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Cyanide-Producing GM Grass Linked To Texas Cattle Deaths
Peristaltic writes "Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are trying to determine if an unexpected mutation in a popular GM grass, Tifton 85, is responsible for the sudden deaths of a small herd of cattle in Elgin, Texas three weeks ago. The grass has been used for grazing since 1992 without incident, however after a severe drought last year in Texas, the grass started producing cyanide in sufficient quantities to kill a small herd of cattle in Elgin, Texas. Testing has found the cyanide-producing grass in nearby fields as well." Update: 06/23 22:59 GMT by T : Reader Jon Cousins writes with a correction that means the headline above is inaccurate for including "GM." Tifton 85, he writes, is "absolutely not genetically modified. It's a conventionally bred hybrid."
This is scary movie nightmare stuff come true!!!
Grass that kills!!!
If a company is manufacturing chemical weapons that could fall into the hands of terrorists, it sounds like something the Department of Homeland Security should know about, right away.
Too bad it's not actually fiction, because right now it's just terrifying, but still cool at the same time.
Also, if this turns out to be true maaaaaybe all those non GMO quacks aren't such, quacks.
How dare your heard of cattle defame the good name of our company by having the nerve to DIE after eating our product. You sir, will be hearing from our attorneys.
Sincerely,
The Monsanto Group
I hope so!!
You know, of course, that a lot of the food you eat is GM food.
Tifton 85 is actually a hybrid of African Bermuda grass and Tifton 68, a different hybrid produced in Tifton, Texas.
It's not a GM grass.
I guess those cows failed the Turing test...
You've got to be kidding: this report needs to be retracted as it is completely wrong. Tifton 85 is a conventionally bred grass.
It's incredibly irresponsible to print something this inflammatory and wrong. You've now aerated people all over the world with this misunderstanding, and it will continue to be flogged forever with this incorrect information.
Further, people who hear about this won't know what the real issue is and it could cause more cow deaths.
Fix or retract this article immediately.
Pull the story. Get your facts straight. This farmer needs education from a local co-op extention. Any native or hybrid (NOT GM) grass can create this condition! Those that care for truth and real data go here and learn: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/forage/pubs/sorghum.htm
Mod this guy up. He's absolutely right, GMOs are going to get screwed.
The general public will go apeshit when / if they hear about this.
I wouldn't be so quick to sound the death knell for GM. Some of the companies in the industry have been producing killer crap for a long time.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I doubt it. Monsanto will come up with some way to turn this into "...cyanide-producing grass..." is a feature, not a bug. Now - Get out there and buy and eat more beef!
I don't really understand the need to put one paragraph of story per page, its just freaking annoying. I didn't realize how far down the GM road we have come. OK, I understand corn is being GM'd and by logical extension things that eat corn, but grass? I really hope technology improvements allow time travel real quick like...I'd love to relocate to a period in time BEFORE we completely fuck this planet up
A different report says this can happen in any type of grass. http://www.uwex.edu/ces/forage/pubs/sorghum.htm Young plants, including roots, and leaves of older plants contain a compound called dhurrin which can break down to release a substance called prussic acid or hydrogen cyanide (HCN). The recommendation is not to graze or cut for green chop until the plant is 18 to 20 inches tall.
work in progress
These two grasses likely would have never been close enough in nature to influence each other. While genetically modified doesn't technically include selective breeding, I would argue that we are still screwing with nature and creating something that wouldn't have otherwise occurred naturally. That's how we should be defining 'Genetically Modified.'
Why is General Motors producing grass?
First it is doubtful the grass produces a free form of cyanide, the cyanide is most likely bound to a sugar like
it is in cherry pits and the like. During metabolism the cyanide is liberated when it is split from the sugar.
The interesting thing is the Triton85 has either a timer (so and so many seed / growth cycles) that expired
for the toxine producing genes to activate or there was some other external condition 'programmed' that activated
these genes.
Enjoy your future (or what little you will have of it), humans.
Something deadly like this could never naturally evolve in plants! This must be the work of unnatural, man-driven processes! Stop all science now! Anthropocentrism at its finest.
http://www.examiner.com/article/gmo-food-hybrid-poison-grass-that-kills-texas-cattle-not-genetically-modified
Unlikely this will affect GM since this grass is a hybrid, not a GM product.
It's not GM. http://www.examiner.com/article/gmo-food-hybrid-poison-grass-that-kills-texas-cattle-not-genetically-modified
Floating point bitches?! Damn, and here I messin' with my integer bitches... Where can I buy?
Also:
"Moo!" (thud)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It's not GM. http://www.examiner.com/article/gmo-food-hybrid-poison-grass-that-kills-texas-cattle-not-genetically-modified
And we can rely on the top-notch reporting by the mass media to explain the difference to the general public. Sure.
Let's get rid of all those awful hybrid plants and let most of the people in the world starve. We should be thankful for all the wonderful discoveries that saved billions of lives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
Ah, so this is why Monstersanto doesn't want GMO's labeled... Pride in what one produces be damned.
Once you open Pandora's box, you can't shut it again... This stuff is out there, and I doubt will ever be exterminated.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This grass is obviously defective and should be replaced with a variety that produces equal parts cyanide and happiness.
Talk about spam. STFU, daninaustin (985354)!
Mod pp -100: spam attack.
You should get dis-usered.
This is a cross of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff.
Of course, the grass in question is not a GMO. But hey, don't let the truth get in the way of all that hammering.
Unless you're purposefully trying to mislead people.
What's the term when your agenda pushing news turns out to be wrong, false but accurate?
Fuck you in the heart slashdot. This shit is stupid. I can remember when this site used to post news stories relevant to geeks, and wasn't just a POS repeater.
Selective pressure hybridization is just a really low-tech form of genetic modification.
Saying this is not a GM crop is misleading.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Tifton 85 was bred using PI290884, from South Africa, and Tifton 68, which is a cross between PI255450, from Kiboko, Kenya, and PI293606, from Nairobi, Kenya.
See Fact Sheet - Cynodon Dactylon
"Toxicity
Some varieties have the potential to produce high levels of prussic or hydrocyanic acid (HCN), especially when high levels of nitrogen are applied. However, instances of prussic acid poisoning in cattle grazing C. dactylon are rare. Although levels of total oxalate of >1% of the DM have been recorded, there is no experience of detrimental effects on grazing cattle. Frosted C. dactylon can cause photosensitization."
What happened at ELGIN, Texas, is just an example of a RARE event. That the field in question has been in production for 15 years, and no other sites using Tifton 85 have reported animal deaths from cyanide, proves how rare the event is.
Tifton 85 has nothing to do with the laboratory manipulation of DNA (Genes).
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I knew they made cars, but I had no idea they made grass. And grass that produces cyanide? For shame!
When will these auto/turf wars end...
even if the media did explain it the American public wouldn't care. Americans love black and white dichotomies. It's either good or evil. Black or white. Capitalist or socialist. There is no in between because that's too hard to understand.
Since this was not a GMO at all, I expect this will be a big blow to conventional hybridization, right? Or are we going to apply a double standard and act as if dangers produced via hybridization should be ignored while dangers form GE (real or imaginary) are cause for panic?
Meddle with nature and suffer the concequences you say? Enjoy your teosinte and goatgrass, and your poisonous potatoes, tomatoes, and beans. Enjoy your seedy bananas.and grapes, your small sour apples, your gritty pears, and the little flower heads on the wild mustard plants broccoli and cauliflower came from.. Because to do otherwise would be messing with nature. Hope those chemical defenses that were bred out of all our crop plants don't give you cancer.
It's a much GM as cats, dogs and the cattle that died are. Selective breeding is not genetic modification. Good way to get people to click on your headline though.
I for one am shocked... shocked... that any cattle eat grass these days. I guess ethanol really is putting the screws to cattle farmers.
Time to switch that cow for a lemur capable of eating so much cyanide containing bamboo that it would kill several people. There are reported incidents in Africa where the normally harmless tree plants on a savannah produce toxic chemicals under stressful conditions, killing the antelopes trying to eat them. The plants communicate with each other through chemical messages in such a way that when one of them gets eaten, the others react by producing toxin.
Once you open Pandora's box, you can't shut it again
So let's nail it shut with a few facts from a random but reputable source on the subject of prussic acid poisioning, ....
1. Sudangrass, forage sorghum, and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids are often used for summer pasture, green chop, hay, or silage. Under certain conditions, livestock consuming these feedstuffs may be poisoned by prussic acid (HCN).
2. Exposure to excessive prussic acid--also called hydrocyanic acid, hydrogen cyanide, or cyanide--can be fatal. However, producers can manage and feed their livestock to avoid problems with prussic acid.
3. Grazing stunted plants during drought is the most common cause of poisoning of livestock by prussic acid-producing plants.
Sounds to me that the farmer simply neglected to check his cattle for problems after he moved them. The GM angle has no basis in fact, it is a literary device to attract eyeballs.
Disclaimer: I've labeled myself an environmentalist for nearly 40yrs, I have no problem with GM food because the accusations against it have no basis in reality. I do have a problem with a economic system where it makes commercial sense to rip up mature orange orchards in Australia because we can import them cheaper from California. Unfortunately I don't have an answer and neither do the 'invisible hand' crowd.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Running with Linux for over 12 years!
Gee.. dont your feet hurt?
The Stop all science now! exclamation on Slashdot should have been enough to identify the post as sarcasm. It is beyond me why ot got labeled 'Ineteresting' instead of 'Funny'. If the moderators insist on taking it seriously a 'Troll' label may have been more appropriate.
Save that there has been a major anti-Monsanto push going on for the past few weeks that's repeating things like this. I've been seeing neatly prepared images being reposted all over my social media multiple times.
Pointing out some of the errors in them just gets you insulted. Much like what is happening here. Someone notes "this isn't GMO" and is then rebuked for pointing out the truth.
These anti-gmo claims about non-gmo products are like the "acceptable truths" that Scientology uses. They're seen as fine since, though lies, they advance the cause, huzzah.
If possible, please change the title ...does not match the reality and some people only read titles.
Most forage grasses (such as Tifton 85) produce prussic acid (HCN) in the young plants and new shoots.
The level of prussic acid reduces as the plants mature, but the reducion of prussic acid levels is much less during drought conditions.
When establishing a forage plot, it is comon practice to apply the selective broadleaf killing herbicide 2,4-D. A side effect of 2,4-D application is an increase in prussic acid levels 3 hours and 6 hours after application.
The combination of drought conditions and 2,4-D application, as well as early grazing on this plot are likely to be the culprit here.
In terms that the slashdot crowd can understand: Operator Error and Not Reading the Documentation are likely to be the cause.
And yes, I am an Agricultural Worker.
(Also, I know how to google for facts before I post.)
Read, L
In a way, he's right. Consider what happened with Fukushima -> even though the reactor was ~50 years old, and was designed to survive what was considered a fairly unlikely, but powerful earthquake, this did not prevent a bunch of dime-store politicians from attempting to extract as much political capital as they could from the situation. Broad declarations were made less than a month after the incident, with unaffected countries making grand statements of embracing green technologies & shutting off their nuclear reactors. The same politicians, mind you, having gotten all they were going to get from that incident, who have turned around, and are now ordering those nuclear reactors back online, or, if they have found themselves backed into a corner by their own words, are preparing to build a large number of coal power plants.
So yes, it may affect GMs, with a number of ill-informed members of the human race switching from vitamin-enhanced products to 'organic' versions. When their kids come down with some really interesting nutritional deficiencies, their homeopathic doctors will probably recommend removing the kids' spleens or something.
I am John Hurt.
I was very skeptical of the original headline claiming this was "GM" when I saw it, and thus not surprised at all to see it was bogus. The one thing that GM is (in comparison to conventional breeding) is it is very precise and selective in its effects.
Cyanide is widely distributed in plants, which is why all mammals have multiple mechanisms to detoxify it (a human can detoxify in an hour a dose that would be immediately fatal if administered all at once). Cyanide poisoning in forage is hardly unknown, and the leap to try to connect it (based on zero evidence) to genetic engineering as some sort of Frankenstein's monster is sheer ignorance and scare mongering.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
If you publish a correction, would it not be appropriate to maybe actually make the correction in the faulty headline? This is a new low in sensationalism when you deliberately leave misinformation in place. It's heartbreaking to see a reputation for noble intentions gained over many years squandered so casually and pointlessly. I've been checking this site for news daily since the late 90s but maybe it's run its course now and the time has come to move on. So sad.
My take on GMO's is not that they are inherently evil, but that the behavior of not telling customers is fundamentally immoral. I have a right to know wtf I am buying and ingesting. I don't go to the store and buy a bag of apples. I buy a bag of Golden Delicious, or Granny Smith, or some other breed. If my corn has genetic material from peanuts in it, I want to know since I have a son with an anaphylactic allergy. I KNOW that it doesn't necessarily mean that it would be unsafe, but the seller does NOT have the right NOT to tell me. I have the right to make that decision, not Monsanto.
Furthermore, while Monsanto's crops definitely can provide a benefit to farmers, their business practices go beyond immoral, it is truly evil. I have a right to know whether or not I am perpetuating their crimes against small farms, but currently I don't have that option.
It's not GMO's or hybrids or any of that that are the issue, it is the lack of disclosure. And for companies to say "Well people might not buy or product if it was labeled", to that I say tough f... s.... Funny how they are only fans of the "free market" when it works in their favor.
Stop throwing in these dampening facts, we're trying to wax rhetorical here!
Dammit, where's my no-mow lawn? We can make poisonous cyanide grass, but we can't make no-mow lawn?
Oh well, I might as well buy the cyanide grass to poison the neighbor's pets. Any possibility of some variety that will produce cyanide in response to poop?
I buy a bag of Golden Delicious, or Granny Smith, or some other breed.
That is probably the worst example to use. A lot of the apples you eat are actually bud sports. Basically, when a bud develops, sometimes there is a mutation in the cells that the bud originates from, resulting in a mutated branch. sometimes these have desirable properties, and are cultivated, but go labeled as the original cultivar, for example, that Golden Delicious might actually be a Gibson Golden Delicious, and you'd never know because they aren't labeled. You didn't even know that bud sports were a thing until just now I'd bet. Of course, you don't know if your peaches are Flamin' Fur or Redhaven, or if your blueberries are Patriot or Bluecrop, or if your raspberries are Meeker or Heritage, or the variety of the vast majority of your vegetables, so what strain of apple you're getting is hardly the only thing you are not being told in the produce isle.
If my corn has genetic material from peanuts in it, I want to know since I have a son with an anaphylactic allergy.
Fortunately no proteins put into crops via genetic engineering are unsafe (nor are they from peanuts), so that is not even an issue.
I KNOW that it doesn't necessarily mean that it would be unsafe, but the seller does NOT have the right NOT to tell me.
What if I told you that the pathogenesis related proteins in plants may provoke allergic reactions, and that we have been, through breeding, increasing them in crops to get better disease resistance? Does the seller have the obligation to tell you that too? The problem with your argument is that there is a lot of things we do to crops, and that genetic engineering is actually only pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Thousands of genes get shuffled around while only a few well understood ones are inserted. To focus on the inserted few and ignore the rest is neither consistent nor rational.
I have the right to make that decision, not Monsanto.
I agree that you have the right to do as you will, but so do the food producers, and if you do not believe they are telling you enough, don't buy their food. Simple as that. If you wish to avoid GE crops, either eat organic, or avoid tings with corn, soy, canola, cotton, alfalfa, sugar beet, summer squash, and papaya in them (as those are the only crops currently genetically engineered).
while Monsanto's crops definitely can provide a benefit to farmers, their business practices go beyond immoral, it is truly evil
And I find reports of their evil to range from overblown to downright made up. When you look into what it is they do, sometimes its dickish, and in cases in the past (usually relating to their chemical manufacturing) it is pretty evil, but most cases today involving their crops, usually the person they are suing was in the wrong and everyone knew it. But stories like that don't sell was well as 'Evil corporation sues little guy for the heck of it'
I have a right to know whether or not I am perpetuating their crimes against small farms, but currently I don't have that option.
I'd like to know if my produce was picked by migrant workers being paid unfair wages living in exploitative conditions. I consider that pretty evil. At the same time, because it isn't something that affect the end product, I cannot support mandatory labeling for such things.
It's not GMO's or hybrids or any of that that are the issue, it is the lack of disclosure
Baloney. No one labels induced polyploidy or mutagenesis or wide crosses or embryo rescue or anything else, yet no one acts as if they are problems for not being labeled. the problem is not lack of disclosure, it is fearmongers who act as if that is something sinister and people who do not
It's not hybridization gone wrong. And the grass didn't START producing cyanide.
It's a perfect example of natural selection.
In an extreme event where over 90% of the grass population died, the survivors had some trait that helped them survive.
In this case, some the grass with more cyanide survived- probably a little less insect predation gave the grass a survival edge under the harsh conditions. Now all the descendents of that grass have the trait of increased cyanide.
Elsewhere, some of the grass probably survived due to better water handling traits. They should check for that because it will be useful.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Really pretty shoddy journalism - we're wrong. Issue a small footnote correction. This is the web. Change it. Makes me think of Brasseye.
So? Monsanto's first response to objections to their crops it that "they're no different than conventional selectively bred plants".
BT Cotton linked to a death of an Indian farmer every 30 minutes.
A few monsanto nightmares.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july122011/india-monsanto-beaten-tk.php
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/05/05/Could-Monsanto-Be-Responsible-for-One-Indian-Farmers-Death-Every-Thirty-Minutes.aspx
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-Av6dx9yNiCA/monsanto_indian_farmer_suicide/
DNA is a one way trip.
No wonder these people like monsanto, and the nuclear industry want their secrecy.
Us? Our secrets, not so important.
In fact they spy cause they are scared we find out they are fucking trying to kill us.
That's the only state secret left.
We are only being polite about this discussion, while our officials keep doing the wrong thing, at this segment of time. But like the mafia, they will go down
Having familiarity with this area of Texas Triglochin maritima (arrow grass), , Sorghum spp (Johnson grass, Sudan grass), Hoecus lunatus (velvet grass) Linum spp (flax). are the most likely culprits, as this is a pasture and hay producing field,and THOSE GRASSES WOULD BE PREVALENT THERE. Johnsongrass is a big problem after first hard freeze in fall, but not a problem in late May. It would be really interesting to know if the cyanide compound was in, or on the grasses in question.
Unfortunately Fukushima wasn't designed to survive a fairly unlikely but powerful tsunami, and it turned out that the regulators in charge of making sure it was safe knew that and didn't do anything, and there was already a history of safety failures within the Japanese nuclear industry being covered up. Nuclear power's a brilliant technology but in practice there doesn't seem to any way of operating it safely given human nature and the way politics works.
OK, if that use of GMO is foolish, then GMO has NO FRIGGING MEANING. Since evolution is undergoing, mutating the genes of species and even life processes themselves modify the genes in an individual organism, then GMO HAS NO FRIGGING MEANING because it doesn't define anything.
What word would YOU use for "directly engineering an artifical genetic modification in plants or animals"? We have one for "artificial breeding selection to combine genetic traits through natural processes": hybridisation. So what is the "GMO" that isn't hybridisation called?
Or are you just an ignorant arsehole who hates people because you hate their reasons for actions?
Like a number of other plants, Bermuda grass produces cyanide when stressed. Under extreme stress (as in a drought) it can produce lethal quantities. See Animal Health and many others.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
monsanto is simply refining a gm grass that will kill cattle at the appropriate time, thus sparing them ugly scenes at the slaughterhouse.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are trying to determine if an unexpected mutation in a popular GM grass, Tifton 85, is responsible for the sudden deaths of a small herd of cattle in Elgin, Texas three weeks ago.
So they don't know if that's what killed the cows yet?
the grass started producing cyanide in sufficient quantities to kill a small herd of cattle in Elgin, Texas.
The way this second bit is written implies that it definitely was the grass's fault. Or do they only know that it did produce enough cyanide but haven't been able to confirm that that's what killed the cows?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Don't smoke this grass.
"I'm thinking Tifton!"
I would argue that we are still screwing with nature and creating something that wouldn't have otherwise occurred naturally.
Poisonous plants exist in nature. There are all kinds of plants cows will eat that will kill them. Here is a long list of plants that can kill a goat. http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/goatlist.html
Glad the incident that is destined to change sane, sober, science loving and technologically progressive individuals away from the perception that GM is generally safe to the perception that it's safety cannot be reliably established involved cattle and not people.
I know I am one such person.
Switching sides in three, two, one.. .... now!
Is Big Brother watching? Why the 'correction' that this is NOT a GM modified but a 'conventionally bred hybrid' ?!?
Bad idea, slashdot to leave a bogus title like this on your website.
Well, good thing it's rare. I've got a friend in Elgin with a herd of 20 - 30 sheep, which provide her livelihood. Poison grass would be a rather bad thing for her.
"The plural of anecdote is not data" -- Bruce Schneier
Or, you know, the Japanese could just spec in new reactor that's built to withstand a stronger quake / tsunami. Kind of like New Orleans, which was only protected up to level 3, and it needed a level 5 to survive Katrina.
But yes, the cover-up at Fukushima is reprehensible, and on the same level of the Western media declaring the end of the world during the same time. It's make it difficult to defend a highly useful technology in discussions like these when I'm forced to factor in human nature.
I am John Hurt.