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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."
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.
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.'
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.
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
Lets hope Monsanto can quickly genetically engineer this dangerous hybrid grass to something safer before it destroys the world!!
Realistically though, their business model would be more likely to come up with cyanide resistant cows as a more marketable solution...
--Tifton 85 is a conventionally bred grass.
-Monsanto's team of hired spin doctors are working some overtime this weekend.
How is correcting a major factual mistake in a story "spinning" anything?
GM, in effect, is this process on steroids. - "BUT IT'S NOT ACTUALLY GM!!!!111" exit is just grasping for straws.
What about the "lots of naturally occurring grasses do this, it just doesn't make the news" argument?
Damn. I was just pulling my pitchfork and torch out of the shed.
That right there sums up the problem with the GMO debate (well, one of them). Caring about the process, not the product. You can bet your ass that none of the anti-GMO groups out there are going to see this and other problems that have arisen from breeding (like the Lenape potato and high psoralens celery) are going to take this story and call for more stringent research of conventionally bred crops where heaven only known how many genetic changes may be happening. No one is going to say that breeding is unpredictable with dangerous results,or that is should be labeled, or that it should be banned until the precautionary principle proves a negative, or anything else people say about GMOs, but if this really were the product of biotechnology, you know damned well that is exactly what they, and many others, would be saying.
Actually, it can and has produced roundup resistant plants, both through deliberate breeding programs and through basic natural selection in the fields.
GM can do things that wouldn't happen in nature and it can be a problem. That just isn't an example of it.
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.
I'd say GM is less likely to cause such things. Why?
Well, when you hybridize you're "patching in" shitloads of other genes in an attempt to get the trait you want. GM is much more targeted, therefore much less chances of something you didn't want coming over.
Of course, in both cases you'll still have the problems that might come up because of a lack of understanding in the trait you are after. If a gene that makes wheat grow faster makes it build up toxins, it doesn't really matter how you got the trait in there, because it's the trait itself that is at fault!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
OK, You tell me the procedure for mating a cucumber with a salmon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer
Virus infects salmon, new virus being produced ends up incorporating part of salmon DNA, virus gets passed to cucumber, virus inserts salmon DNA into cucumber and it ends up incorporated into it's genome, new offspring has genetic material from both cucumber and salmon. In practice, there may have to be a number of intermediaries there, but that's the idea, and it's 100% natural, and has happened numerous times before, and the results of such can be seen in the DNA of a number of living things.