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The Genome of Your Thanksgiving Supper
An anonymous reader writes "Here's a fact you can distract your family with over the Thanksgiving table: many of the major ingredients in Thanksgiving foods have had their genomes sequenced. Biomedical researchers are interested in the turkey genome due to the animal's susceptibility to cancer; botanists are studying the genome of the Chinese chestnut to search for the root of its resistance to chestnut blight; and corn — well, corn's genome is just cool."
I will be dining with some members of my family that, more often than not, seem to represent the shallower end of the Gene Pool! I came from the deep end (I think.)
Related to HFCS, I've seen agave nectar sold as a healthy sweetener alternative to sugar, but apparently agave has even higher fructose content than HFCS. But it's natural, and not evil sugar, so it must be better for humans.
And when those terminator genes don't work, Monsanto sues the farmer next door for patent infringement because his corn cross-bred with Monsanto corn. It's the perfect scam - get one farm using your corn, and it infects every farm around it, so you sue to get more license agreements.