity types on one side and the luddites on another.
-I am an elective eunuch.
Gene X is present in peas. It makes peas resistant to Pea Killing Disease. Unfortunately, the peas grow smaller when gene X is 'turned on' - so it has been bred out BY FARMERS over the years so they get bigger peas.
Evil Corporation Y changes the genome of peas so that Gene X is always turned on. It takes them 1 year to do the changes, 1 year to test the plant. They own the patent.
A university/gov. agency (no one else is EVER going to do research which can get them no patent) does smart breeding of peas. Say it takes a pea plant 4 months to grow to maturity. They know Gene X is what they need to have turned on. One-two labs get a grant for it (meaning they get paid to work on this. No grant = no research on the topic). They set up crossbreeding and allow the plants to grow to a testable age (4 months). Anyone with basic genetics background knows this will take 4-5 generations to get a 100% pure breeding strain. This strain will still revert to non-espressing (non turned on Gene X) if there are ANY of the non-gene X plants still in the population utilized to grow peas. After 4-10 years, they come out with a plant. It's non-GM. It may work as well as the corp. one, it might not. It's 'free' - as free as you can get since universities patent things as well now.
Difference: 4-5 years. Millions starved in third world country.
The point?: Unless your in a third world country and know what it's like to starve...don't push your feelings onto someone else. Let them grow food that will feed their people - or send them ALL of your food and starve yourself.
... join a CSA. Heirloom tomatoes delivered within hours of picking. After that experience store-bought tomatoes will always taste like cardboard.
As the grain was to be used for seed, it was probably coated with an inoculant containing mercury. This is done so the seed has a better chance to start growing and doesn't rot in the ground, or isn't eaten by insects and such.
I for one welcome our new improved traditionally interbreed overloards.
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in soviet russia, Monsanto interbreeds YOU!
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1. Improved Traditional Interbreeding
2. ????
3. Profit!
did I miss any other lame formulaic slashdot jokes?
Don't get too excited. Monsanto are using their data to do exactly this for exactly the same reasons and have been for years now. I used to work on potatoes and saw a Monsanto presentation at a conference several years ago where they were talking about this as a way around the misconceptions and occasional genuine fears of the EC (note I am a European).
Who do you think is liekly to get the most profit from this? Monsanto with their breeding systems and 'closed source' knowledge or less well funded groups with access to less information?
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
I hate such arguments. Sounds like M$ FUD. Well, if you don't produce what the EU wants, you can't complain that they won't buy it. And before you say that the whole point is that the EU isn't letting it's people have the choice - the actual point is that the people of the EU have spoken through their representative, and apparently they don't want GM foodstuffs.
And I though America was all about the free market (as in if a product is not wanted ...) ...
For myself, I do think choice is best, but I think people have the right to know everything. Thus products should be labeled if they contain GM foodstuffs. Similar to the BST situation with milk, where I believe Monsanto got it into a law that labels cannot mention BST content. There are people who want to know, so why shouldn't labeling laws enforce this?
Concerning problem (1): There is only so much arable land available. From what I understand, we have more or less reached the limit as the area of land we can use for agricultural purposes. That means that each unit of land should produce as much food as possible and as nutritious food as possible. The problem with your example of carrots isn't that they don't contain a hell of a lot of vitamin A, nor that they aren't easy to grow just about anywhere; they might well be: the problem is do they contain very much else in terms of nutrition besides Vitamin A?
Cf. these two tables with nutritional facts: rice and carrots. Judging by these, rice provides a better over-all nutritional option; in particular, it contains a not insubstantial amount of protein, which carrots do not contain at all, and which is also a priority in crops if you want to limit people's reliance on animal produce. (And you do want to limit people's reliance on animal produce.)
Given the limitation of arable land, you might have to chose between growing either A or B; in other words, you're not able to grow both. If faced with such a choice -- and I would argue that in particular the developing world is faced with that choice -- you would want to grow as nutritious a crop as possible. I assume that it is easier to modify rice so that it contains Vitamin A than it is to modify carrots so that they contain protein.
Concerning problem (2). Unless food is produced locally you have to distribute it. In order to distribute anything you need, among other things (in no particular order): (a) storage facilities; (b) infrastructure; (c) transport vehicles; (d) cold storage/freighters if you want to transport perishables; and (e) some form of law and order so that the food doesn't 'disappear' before reaching its destination. In too many developing countries all or most of these conditions are lacking. This means that you can have all the carrots you want, but if you can get them to people who starve what use are they? God, I hate the expression 'Frankenstein food'. Ever since the creation of agriculture, human kind has tampered with the genetics of its food stuffs. Isn't the origin of what we today call tomatoes some poisonous fruit from Latin America? Corn some shitty little purple plant it's impossible to recognize as such? Almonds -- other than bitter almonds -- a complete aberration? Virtually all of our grown food has been developed and/or tampered with in some form or another. The fact that we can now do it in a laboratory instead of in/on the field does not fundamentally alter that fact. Calling the one kind 'Frankenstein' but not the other is merely trying to pervert discourse by calling forth an emotional rather than rational response.
Finally: both problem (1) and (2) contain several 'sub'-problems; obviously, I haven't addressed all of them in this post.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
It's interesting that you had to mention your degree followed that it irritates you that people are willing to believe something that you don't agree with. It is possible to listen to opposing views and make ones own decision. Take a look at the court system. The members of the jury do not have a law degree yet after being presented with information they come to a conclusion. (I know - the opposing views are presented by lawers). What irritates me is that you dismiss other's opinion just because it's not inline with yours (and you don't even know that persons' credentials). And your political agenda is what???? Don't tell me - you can be objective (well, noone is)
I want a few of those GM tomato seed (Flavr Savr tomato). Where can I get a few?
we need tomato with Bt gene
Would you care to check your logic on how a mutation is any different than the introduction of a trans-species gene sequence? Eventually, a single ear of corn out there would have mutated sufficiently to express the Bt protein (I will grant you that "eventually" here is a very unlikely probability, but do not dare deny the possiblity.) When this lucky mutation occurs our dilligent corn-breeding descendants will take these seeds and begin reproducing them.
A GMO is just an organism that we have pushed to express a particular gene sequence that we did not feel like waiting for mutation to develop. If we were to hand someone an ear of modern hybrid corn (non-GMO) and an ear of that corn's ancient ancestor they would assume that the modern version was the result of genetic engineering. And they would be right (although they might be mistaken about the process.)
transposon gene is not being expressed in a completely different species from the one originating it.
Transposons may not jump into different species, but they are by no means the only mean of "mobile" genetic material, bacterial plasmids obviously cross species barriers, and some viruses are able to transfer DNA between their hosts.
So there, nature has cross-species GM too.
To elaborate on the danger to the environment, look at this article (www.organicconsumers.org/patent/slowgrow.cfm) to see just how insane things are getting.
You are, indeed, very succesfully elaborating how insane anti-GM crowd is getting.
The nutcases at Scotts have created a grass that can't be killed with most herbicides.
Not most. Not many. Not even few. ONE, you read that right, ONE specific herbicide.
Guess what happens when it spreads to "natural" areas (quotes needed because virtually everywhere has been polluted with alien species).
Well, let me think... same thing that happens when regular grass does? I don't seem to remember seeing any news about golf course grasses almost succeeding in taking over the world and only stopped in last minute by timely dose of Roundup.
Complex ecologies get converted to a golf green, thousands of animal and plant species go extinct
Ow, wow, sounds bad. You might want to explain how exactly it does that. They did not convert it to superman-grass capable of outcompeting every other plant species on the planet, the only difference is the resistance to that one herbicide.
You do realise that you're drawing an arbitrary line, right? Genetic modification is only a difference in degree from selective breeding. Terminator crops are just a higher-tech version of corn or seedless fruit. If a plant or animal naturally lived on your land then you wouldn't have had to introduce it, would you?
Our continuing lives rely on much more of our technology than just the ability to genetically modify seeds. Chances are, any disaster great enough to remove the entire world's ability to reproduce Terminators would leave the world in such a different state that people like you and me wouldn't be able to survive in it even with pockets full of heritage seeds.
We accepted thousands of years ago that humans would control and eventually replace "Nature", it's way too late to go back now. The only arbitrary point to draw a line on our use of technology is where other technology suggests that it is dangerous now, not in some anarcho-environmentalist fantasy.
Is Good For You.
They(Monsanto) are willing to sink to any depth(subverting democracy, making people sick, etc) in order to increase profts. They are beyond vile.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
This is typical anti-Biotech luddite FUD. The article drops a couple of names, even invokes the rice genome sequencing project (Biotechnology if there ever was), but in the end, not one verifiable statement in the whole article. Try and find ONE serious peer-reviewed work that suggests that "Most crop plants have latent resistance genes that can be activated." People scream because we can specifically insert a known gene, but have no problem with the idea of blindly crashing whole genomes together to see what drops out, just because "that's the way we've always done it."
All crop plants have been genetically engineered by trial and error. None existed before we created them, and none of the "natural" organic strains could survive without human intervention.
Obviously the way to go here would have been to splice in some really orrible tasting genes.. That would have saved them!
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oh wait
Thats the stupidest thing ive ever read.
In at least part of the world, very soon, if we are not there already, there isn't enough land to grow 'multiple, complimentary crops' (as you suggest in your solution (1)) that will feed at least its local population. That is the problem. (Or at least a large part of it.) That is my point. (Or at least a large part of it.)
It is all well and fine to suggest that we feed the world on cake, or for that matter carrots and complimentary crops, but if that is not a real possibility, then you are effectively suggesting that we should simply give up the aspiration of feeding the entire world. Maybe we should. But then we should say so. In what way does 'selective farming/breeding' not manipulate genes?
Yes, of course it's a gamble. Yes, of course there is an amount of risk involved. But everything in life involves risk. That's why God invented trade-offs!
You seem to forget that there are 'consquences down the road' even if we don't make use of GM technology to feed the world's hungry. Such a policy too carries risks. Just risks of a different kind. We risk condemning a large part of the population of the developing world to perpetual famish and starvation. I would say that it is at least a tad problematic to condemn a large part of the world's population to a state of 'have-nots', particularly since they seem to have little say-so in the matter, but there are other problems as well. Being starved will necessarily mean that people will be more susceptible to disease and plagues. Plagues spread. With today's increased globalization they spread rapidly. All over the globe. That's a risk. As people starve they are probably (I'm guessing) less content with their lives; thereby probably bringing about more volatile situations within their societies where people might start to fight for whatever arable land and whatever food there is. And people will try to control whatever food there is. Think Rwanda. Think Somalia. That's a risk. People who starve might want to emigrate to countries where starvation is not a problem. There are already signs that those countries are not particularly intested in accepting more immigrants from cultures usually vastly different to their own. This might mean more illegal immigration. More pressures on whatever welfare state there is. This might a more volatile political situation in such 'immigration' countries. Can you say Jean-Marie Le Pen? That's a risk.
I am not so silly that I think GM crops will solve all the problems of the developing world. It won't. For one thing, GM technology won't solve over-population -- the one problem possibly feeding (pun not intended) into the other. However, neither am I silly enough to believe that all the world's problems will just go away if we don't make use of it.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
While this is true, the type of genetic material injected tends to be limited.
Plasmids and viruses generally pick up and transmit genes which are beneficial to themselves. In addition to this, they are generally species specific.
While there are some viruses which target different species, the odds of picking up a whole gene and transfering it to another species are very slight.
Bacteria are generally even more species specific than viruses. Agrobacterium, a bacteria commonly used in genetic engineering, is highly species specific. White it occurs naturally, it must be maniuplated in the laboratory to move a gene from one plant to another.
-Chiem
is who the hell decided you could patent a living thing, and why haven't they had a DGK?
If I were Prime Minister, the law would be clear-cut; any intellectual property that may be present in DNA belongs strictly to the living organism which contains that DNA and is absolutely non-transferrable.
Unlike some of the watermelons {green on the outside, red on the inside} I've nothing against genetically modified foods per se {cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, swedes, Brussels sprouts and broccoli are all genetically modified forms of a now-extinct wild plant Brassica sativa} but I have nothing but contempt for anyone who would seek to control agriculture by demanding payment for their seeds, attempting to restrict propagation, and so forth. Nothing would ever be worth that price.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
When eco-nuts use the word "nature", what they really mean is the way they (the eco-nuts) think the world should be.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
But, if that grass is related to something like reed canarygrass, crabgrass or quackgrass, those genes could be passed on to these suckers. Wouldn't that be a joy? As most lawn maintainers will say, those grasses are difficult to get out of a lawn w/o Roundup or something of its power.
And what if that pesticide is glyphosate (aka Roundup) or 2,4-D? Of course, diesel fuel sprayed on it will probably kill it quite good.
The only good news is that to grow well, most turf-type grasses need pretty good fertilizers, and won't grow well in poorer quality soils...
i thought most gene transfer occured through 'horizontal' methods...at least in this species
its a horse-donkey hybrid. one that cannot reproduce.
yet people have been making mules for thousands of years.
i dont consider them 'unnatural'
Well, it seems to me you petition whatever branch of your american govenment that looks after this--to get off their fat asses and attach a simple sticker or label (not a "warning") about what is GM and what is not.
I think while Greenpeace and other activist groups may or may not be trying to get this lable in place on the grounds of frankenfood FUD, (which I don't buy into much,) I still support them on this issue for exactly YOUR OWN reason.
FUD aside, you should have a right to know what you're eating and be allowed to make choices about it and support what has more value to you. You should be allowed to take taste tests. You should be allowed to buy GM or non-GM food if that's what you want, and that's what you can afford.
The key difference between a Programmer and a Senior Programmer is that one of them is Mexican.
the GNUmato
The key difference between a Programmer and a Senior Programmer is that one of them is Mexican.
And read the link. Very nice.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
unless yr really kinky, like the above-mentioned farmer
So they get to slip you whatever mickey THEY think is safe.
Well, they did that with GMO corn and soy. They decided that they were sure it was safe for you , so you didn't have to know what kind of corn went into your chips, what kind of soy goop was in your cookies and processed food slime.
IOW, they highjacked your (and my) rightful decision. I don't know why the ACLU is not on this big time.
When it comes to your body, you have the right to decide what is good enough science that you are persuaded. Or acceptably good voodoo. Or whatever criterion you choose.
In a hospital, unless you have signed a waiver (which is why it's so hard to avoid), you could sue the heck out of them if they put something in your IV drip that you didn't know about).
Why can the FDA practice medicine without a license and administer substances by stealth, via your soda pop, your snacks, even your basic food? Because they have decided that it's food not medicine, and it's safe for you. So if you want to practice zero risk tolerance with respect to johnny-come-lately food variants, that decision is denied you in this free country. The EU is trying against all odds to preserve rights of informed food choice for its people. But here, "we the people" don't seem to have that much leverage. If it's a matter of profit, to heck with labeling, ignore cross contaminating pollen drift, experiment with with making food crops produce medicine. Soon you'll have accidental prozac in your corn flakes, and you won't care. But what about accidental viagra in the eggos, causing problems in Sun City?
You'd think they were engineering in stupefaction+admire-top-dog-strut hormonal activity in food, so we'll vote for Mr Mission-Accomplished. Maybe they have already succeeded by accident.
Wow, a doctorate in microbiology *and* a four-digit uid. Truly an american icon.