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Genetically-Modified Everything
BreadMan writes "The Economist has an interesting article about how the use of GM (genetically modified) plants extends well beyond the food industry. Altered trees that make better paper, insect-resistant cotton, potatoes that contain the right kinds of starches. An interesting read to see where the industry is going in light of problems with having GM foods on the dinner table. There's more industrial uses for agricultural products than you'd think of right away, so this may be a lucrative use for GM technology."
We better riot and throw some rocks at a Starbucks!
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Just ask Gregor Mendel.
You misspelt 'hemp'
And here I thought GM plants only produced vehicles... I tell you what, I learn something new every day
Genetically modified /. editors who don't post duplicate articles.
I realise that the summary also mentioned non-fod items such as cotton and trees, but it still seems odd to talk about non-food and use potatoes as an example.
I realise that you can also fire them from potato cannons, but I'm fairly certain they still count (overall) as food.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
I've always thought the ultimate use of genetic engineering would be to make puberty-free, Permacute puppies and kittens. Not only is it a lucrative market, there wouldn't be worries about the altered genes entering the natural ecosystem because of the sterility.
so THAT'S how they get pre-salted peanuts
GM plants can be VERY beneficial if modified correctly. This crop can be used as a fuel source, replacing oil-based gasoline. Get the yield high enough my GM'ing, and it becomes a great replacement - less pollution, more energy independence on any country capable of producing crops, and an industry that may finally get agriculture off the government dime.
Back when I was a genetists (early 80's), I worked at Coors Biotech for a summer. The project was kind of interesting. Chickens that are sold in US stores had colorizers to turn the flesh pink. They were feed dafodils just prior to slaughter. We took the genes from the dafidils and splice it into algae. Worked great and I think that it was a fraction of the price of the flowers. I do not know if it is used today, but I do know that FDA did not regulate it. If it was not directly consumed by humans, it was off limits (per the reagan admin).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm a little concerned about how the goal of most GM projects, that I know of, is to modify something so that it most benefits humans. Isn't that a bad idea? I mean, I know we're at the top of the "food chain," and we're clever and everything, but the world works because of cycles -- life and death; mutual symbiosis in one capacity or another. What if we modified everything and then we were suddenly rendered extinct? I have a feeling that if scientists tried to figure how to make a given organism more beneficial to its entire environment, they would come up with no major alterations.
Hooray for modern medicine!
Where can I submit suggestions for future genetic modifications? I'd like to request that they remove the ears from corn and the eyes from potatoes.
*tips tinfoil hat*
Any companies working on GM plants to make better/more biodeisel?
The Agricultural Revolution. How dare man stop picking whatever he found and get proactive. Now its all GM this and farming that and billions breathing.
...to genetically-altered humans.
Some GM stuff in labs can perhaps be controlled, but once modified geness are released into the RealWorld they are very difficult to control. The risk of doing bad things is great. We already see the effects of cross contamination of crops etc.
If this goes more widespread (eg. GM trees for paper production) we can expect weird things happening (eg. say we remove some substance from trees to make them easier to process but that gene provides disease resistance etc. If that crosses into wild populations then we end up with sick forests etc).
Agriculture and food production are regulated and controlled (well to a degree anyway), industrial stuff less so. It concerns me that all the GM bads we see in agriculture will be far worse in the industrial sector.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I don't thing GM things are any more or LESS dangerous than nuclear research. If we allow corporations to do as they please, they will find the easiest way to maximum profits.
This did not used to be so bad. But today the shortsightedness, or rather the self centeredness of the modern executive can be very dangerous to the publics health and the publics wallet.
I'm not against GM products, on the contrary. As population pressures grow in a seemingly exponential way we are going to need these things to survive. The planet can only do so much on its own.
But it's bound to happen eventually. We just need to be aware of the risks and weigh them against the benefits.
Basically, the show says that the people against genetically modified food don't know the facts and say that it isn't monitored by government agencies, while it is infact monitored by the FDA and EPA. Furthermore, genetically modified foods are solving the problem of world hunger by producing more output per area and being more resilliant in harsh climates.
Personally, I believe genetically modified plants are required to sustain life on earth with our current population.
What color was the chicken flesh originally?
Forget about designer fruit...
There are bacteria that can generate small amounts of hydrogen gas. If genetic engineering can make these bacteria much better at this function, we will have very good renewable energy source.
...wait until Ford gets into the business.
Monsanto's GM canola has also crossbred with Canadian canola strains, making it impossible for Canadian farmers to guarentee that their canola crops are GM free, thus locking them out of the EU markets. Now, they want to do the same thing with wheat.
Leaving aside the fears and marketability problems surrounding GM plants, we still have the problem that patented plants are a huge threat to farmers. You can get in big, expensive trouble if you didn't license the genes that are growing in your field, even if you didn't plant them. If you save your own seed, and that seed gets contaminated by someone's patented, GM genes, you could loose a lifetime of work.
See what I've been reading.
I'm waiting for the GM soy product that tastes as good as my Big Mac I had for lunch and is still healthy...that would be awesome.
Mark my words: once someone invents a way to have ordinary looking house plants produce your narcotic of choice, the drug war will finally be over.
potatoes that contain the right kinds of starches
I'm all for genetically engineered foods if it's for the right reasons. What we really don't need is the next high fructose corn syrup or partially hydroginated vegitable oil. What's wrong with the starches that occur naturally in potatos? I mean, if you can avoid the use of pesticides in growing insect resistant potatos using GE, that's great. But the best kinds of starches?!
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
I'm not worried about GM food and pets. It's the GM viruses that worry me sick. Specifically, the work being done to make super lethal versions of the pox viruses. Against which host immune systems have no hope at all. The first discoveries about how to do make super mousepox viruses were accidentally discovered in Australia a few years ago. I said said "Oh, oh!" because I could see what it was going to lead to. And sure enough later work has been on cowpox and by now, quite possibly THE human pox. Scary.
I for one would welcome a genetically modified wife who returns to the pre-childbirth weight, lacks the nag gene, and doesn't become bitter with age. That said, I'm sure she would point out some of my finer features to be genetically modified too.
Jim
Naturally occur in nature and the mutations that have an advantage survive. Seems that man is artificially creating these mutations and giving them a leg up on naturally occuring mutations. Is this a good thing?
In any case, the genie is out of the bottle
Ever since I figured out that you can't make a chicken taste like BBQ by feeding it spices and hot peppers, I thought genetically engineering spicy chicken was a good idea.
Combine that with genes for better feathers, and we'll also get fluffier pillows!
And meatier chicken feet... hmmm hmmm
Hemp makes stronger paper than wood pulp, and a pair of hemp jeans on average lasts three years while cotton-based denim jeans last about two years (on average). Hemp clothe also blocks UV rays (which cotton does not). Hemp also does not have any insects that bother it so does not need insecticide. Hemp grows in the exact say soil conditions as tobacco plants, and as grows quite well in cotton plant conditions. Hemp also does NOT contain any THC (the 'active' ingredient in marijuana): you would have to smoke about an acre of hemp to get the equivalent of the hit fron one 'joint'.
Or we can take unknown risks with genetically modified plants that are probably patented and owned by the company that "designed" it.
One of the main reasons why hemp became illegal is because William Lionel (sp?) Hearst had wood pulp mills that could go out of business if hemp became popular, so his chain of news papers starting associated hemp with marijuana, and helped to make both illegal. (Hearst is also the guy who tried to get the file "Citizan Kane" shredded.)
Perhaps we should re-examine our options before we go running to technology to try to solve problems of our own making?
Just a thought.
GM yeast that produces THC so I can brew my own potbeer! Too bad it would always turn out skunky. But who'd care?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Corn was originally a grass, with each kernel being very small. Through very careful breeding, the Aztecs managed to increase kernel size to its present state.
Dog breeds have been around for a long time as well.
The only difference between what the Aztecs did and what scientists do is whether or not you access the genes directly or through the natural "API" (aka breeding, Java programmers no doubt hate GM food).
(Waits for jokes about kernel size.)
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I have been GM-d, now I am storng and hungry, I am gonna it you up, all you tiny, fragile, #&$^@%# small piece of originals.
I've seen lots of papers about the 'horrors' of genetically engineering crops and people but really I don't understand it. If you knew your kid was going to be born horribly crippled and with a simple shot you could fix it, wouldn't you? With how much relegions change over the years would letting your childs life be ruined be worth your current relegious dogma?
Where did you get the number "thousands" from? I think "millions" might be more appropriate...
Can anybody tell me (in a semester or less :-) why either of those two problems are different than the results of traditional breeding and cross-pollination?
Before I get shouted down as flamebait, let me hint that it's possible to breed plants that are more poisonous, dogs that are more hostile, etc. From a moral standpoint, the Bible praises those who are expert cultivators and breeders, and I suppose other moral traditions share that viewpoint.
Aside from efficiency, why is doing it in a test tube any different?
sigs, as if you care.
I hear a lot about leftist groups screaming about how terrible GM foods are, but insofar as I know, they're on people's dinner tables all the time and we've chomped plenty of them down with no ill effects.
The urge to improve on what we've been given in life is an incredibly strong human trait, and it's one of the things I most admire about us as a species. So I am disinclined to listen to this almost religious hatred of the idea.
GM foods seem like excellent ways to make food more abundent and cost-effective, and that's a brainy scheme for all mankind. Fewer people will starve and farms will work better.
What's the problem?
D
the third breast for dancing.
I think the Manga "Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind" by Miyazaki should be required reading for anyone considering genetically modifiying anything.
You only use 2% of your DNA
"problems with having GM foods on the dinner table"
problems indeed...
All overreactions.
All unproven.
All irrelevant given the older style GM organisms such common corn, wheat, grapefruit, etc.
Basically, thousands of people starve because of technocrats & self-righteous bureaucrats.
scandalous...
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
We don't have enough wisdom or knowledge to be playing around with paper. This is a very bad idea.
Wow, Heaven on Earth for lawyers, hell on earth for the rest of us...
Altered trees that make better paper, insect-resistant cotton, potatoes that contain the right kinds of starches.
Where's the CowboyNeal option?
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
We need to get rid of the assholes that think it's acceptable to use starvation as a tool to hold onto power.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Shape mountains,
Create lakes,
Create 100% radioactive test envioronments
Observe radiated species mutations
Study human health.
Nukes are REALLY USEFUL THINGS. Industry's just chomping at the bit, looking for ways to make money off of em, too.
And just to get your children's thoughts rolling with the possibilities, we [of slashdot staff] will be hyping the uses of nuclear landscapes [for free].
Socially irresponsible? Inconsiderate? NOT AT ALL! We'll test it out in miniature scale, first, by giving sticks of radiated dynamite to monkeys, and releasing them in your city.
Thanks for the hype slashdot. No. I'm NOT disgusted.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
GM plants, which gives us ideas on how to GM people to make better GM plants, who's tech allows us to extend it again and GM people to make better GM plants.
Not soon, but at some point in the next millenia, there will be Genetic modifications to almost everything we touch that has the ability to do so.
The only thing to prevent genetics from controlling our lifestyle, are ethics. Once the ethics are persuaded, bent, and altered, there's no limit to what we will consider "Normal" and "Natural".
Has eaten genetically modified food. Maize itself has been cultivated by man over the past thousand years from a grass-like grain with ears a few inches long to the foot-plus long ears we have today.
GM by itself is not harmful when exercised with care and due diligence. But, much like any other technology, those who value profit above public safety will find a way to use GM to line their pockets at the expense of the public.
Until we thoroughly understand GM and its implications, we'd do well to regulate in much the same manner as nuclear power or drugs - where the onus to prove the safety of the product lies with the corporations, not the government. The government should regulate the field until the industry showed that it could regulate itself.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
KFC has been a part of our American traditions for many years. Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously. Do they really know what they are eating? During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts.
First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue. It's not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet.
The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing. I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know.
Please forward this message to as many people as you can. Together we [can] make KFC start using real chicken again.
http://www.gmbiotech.com/myfriendly.htm
playing with a bomb while sitting on top of a nuclear reactor when I hear about GM technologies.
Repeat after me, WE DON'T KNOW ENOUGH about genetics to do the kind of things we do these days. You know when I'll say we know enough and can safely do whatever we want with DNA? When scientists build a completely new animal or plant out of raw amino acids. That's when. Until then, I'd force them to do their research in well controlled labs and have their experimental plants compeletely isolated from the outside world.
The extent of the problem is scary really. Walk into any US grocery store. Look at the labels. If you don't see "organic" explicitly written on them, then you can almost guarantee you're buying something that contains GMOs. There are lists of "GM" foods available on the web. 95% of the food you eat already contains GMOs! Health effects of this will only be figured out 20 years down the road. For now you're a guinea pig, and you're paying them to conduct experiments on you.
Catgirls.
Fah.
50 weeks out of the year they'll scratch you silly if you try to make a move on them, and when they *are* in heat you end up burned out and drooling while they go wandering around the neighborhood, yowling in frustration and dropping thong for anything with a Y chromosome.
Cleaning? Cooking?
Yeah, right.
Clean themselves, maybe, but you know who is going to be scraping the hair balls off the carpet, right?
And the way they run to your side and stare at you like you're God when you use the can opener, that's cute and gratifying at first, but after a few times you realize they're actually in awe of the can opener.
We'll live like the octospiders!
Do not expect Canada or the Nordic countries to be shortly covered with GM pines; commercial use of GM trees in Europe is at least ten years off. But it is on its way.
How is it on its way? Because some guys are researching it?
Now the I can't speak for the entire world, but I live in Sweden, I know a lot of people in the paper industry, and I've personally spoken with people belonging to senior management of several scandinavian paper companies.
And they all said the same thing: They currently have no interest whatsoever in GMO trees. They're not researching for it, they don't want it. The are interested in biotech, but only to the extent that it can give them insight into how to do traditional forestry better.
Why trust them? Well, the reasoning behind this is that this industry has been harshly critizied by environmentalists for a long time. Today, they've pretty much 'cleaned up their act' (in scandinavia), aiming for FSC acreditation and so on.
They are not about to throw all that work away.
That said.. I'm personally positive to biotech, and I think that we might very well see GMO trees out there. But not in ten years time. Not in the nordic countries anyway.
Nobody really cares (or should) about GM products unless any of the following happens, at which point they become everyone's problem:
They have no choice of non-GM products
They have no marking of products due to legislation
They have no choice due to environmental pollution such as GM pollen contaminating corn or grass or whatever
They have to pay for the cleanup of the pollution, or cleanup is not impossible
They become dependent on any product, merely to combat the intrusion of GM products
The GM products harm any ecological or environmental system
They have to pay a company (name rhymes with "Nonsanto") when someone contaminates their own non-GM crops for infringing on a patent
Point, set, match and game.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and baconated grapefruit
... will perhaps finally emerge and we have no more problems :)
Cover
Paraphrase of Story
Quote from paraphrase: "As seen in this book, bacteria acquire a new taste, which might seem harmless to the average 'Joe', but the author takes one to the megalopolis of London where we soon learn that from one little accident, mankind faces a threat to its future and a sudden return to urban anarchy. Within the 246 pages of the 1971 hardbound is found a new world underground where MUTANT-59 finds refuge and new fuels, much to the horror of those above and below ground as anything plastic begins to disintegrate."
Only then we can decide whether the "enemies" of "GM" have lost "the war". Uhh, what a language (used in the FA).
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Everybody could notice how different style of music appeared "out of blue" from time to time, to roll over the population?
Now, could there be any relationship between the emergence of different music styles and certain modifications in the diet on mass scale?
Just some food for thought. Naturally GM-ed, of course.
Caffienated Air Plant http://www.gmbiotech.com/cafo2.htm
Here is an interesting start up thats modifying microbes to make better anitbiotics and antifungals.
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
Here's the problem with GM crops.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
I went and saw on the current products a Caffeinated Air Plant
New to Market - Our latest product in the EeziLife range CAF02 - a houseplant that releases caffeine into your home or office.
A constant supply of caffeine without trips to the coffee dispenser, tea pot or soda machine.
If this were real, people I work with would have about 30 of them in their cubicles.
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
That will only give the government more power to take away our rights. Of course they'll have to have routine mandatory home inspections- for your protection, of course.
Other organisms alter their genes purposefully, and share this with their neighbors (bacteria), also others purposefully manipulate their own DNA (ants) just on this planet. As humanity delivers the seed of DNA to other stars and the cosmos it will be to the advantage of all of the creatures we take with us to be able to adapt rapidly to many different environments. Genetic Modification is necessary not only for the advancement of the human species, but for all life in the solar system as strive to expand our reach ever outward. Anyone who is opposed to Genetic Engineering does not see the entire picture.
Genetics circa 21st century C.E. may be a weak tool for re-scaping our environment, but don't you think that with sufficient time we will understand more of the subject and consequently genetics will be more tractable? I am certain that after an arbitrary period of time genetic research will pass the point of novelty and provide a new model for shaping reality around us.
Do you think that because we lack understand of how some scientific endeavor is best done we ought to refrain from "screwing with things we don't understand"?
How do they keep the new bioengineered products from cross pollenating with the standard food varieties.
GM "products" should be engineered to be sterile . . . it's not that hard to craft a triploid strain, or knock out a fertility factor. The crops are still clonable by traditional agriculture methods . . . but don't breed to make hybrids.
That, or we should be able to sue a company into oblivion for contaminating a nations agricultural products. Contaminating a nations food source, is bio-terrorism, and should be handled as such.
luckilly $$$ will keep broski off the backs of these corporations, and in the library watching what I read.
I have been waiting quietly for my turn, to finally become a human resistant human, just to improve myself in particular, mankind generally, and G_d knows who else, for the better, brighter, more human future.
Thank heaven for the respost feature.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: ALSO VERY USEFUL
Nukes are REALLY USEFUL THINGS. Industry's just chomping at the bit, looking for ways to make money off of em, too.
And just to get your children's thoughts rolling with the possibilities, we [of slashdot staff] will be hyping the uses of nuclear landscapes [for free].
Socially irresponsible? Inconsiderate? NOT AT ALL! We'll test it out in miniature scale, first, by giving sticks of radiated dynamite to monkeys, and releasing them in your city.
Thanks for the hype slashdot. No. I'm NOT disgusted.
PS
Too bad a jackass who can't understand the advanced notions of "analogy" and "sarcasm" had the opportunity to mod this article.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
- The Law of Unintended Consequences when (not if) genetic freaks get loose and upset global ecosystems, forcing dependence upon the outcompeting freaks and counterfreaks.
- Greedy corporations like ADM and Monsanto who aim to OWN food production by claiming "IP" rights on genes.
- Frankenfood FUDsters who would throw the golden-rice baby out with the bathwater because of fear and romantic notions about old-fashioned organic food somehow being better for you, even if it's not sustainable.
GM was inevitable, but it would be very sad if we ended up destroying our natural ecosystems, or locking it up in IP monopolies, only a few decades before we developed the molecular nanotech needed to self-sufficiently manufacture food, without depending on Mother Nature and top-down distribution.--
Power to the Peaceful
People seem to be against this idea, but how else will we get the plants we need?
All I'm saying is the first company that makes a 150 foot tall sunflower plant has my business.
I'm not religious, so I'm not saying "Don't play God", but it is the height of arrogance for scientists to say they understand genetics sufficiently to control GM. Some GM stuff in labs can perhaps be controlled, but once modified geness are released into the RealWorld they are very difficult to control. The risk of doing bad things is great. We already see the effects of cross contamination of crops etc.
Funny how you say that they don't understand genetics, yet that is what they do for a living. I would venture a guess that they understand it just a wee bit better than YOU do. I also find the GM argument to be odd that people will say "You have to prove that it isn't harmful". To which scientists provide evidence that shows no harmful effects in studies. For some reason, that doesn't seem to be good enough. Sure, there is limited concern because for most of us, it is somewhat of an unknown. The idea of GM things are a little scary to us. But this is what they do. Your subject suggests that they don't understand their life's work. That is ridiculous.
You could almost liken it to the GPL. Don't release your software under the GPL, you don't know the ramifications of doing so. Don't treat GM products the way MS treats the GPL.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Because it kills so many different kinds of pathogens.
We need Genetically Modified food, nukes, and irradiation plants. Also, a couple fusion reactors. Then we're set.
Good call, dude! I like the way you think. Hell, you can come over and fuck my sister.
do i need to elaborate? have you heard of pollen? understand its role?
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Resistant to all known herbicides and kills off other plants trying to encroach upon it's own land... yes I know no one (least I hope no one) will make a garden weed like this, but youve got to wonder, what happens if there is that one in a milion freak cross spiecese polination and soon youve got roundup ready dandylions.
It is nature that evolved for us the ability to make such mofications. Therefore, GM is natural. If nature doesn't like it, it should stop evolving intelligence.
Us "idiot humans" have evolved the technology to currently sustain 6 billion of our species and rule almost every corner of the earth. Doomsdayers have been around since the dawn of man.
Humans rock.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
...and that will cost someone money in coping with the resulting ecological changes.
There is one certainty in all of this: the genes spliced into GMOs will get loose in the world due to inter-breeding with non-GM organisms of the same species. This is as certain as losing in Vegas.
So how does this sound: I propose to release novel self-replicating entities into your environment, and I don't know what the consequences will be. I can be almost certain they won't lead to the end of the world as we know it, but on the other hand it isn't a great strech to imagine that my self-replicating entities are going to have a significant effect on the ecosystem you live in and depend upon.
Personally, I'd be very unhappy with someone making this proposal, and the comparisions that come to mind with existing activities, such as selective breeding for domestication, don't really hold water because a) the whole point of GMOs is that they contain genetic combinations that would not occur in nature and b) selective breeding for domestication has already been responsible for major environmental changes.
Domestic species both force out non-domestic ones (as happened with prairie grasses) and due to increased genetic homogeneity may also be more susceptible to disease. So comparing the GMO process to domestication is not entirely reassuring.
"Industrial biology" has been extremely good for us humans in the past hundred-odd years. We can feed ourselves, worldwide, better than at any time in history. But there have been costs, and I'd like to see a really compelling case made for adding to those costs with GMOs.
So far, that case has not been made, and many GMO proponents simply deny that there are going to be costs. Only when they admit to that will there be a meaningful debate. Of course, for that to happen, the "GMOs are the work of Satan" mantra from the other side would have to fall silent as well.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Yes, it will be engineered by KFC lawyers, with the intent to modify your living conditions, from serious loss of income upto major change of life-style, in a federal prison, assuming they can really cook up the case for you.
And if all goes well, who knows, we may even have a last bite of you in a delicious family pack.
(from the nerd mini essay series)
Now if they can just get the plants to walk to the grocery stores.
GM foods have been controversial partly because of the power that patented foods would give to companies like Monsanto. I fear these other organisms would be the same way...
A prev. poster likened this to open source and closed source and in this regard he is completely right (though it was modded funny rather than insightful) but it is worse than closed source software because it is aimed at replacing vital commodities with intellectual property rights.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The limitation to biodiesel is available feed stock. It has been proposed that there is no way to grow enough to replace petrol diesel with traditional crops. The algea alternative is facinating but I have never seen GM crops mentioned as a solution to increasing oil yields for feed stock. I would think in this climate of rising oil prices that this would be in the conversation.
I thought it was a really dumb game master.
Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Convention
You only give part of the picture when you say that genetically altered/modified foods are monitored by the FDA and EPA.
The European union and the various countied that comprise it have concerns about these sometimes called "Frankenfoods." Many won't accept them over safety concerns and a lack of research. Are they wrong? Our government seems to think so. There are a few counties in Africa with starving people/children who wont accept the genetically modified crops the the United States offers because of the terms of the gift and genetic drift to native crops.
As far as gentically modified foods being safe, I beleive that people just haven't figured out the dangers of using such modified products yet. The genome of life is extremely complex. Modifying one or more genes to achieve the desired result (usually increased yield and/or chemical/pest resistance) means that many other properties can, and probably are, being altered as well - only in ways we may or may not be able to observe. Take for instance, siclke cell anemia. Nasty disease, right? But did you know that in its' recessive form it provides near immunity from Malaria, a horrendous contagion that kills millions of Africans? I'm sure people with this affliction would love to be rid of it and I'd be first in line to have my genes altered if I had the active form of this disease. But hopefully you see my point: modifying genes may not be as simple as it seems.
People used to think DDT was the industry's gift to manking for its ability to wipe out pests. It took decades to prove it was harmful to the EPA and FDA. And these two organizations, while full well knowing it's risks and its' being banned in the U.S., allow it to be exported to other countries for use there. How responsible is that?
Further, if these products are so safe, why is there so much resistance from Monsanto and their kin to labeling such gentically modified products on food labels? After all, preservatives are put on labels, and we've know for many a year according to the FDA that they are "safe," so why all the fuss?
Similarly, in the past, we were told by scientists with full confidence that nuclear power/energy was the answer to all our energy needs - a clean, safe and unlimited power source that would be so bountiful it would be "too cheap to meter." We all know how that one turned out...
I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to feed the world or that genetic research to modify foods is wrong, but when I hear people advocate that its the best thing to happen to us, or that it's science's gift to mankind, I start to get nervous about a person/group/field trying to gloss over what is nothing less than tampering with what makes life what it is: precious and real.
I'm just saying we should be VERY careful, as in more than we are being now, and we can't just take everything our government says at face value, as they are often beholden to big coroprate interests whose primary concern is often the almighty dollar above all else.
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uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
I understand those that are quick to write off
Anybody read Rudy Ruckers's "Frek and the Elixer"?
They'll stick to that until their business dries up because someone else is using GMO trees to make better paper for less.
Well, as long as they're so busy genetically modifying everything, how about if they come up with something to help absorb some of that excess CO2 that's worrying everybody? Oh, probably somebody's already working on this idea. Objections? Well, I remember somebody saying "Technology got us into this mess, so maybe technology will get us out too." If something like this does offer us a solution, perhaps it's too late for second thoughts about GM products. But, we must be careful.
I use the API argument myself because it does make a lot of sense. With that said, I trust that nature knows what it is doing via it's own API (breeding) whereas mankind is more prone to just thinking we know what we are doing via a hacked API (GM).
..is that the wind will blow the GM plants pollen and/or seeds around and pretty soon these things show up everywhere.
There was already a case where Monsanto was growing plants across the road from a farmer and the farmer had to pay Monsanto thousands of dollars because their seeds blew over into his planting area. Seems to me that Monsanto should have been sued for polluting the farmer's planting area. Or to put that another way - GM plants should be treated like toxic waste sites. If the toxic waste contaminates the area around the site - it is the responsibility of the owner of the site to clean up their mess. Not the other way around.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
The current systems do not support the production of safe drugs with well-know side-effects, and people expect corporations to produce a safe genetic mutant being?
Bullshit!
Guess I found one of my own hot-buttons...
I have read a few stories both here on slashdot and linked to from slashdot that I have reservations on any GM plantlife... forget that, GM life at all.
The fact is, life cannot be contained 100%. If Jurassic Park didn't convince you, perhaps the CDC and all of those innocent victims of GM foods patent claims and lawsuits will.
One of those things need to change. Either patents on living things need to be removed from the patent system or they should be so tightly controlled that if an escape occurs, the owner bears the responsibility for its escape into the wild... and probably both.
We on this planet really know so little about genetic crap that it's truly frightening to me that we call this "mix and match" guessing game a "science" at all. And then when companies go around suing people for growing GM without the burden of proof that it was intentional, it's ridiculously frightening. What's more is the long-term effects such as those of the use of injecting hormones into dairy cattle to produce greater volumes of milk. It's not talked about enough how that is affecting the U.S. population but what I have read so far has been enough for me to avoid milk in large quantities and never in its "raw" and unprocessed state. (Homogenization isn't enough... what about all those hormones still floating in there?)
The links being formed between GM foods and increasing incidents of cancer and other maladies should be enough to bring extreme caution into play... caution that isn't being exercised here in the U.S. that is being exercised elsewhere in the world.
We're moving way too far and way too fast on some of this. As these genies are let out of their bottles, is there a plan in place for being able to put them all back? Because if these things can't be controlled once set into motion, then a great deal of liability should be placed onto the parties responsible... and I don't mean on mere corporations -- I mean the individuals who make these decisions!! (I'm sick of people hiding behind corporate entities in trying to sheild themselves from responsibility and liability.)
No concluding paragraph here... I've said enough.
Both the law and the technology are to blame.
European consumers have good reason to not want to be forced to eat GM foods. Ditto for American consumers willing to pay a premium for organic (ie non-GM) foods. Seed contamination becomes a health issue here. I'm allergic to protiens in wheat flour. If a company decides to put some part of wheat flour in say corn flour, then I can't eat either. I don't care about patents or anything, I want to be able to trust my food.
You argue that the FDA is doing fine regulating GM food? Remember that it is the Bush administration in power, and that his oil company friends wrote the energy policy for the USA. Do you still trust FDA regulation?
I'm all for science (I am a scientist), but I'm not for wantonly letting genies out of bottles.
Sorry for the unfinished post - darn enter key submits form badness.
I understand that it is easy to just write off these concerns as just more wacko technophobe hysteria, but look at how many problems we have created just by introducing non-native species into other habitats. These aren't genetically modified, or in many cases even bred by humans for specific traits. They are perfectly natural organisms that simply evolved in different places. And yet they have reeked havoc in their new habitat because the life forms in that habitat are not evolved to deal with them.
Nothing is evolved to deal with these new crops that we are introducing, and the primary motivation for the crops is that we want them make them more resilient against natural (and in some case human made - aka RoundUp) predators, so we can get better yields cheaper.
I am not opposed to GM in principle - I think it can and will have a wonderful positive impact on us and even the environment as a whole, as it will allow for more efficient and balanced use of the resources available to us. However, I think we need to be careful, and I think that it would be a good idea if the work was more driven by scientific curiosity then profit. In my opinion the best way to do achieve this is to declare GM work to be unpatentable. This will remove much of the profitability of GM research, while creating a more open scientific environment. Not to mention the philosophical questions of whether genes and biological processes should even be patentable. And if it also slows down progress some, that might even be a good thing in this case.
I really like the look of a chestnut tree; the shape, the leaves, the "climbability" -- only one ( BIG ) drawback: those darned burrs they drop all over the yard (and the marble-like seeds, the chestnuts themselves, rolling around underfoot...) that have to be raked up before you can enjoy the yard (sometimes more than once daily) or even mow the thing. Enter the magic of GM and... Voilé! trees as beautiful as the Arbor-day equivalent of a supermodel but as barren as a 100-year-old former nuke-plant worker!!
I'm NOT kidding; I'd fight to be first in line for the seedlings when they go on the market! (as an added plus: nobody would be just growing their own saplings from the seeds of last year's purchase because they bear no fruit! Patent-less product protection!!)
One of the most exciting (for them) developments in GM agricultural products is that the large agricultural and petrochemical corporations are bringing about complete dependence of the people who grow the world's food on these companies and their products.
Many of the people who grow crops for the world currently or will eventually find themselves completely beholden to one or two companies that sell both the seeds and the chemicals necessary to grow. Talk about vendor lock-in...
Lovely in theory, but the sole purpose of very first GM products on the market was to allow the manufacturer to sell more herbicide!
Not only that, but they then have the temerity to go and prosecute people who's fields have been contaminated by their products for patent infringement. They should be made responsible for clearing up gene flow. After all the bloody stuff is now immune to the conventional herbicides.
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Yes, but Charles Babbage doesn't have the right initials - after all it is not called C.B.U.
..
..
However, G.M. are Gregor Mendels initials.
So GM has been doing GM for years, see
No p(h)un intended, but
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Not all science is good science.
/you/ trust Bush science?
Think about it, do
For everyone outside America, it's Rapeseed oil.
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This would be fine if the old standard model of genetics were true: one gene, one protein. It's actually not true, eg. humans have 30K genes, 100K proteins. Gene expression depends on the environment within the cell. And it may get whackier than that...the current Scientific American has an article on genetics, claiming that the non-coding DNA that we thought had no function, actually controls gene expression via RNA...authors say our understanding of genetics could drastically change.
So now, without fully understanding how it all works, we're inserting a gene with expression we understand, into a completely different organism, different cellular environment. And in fact, when we do so, the results are frequently not what we expect. Sometimes the differences are obvious; how do we know for sure whether there are unobvious differences?
Seems to me that until we actually understand genetics in full, and can reliably predict outcomes, we should be a mite cautious about this. (Even then, it would help to know more about ecology.)
Btw, there's another route...some people are getting results as good as GM, by using genetic information for very selective breeding. Less worry about bizarre side effects that way, since you're using genes native to the organism.
Ok, so the insects that eat the cotton are a bad thing. So we come up with cotton strains that are resistant to these insects. With not so much cotton to eat, these insects will dwindle in population. What long-term impact will this have further up the food chain? Predators to these insects will have a shorter food supply, so they may dwindle in numbers, no? Please someone answer my uneducated question. Thanks!
If these GM-cats see the light someday, I would expect some kind of similar business model. And the DMCA being called to protect the producer from "counterfeit supercat food"
We dont like bad things
Y is bad
X is also bad
Is X worse than Y
If you phrase this right you could make anything seem justified.
The biggest issue with GMing is side effects. There is too much going on at the genetic level for anyone to honestly be able to predict all of the side effects of a GMing.
How about:
If we GM wheat and 15 years form now all wheat is from the GM stock. Then a plauge destroys all of the wheat because of a genatic flaw in the GMed wheat. My healthy kid would be starving to death.
So the choice is stop GMing and my kid is either crippled and won't starve to death or is not crippled but will starve to death
Or:
The shot fixes my horrible crippled kid. 15 years later he finds out that the shot also caused him to develop bone cancer. He is now going to dies by having his bones become more and more brittle until his ribcages collapses and he suffocates.
So the choice is my child is crippled but lives to a ripe old age or he is not crippled but dies a painful death in a few years
genetically engineered biodiesel, solar cells, paper, computers, roads, and chocolate bar tree!
GM plants are dangerous for many reasons.
Nature is a balance, and GM plants threaten that balance. One example is the so called insect resistant cotton. In a few generations, they expect the now insect resistant cotton to not be so insect resistant anymore. Why. Because they manage to kill all the weak pests, and leave the strong ones. Then the strong ones multiply rapidly, and you have a whole breed of pests which are more resistant to whatever schemes you concoct in the future. Us humans are making a pretty good job of accelerating the 'evolution' of new species of pests that give us trouble later.
Trouble also is, this stupid notion that a company can own IP on something people grow in their fields. Think the Microsoft of farms. Imagine a world where all the seed you have cannot be used again next season because it is someone's IP. It is easy for them to say, 'this is an opt in technology', but when they have succeeded in removing all 'natural' seed from the market, (Trust me, they can), this will not be a choice anymore. You will be forced to use what they give you.
I for one, think we are far from needing GM foods. Look at Europe. They routinely throw away food because they do not want to depress prices for farmers. We can produce more than enough to go round, and in some places especially like Africa, we could produce even more. We could produce less tobacco if need be to produce more food. There is no real argument in favour of GM plants from the perspective of adequacy for feeding the planet. Let us face the facts, the real reason some people are motivated to do this is to make more money, and that counts before anything else. I can take people competing to sell cars, but I think this might be an example of a failure of the free market system. In free markets, when abnormal profits have been wiped, people tend to try to unbalance the market by introducing an unneeded dependency, and that is one we can do without.
I, for one, welcome our new GM-plants overlords.
...couldn't this help produce plants that better take care of CO2 and whatever else might be floating around us? Like old food and used cars?
Seriously though, would it be useful?
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
These techniques allow improving species with lower cost than gene modification methods. And because it avoids those methods, which are patented, they have less restrictive IP issues; and it has been developed in a collaborative environment. As a result, the Wired Article calls this "the agriculture version of open source"
However, according to the organisation American Women in Science, at least 50% of the people with bachelors and masters' degrees in biology today are women, and nearly 40% of the Ph.Ds.
Whether they're winning or losing, slowly or quickly -- they're certainly not all men -- not by a long shot. In fact, more than a third of these "men" in white coats -- these biologists, scientists, researchers, genetecists are, in fact, women.
If Cannibas was GMed to not produce THC, would such GMed Cannibas be considered legal crop to grow for hemp, paper, and oil?
"It takes a very long time to count to 2 in binary." ~'Fourlegged'
Until I can purchase a girlfriend that is genetically manipulated to look like Lucy Liu!!!!
I don't think even GMing trees will make it more advantageous than industrial hemp -- which does not have enough THC to get one high.
e x.html
Read here: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/drugs/hemp-marijuana/ind
Fight prejudice and corrupt business practices and advocate industrial hemp!
I looked up Savannah cats and found a whole bunch of breeds of exotic cats that look like minature great cats. Toygers are really cool, too. Thanks for the tip!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Its analogous to proprietary software: you can't just buy the algorithm: you have to buy the whole package (and support and perhaps hardware too). In much of current GM technology you can't just buy the nifty new gene, you have to buy the whole potato (w/a limited selection 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.
Problems with the closed-source methods of GM tech include:
As long as they have proper labelling, as I and many of my friends and family members refuse to use genetically modified products. Be it food or clothing or other materials, us and many others will avoid it. I think this will lead to an even stronger demand for "organic" items.
- often place plant DNA in animals and vice-versa. Dangerous? Who knows?
- involve the insertion of promoter sequences, which stimulate the expression of the desired sequence. What else do they stimulate? Again, no one really knows.
- also involve the insertion of a gene for antibiotic resistance, to help isolate those cells in which the gene transfer "takes". Dangerous? Hell yes! Horizontal gene transfer (between macro-organism and bacteria) is documented fact.
For a lengthy discussion of this subject, read this paper.
For a brief (albeit slanted, but not untrue) summary, check out this.
For a discussion of an exciting and viable alternative, one which really is just an extension of selective breeding, read about marker-assisted breeding.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
You have hit the nail on the head. Everything GM does is "natural" in the sense that it does occur in nature. The difference is that things can be done several orders of magnitude faster.
Is this speed which changes can be made potentially dangerous - possibly - which is why the P1-P4 system was instituted back in the 70's to set standards for recombinant research. I think that most scientists agree that it is very very unlikely but being scientists will also (weasily - but truthfully) admit that it's only been 30 years since we've been using these accelerated methods so one can't be 100% sure.
The public concern, has however provided impetus for marker assisted breeding. Here, gene sequencing and bioinformatics provides potential gene targets and DNA markers which can be manipulated by traditional techniques if desired. It does eliminate most of the bigger concerns about cross-species (or cross-kingdom) gene transfer which do occur in nature btw - just much much more slowly. Of course, this also negates many of the benefits of the technology. Sorta of using a GPS in a horse and buggy but if that's what people want that's OK too as long as they are made aware of the pros and cons of going more slowly...
I have celiac disease. Cross-contamination IS an issue for me, and severely limits my "safe" sources of grain. Needless to say, I've followed this issue for a while.
/. person posted about a farmer's entire crop/seed-stock becoming cross-contaminated with Monsanto's? He's kind of out of a farm now.
Why would they put wheat proteins in corn? Or rice? Maybe to fortify them? Who knows, who cares. Maybe I should trust the government to take care of my body, but guess what? I don't. Go ahead, call me paranoid, but USA government seems to care more about corporations' profits and less about people's well-being.
As to minimizing GM risks, it isn't being done. This is why I am worried. Do you know what percentage of USA corn and soy are GM NOW? Did you read the link another
Some risks are worth taking. Going into space --- sure, you might die, but it would be worth it! Trying to "improve" your food supply for dubious reasons? Not worth it.
What would I be in favor of? Research in locked-down pathogen-style-isolation-Greenhouses. What do I get? No GM-labels on my food supply and my Uncle's crops being contaminated by God-only-knows, all because we've been hoodwinked that there are no risks. Which, if you are at all scientific, know is unlikely.
Call me a troll, but the proper way to use acronyms is to use their full name before you use the acronym itself. For instance:
should be as follows:
Notice how the acronym comes after the the phrase it is shortening?
As I said, label me a troll. I just call 'em as I see 'em.
What is your penile percentile?
Well, let's have some GM people...
Sure, why not?
We've got GM pets, why not GM people?
I have a GM dog. He has been bred to keep the desirable qualities and to eradicate the undesirable features. What's so bad about that?
I would love to be stronger, healthier, live longer, look better, be smarter, etc.. And I can't imagine a GM kid growing up like that then complaing, "Damn, I hate my parents, I'm too good looking, I live too long, I'm too healthy, I,m too strong, I'm too smart. Damn, life is no fair!"
If I had the chance to have children that could live longer, healthier and better lives, I would be 100% for that.
One problem with genetically modifying everything is that the modifications are done to solve a specific problem, or a relatively narrow set of problems. But do the modifiers thoroughly consider the far ranging consequences of their modifications? Eg, if a genetically modified butterfly flaps its wings in New York, does a typhoon still occur in Hong Kong, or is it a flood in Bangladesh? Is it even possible to discern what the unintended consequences may be five, ten, fifty years in the future? Nature spent thousands, millions of years evolving itself to a state of balance, and then we come along and start altering that balance willy-nilly to solve a few immediately pressing problems. I worry that we're taking an approach to GM similar to a very bad software development project - no overall plan, build features and modifications in response to isolated needs, and spend the rest of the project lifetime putting out fire after fire after fire. It's just that fires in software development are not quite as consequential as fires that affect the natural state of the world ecology.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
developing something proprietary and not particularly well tested that can spread by itself?
Now, if this was a computer virus, I'd say go ahead -- computers can be made immune to such things, and the things themselves can be contained fairly easily.
This is reality. We can't just reboot/reinstall the planet, or build a new one. We can treat this one as a mission-critical server.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
GNU have been using some GM trees to get wood with perfect grain in order to make nice flexible snowboards.
About ten to twenty years from now a GA revolution will strike as humnity truly begins to understand and play around with genetics. The result will be abominations and opuses to the genius of humanity. The digital rights expressed now and in machine code, rights such as those embodied in OSS, FSF, and the GPL or the Microsoft EULA will begin to have real impact and real tradgic meaning.
... or some of them ... can be tied to a focus, disposition, and certain chemical balances in the brain. Suppose a pill like ridilin could cause a person who is normal to hyper-focus allowing them to perform better than normal. Suppose that you could get this drug on the street. Suppose that it really did give people an unfair advantage in school, work, and play. Suppose that it was copyrighted and extremely addictive. Suppose that Bill Gates owned the patent.
Instead of just being able to leverage control of the the digital rights of the masses, powerful corporations will begin to leverage control over the chemical lives of the masses. People's rights will be in question. The right to chemical privacy, genetic privacy, and the ownership of genes themselves.
If I or my offspring posess a unique genetic trait that makes our genes desirable do we have the right to sell or license those genes for profit? Do we have the right to remake our bodies after gestation? Do we have the right to demand that others remake thier bodies to be hypo-allergenic or somehow more compatable to our conceptions?
If I can chemically control personality through drugs. If phermones can control mating behavior and desire. Can I use genes, chemicals, and phermones to cause people to do things I want them to? Can I alter someone's sexuality? What are the ramifications of forcing a homosexual to take a "straight-pill" what if a "straight-pill" actually worked?
What if in the future it becomes undesirable to be white? Could we give the entire white population a "color" pill? Could we make dumb people smarter?
If chemicals can control brain function. If brain function controls mood. If brain function, mood, or emotive response, maps on to political beliefs or tendencies... can I control a percentage of the population's voting habits through chemicals in their twinkies?
Suppose the traits that make a person a good hacker
What if enough people took the super-brain pill that you couldn't hope to compete without it. Like the Olympics and steroids. What if it became not such a big deal.
What if that chemical also made you have an undying loyalty to the company that made it? Or what if you couldn't live without it after taking it for a while. And, now you're compromised. Blackmail. Senators and Presidents hooked on a perscription drug... that only one company controls the supply of. And they begin to crack down. They begin to prevent people from getting it. From selling it freely. You have to register every dose. You have to register every time you take the pill every pill has a serial number, every user has to register the dose and pill or risk being cut off.
And there's no competition. There's no other viable alternative. One company supplies 95% of all the smart-pills and only stupid people don't have smart pills. Only naturally-super-smart people don't need the name-brand smart-pills.
And that company's name is MicroGene or GenetiSoft or something.
Fun stuff.
[signature]
Open Source Biology NOW! This time it's people's very lives not just programs and video games!
you get a +1 insightful from me.
[signature]
I am a catgirl
Naked, young, and so supple
Please discipline me
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
A small catch - if you insert genes that were never ment to mix, you might end up with a beneficial "product" over a short term, but a big unknown over a long term. Heck, pharmaceuticals can't even create a single molecule that doesn't have side effects (see latest drug recalls) and now "GM scientists" seems understands long term genetic interractions.
Using GM technologies to select best seeds to plant might be a good idea. Mixing genes of plants from the same family might also be beneficial. Introducting fungus genes into a fish might not be a good idea. We don't know the long term complicatinos of doing this. It could result in further interraction with other organisms and produce nasty side-effects. These biological systems have evolved on different paths for over a *billion* years. They have different diseases that are specific to that DNA (viruses, for example). Combining DNA could introduce migratory paths for these diseases. Furthermore, "protein diseases" could result since modified DNA might not be able to fold properly. Misfolded proteins is actually the cause of the so called Mad Cow Disease.
Contaminating DNA from dissimilar species should be illegal for the next 100 years or until we undestand all DNA interrations like we understand QED and election interractions. Why? Because we are *guessing* at what will happen when we introduce these genes. Remeber when scientists were guessing what the effects of radiation was on people? There are portable x-ray viewers so you could xray your foot to see if the shoe fit!! All scientists said xray was harmless. They actually administered large doses of xrays to "cure the flu". Now we know better.
Too bad you can't recall GM stuff 100 years after it is introducted. You can't contain it like radiation. You can't put the Genie back into the bottle. Maybe those "in Soviet Russia" jokes apply more than one might think.
"In s/Sovient Russia/GM World/ your products recall you!".
put the genie back
Percy Schmeiser may be a schmuck
but he's a hero to farmers who hate the Man
who gives the loan and takes the farm
and the judges just didn't care
the Man, er, Monsanto won
I've been saving seeds for generations
they were never mine just a resource
for the great grandchildren
but now Cargill done come
and took them all away
'cause the field is a sudden full of their
manufactory
That was the most informative posting in the whole thread. Thanks.
1. Antibiotic resistance in GM plants is intentional, an artifact of the manufacturing process (see parent for reference).
2. When bacteria eat DNA, they can incorporate it, mutating without dividing; this is called transformation :
3. DNA from food can linger in the intestines a while.
Given those three facts, the risk and speculation is just that the commensal (normal resident) gut bacteria will take up the antibiotic resistance genes from food, and that pathogenic bacteria will in turn be transformed by the commensals.
In general, I'd love to see more Slashdotters read reading bioscience at PubMed, a service of the (U.S.) National Library of Medicine. There you'll find abstracts of biomed journals, textbooks, genomic and proteomic databases, and free full text of journal articles. Stanford Press's HighWire offers even more free journal articles, as well as all of the abstracts that PubMed indexes.
Perhaps I'm biased, but I think the world needs more nerds to help interpret and synthesize the thousands of pages of biosience research that's being published each week.
-ldg
Liam D. Gray, public health student, former Qualcomm embedded software engineer, BS ECE '95 CMU
We need to have a broader view here, when dealing with GM'd "products". Just one of the few obvious: nanotechnology. Genetical engineering is broadly used in "manufacturing" proteins which can do lots of things. E.g. modified molecules were produced of the proteins which instead of gathering the iron (natural forms of these are in our blood) could gather specified quantities (specified up to the number of atoms they could hold) gold, silver, whatever else. Then these could be organized into specified geometrical shapes, the protein purged off of them and what is you get ? An oganized matrix of metal bubbles which you could use for what ? You can build very small memory chips of them for example.
But this is only a minor achievement. Why I say that ? Because if you produce a protein which can only join to proteins in the membranes of cancerous cells, then you have just saved the life of a human being.
This is just the tip of the iceberg and I'm no nanotech engineer, just wanted to give a starting point.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Just for starters, GM techniques: - often place plant DNA in animals and vice-versa. Dangerous? Who knows?
DNA is DNA. The difference between a human and a cabbage is minimal. You may not like the idea of a fish gene in your strawberries, but that doesnt make it dangerous. It does however give the opportunity to move a specific and well characterised trait from one organism to another. No amount of breeding will make a frost tolerent strawberry because there is no natural trait *in strawberries*, but fish do... personally i think thats kind of cool
- involve the insertion of promoter sequences, which stimulate the expression of the desired sequence. What else do they stimulate? Again, no one really knows.
If it did something bad in the plant, then that plant wouldnt be desirable, and so it wouldnt be grown, sold, eaten etc. This is just FUD.
- also involve the insertion of a gene for antibiotic resistance, to help isolate those cells in which the gene transfer "takes". Dangerous? Hell yes! Horizontal gene transfer (between macro-organism and bacteria) is documented fact.
Oh boy, FUD, FUD, FUD, F U D, FUD. Not to mention just plain wrong and a popular mistruth recited by anti-GM bodies. Yes antibiotic resistance genes (and herbicide) are used, but has anyone bothered to check what those are used for? NOTHING. And in case you didnt stop to think, where did the resistance genes come from? From the environment. They are already out there. Pick up a handfull of soil and see how much antibiotic resistance genes there are out there *naturally* (i did this as a 1st year prac).
And why oh why would a bacterium even have any selective pressure to pick up a resistance gene from a plant (very difficult) when it can pop down to the local hospital and procreate with a nice slutty staph or E coli that is *actively* trying to spread its "geans of mass destruction".
Now for seconds, organic farming:
Uses the same bacterial toxin (Bt) on the surface of plants as the GM plants do. And did you know that Bt is closly related to anthrax! (just like a human is to a monkey)
Uses heavy metals in large quantities to control pests that do not bio-degrade and are toxic. (Mercury, copper, etc)
Dont test *any* new variety, breed, wild plant etc for health effects. A lot of the fashionable new plants have very high alkaloids and other toxins (cyanide-like etc), yet they are 'natural' and therefore outside the regulatory system. Peanuts would never be certified for consumption because too many people are allergic
Will *irraditate*/poision/mutate plants to produce desirable traits that are not characterised and completely unknown!
And (traditional, if not also organic) is in many cases quite inefficient, using more resources, spraying more toxic chemicals, with less yields than what can be achieved with a disease resistant/herbicide resistant/enhanced GM crop.
OK, long post, but take this message away, GM isnt bad because it is GM, and organic and natural doesnt mean it is 100% safe. No you shouldnt *have* to eat GM if you dont want too, but dont stop anyone from benefiting just because you read something on the internet saying it is wrong.
And if horizontal gene transfer is so natural and well documented, wouldnt that make GM crops practically organic? think about it.
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldnt be called research.
But seriously, the problem with a total moratorium is that then the research cant be done. There are a number of times protestors have destroyed a test crop (and usually the normal crop, not the GM one!) and thus destroyed the results from the very experiment that was meant to prove that something was safe.
You might call it *guessing*, but to a scientist it is a *hypothesis*. Which should be tested and debated. The good-old-days cowboy approach did some harm, but thats why we now have a system in place to deal with it. Be it the FDA or whatever, IANAA (i am not an american), you just cant go around with your new technology these days without a hell of a lot of testing.
Big ugly business:
1) make GM crop that can withstand twenty times the dose of our herbicide
2) sensitive to the competitor's herbicide (?wtf!)
3) make the crops sterile so that the farmers have to buy from us year after year
4) ???
5) profit
Farmer:
1) Dont buy X's seed
2) Buy compeditors seed (GM or not)
2) ???
3) no profit for X
4) Profit (for compeditor)
Altered trees that make better paper, insect-resistant cotton, potatoes that contain the right kinds of starches.
Why not just use hemp? Which has evolved with the rest of the planet over many thousands of years?
In addition to these new man-made plants, which wouldn't have occured without us, being less nutritious, usable, and light-weight conserning the ecosystem, they are also less tested.
Reefer madness still spookin' ya?
Well, except that diamonds aren't inherently rare. The DeBeers Consortioum carefully controls how many diamonds enter the market each year so that they can keep the price artificially high.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Mexico right now has hybrid corn & cotton due to wind flow from Texas. Though I can understand the excitement to think science can make better plants ... I keep thinking of thalidomide history of unforseen effects. You know, C13H10N2O4, withdrawn from general use AFTER it was found to cause severe birth defects when taken during pregnancy.
Hemp produces fabrics which have greater strength and durability than cotton and they are resistant to environmental weathering (which is why it was traditionally used for canvas sails and ropes oin sailing ships).
Hemp is also a renewable crop for paper production. Tree farming is not as friendly to the environment: you can replant trees but the forest ecology take decades after the trees have grown to rebuild and by then the trees are being harvested again.
While GM does have a place in food crops, given our population growth, to maximize yields per acre, there are also many good alternative to some GM crops. Too bad the US government is so rabid about pot.
This was before ink-jet printers totally took over the small-volume printer market, and I don't know how it is for ink absorbency.
And of course smoking isn't the best use for marijuana - you can make brownies with it, and be kinder to your lungs.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks