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Genetically Modified Plants To Produce Natural Lighting
kkleiner writes "A team has launched a crowdsourcing campaign to develop sustainable natural lighting by using a genetically modified version of the flowering plant Arabidopsis. Using the luciferase gene, the enzyme responsible for making fireflies glow, the researchers will design, print, and transform the genes into the target plant. The project, which was recently launched on Kickstarter, has already raised over $100k with over a month left to go."
They need to do this to mosquitoes, let the modification spread around several generations and make a better world ...
Just kidding. Here's the Kickstarter Link.
While I think this is pretty cool and all (Avatar anyone?), once people get a hold of the fact that the enzyme is called 'Luciferase', things could get rather warm for the company (at least in the US).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Energy will come from sun, so the idea is basically to store it as ATP and/or glucose, and release it as light using luciferase. Is it efficient? More efficient than solar cell/battery/LED? At least it has a point: this energy storage system will need no rare element, and it will be disposable without generating any solution.
this project does not show any calculations as of where the plants should aquire enough energy to give enough light when needed. to get 1000 lumen from a source, one has to generate enough photons first. also the heat produced goes where? is it not harmful to the plants? nobody yet has evaluated or tested what goes on exactly when you have a plant producing light and also consuming it at the same time. ... and we also do not know how our bodies like the firefly luciferase when consumed - any firefly eating people around to enlighten us?
I'd have a glowing plant night-light as that's all I could see glowing plants useful for. Things like road-side markers, very low intensity lighting etc... I doubt you could use it for reading or finding your way around in the dark.
Build a man a fire and you warm him for a day. Set a man on fire and you warm him for the rest of his life.
Genome Compiler is a nice tool, but the luciferase gene is since long available to molecular biology and can be just put in the right vector for expressing it in the plants... why making everything more complicated? or do the authors just want to buy the fancy genome complier software for something else? ;)
It brings light. It's a very deliberate and literal biblical reference. :)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
No, you had it right the first time...
I like the project, but I'm skeptical of the whole regulatory problem, which as they mention is more difficult than the science.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Why the hell would they start with a Brassica? The entire genus sucks for this purpose, with scraggly stems having few, small leaves - aka "low surface area" for emitting light.
You want a good plant to turn into a night-light? Go for something like a Chlorophytum, aka the Spider Plant. Lots of surface area, grows fast, impossible to kill (My cats chew one of mine back to the dirt every few weeks, and for three years that thing still keeps trying to come back)...
Instead, they want to modify something slow growing, annual, and "sparse" in the foliage sense? Why bother?
You sound like an idiot.
Crafty. I'm certain there's a Water Boy joke in there somewhere, but I'm taking the high ground here Annakin: the "light bearer" gene shows interesting promise. On the speculative side, do you suppose there are fewer babies named Lucifer or Adolf?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I think that obtaining seeds from these specimens won't be hard in the long run - the Mustard Family is known for being a proliferate group.
I would expect in 2 years after completion, you'll be able to get them on Ebay for $1/100 seeds.
Within 4 years, they'll be sold in every garden store in the US.
Within 10, considered an "invasive plant" across North America.
Within 25, it'll be hard to find a mustard family plant in populated regions of North America that *doesn't* share some "glowing plant" genes.
Within 50, it'll seem weird to get greens at the grocery store that don't glow in the dark.
glowsticks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glow_stick have no luciferase inside, sorry. most of them are actually very much void of proteins.
Surprisingly, there's a "Morningstar Christian Bookstore" near where I go for "big-city" shopping.
They've been there a while, so probably nobody knows/cares.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Say goodbye to Earthbound astronomy.
In other news, Plants vs. Zombies 2: Plants are Zombies, is scheduled for release at the end of the year.
So I go on vacation for a few weeks and when I get home my lights don't work anymore? How much energy will go into watering, fertilizing, weeding, etc.? How many holes will I have to poke in my home's insulation to let in enough daylight to sustain and "charge" the plants? We typically use 4 times as much energy for heating and cooling than we do for lighting. This sounds like a fun hobby, but ultimately a net energy waster. It could be useful for landscaping and marking runways.
Sounds like they're just selling you something that's already been done instead of doing research and development.
These bastards are going to eventually kill the human race. GMO corn, wheat, canola, etc...is already in the food supply. Go to google and type in "gmo tumors" or "gmo infertility" to research for yourself.
Yup, I sure did. In all the whack-a-doodle sites, it was ZOMG You eat this shit and ye shal surely DIE. DIE a Horrible Tumor infested death!
Oh...... Wait..... CRIIGEN, an organization devoted to lobbying against GMOs Guaranteed to be honest and report only the truth.
Oh...... Wait...... The "researchers" Joel de Vendomois, is a homeopath, Seralini is the other scientist.
Yup, Homeopathy, that's the ticket.
By golly, this is sounding a lot like the anti-vaccine crowd, first degree murderers in my book.
Especially fun is that the Rats that they fed the fucking roundup pesticide live longer than any of the other rats.
Why don't you take up something with more credibility - like creation science.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
How do you control this thing? Normal lights running off electricity can be turned on and shut off with a power switch. If you are going to engineer a whole plant to be a light source, what mechanism will you use to activate and deactivate the enzymatic process? One that is cheap, reliable, and convenient? Always on may be convenient in certain situations, but still wouldn't you want a way to control it? One can well imagine this kind of think wreaking havoc for astronomers (both amateur and professional) who have always fought tough battles against light pollution of the night sky. This can become a nightmare if such plants start growing near prime observation locations.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
Your name (or anything under 30 characters) will be written, in DNA, into the glowing plant genome!!
Just imagine if it was your name that caused the plant to produce an airborne toxin that caused the end of the world. (I'd blame my parents.)
If one were to eat such a plant, would that person eventually begin glowing?
hey!
what would Ron Finley http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la.html make out of these plants (assuming they somehow produce enough light when needed)?
I like Sheldon Cooper's idea better.
Aren't they worried the pollen will drift and crossbreed with our all natural compact flourescents?
And they're doing it with mustard plants, Mandrake! Mustard for childrens hot dogs!
once people get a hold of the fact that the enzyme is called 'Luciferase', things could get rather warm for the company (at least in the US)
We could simply rename the enzyme.
I'm sure something like 'Obamase' would solve the problem.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
kickstarters to sponsor marketing of the product of their company? wow, these guys are smart!
Boring!
once people get a hold of the fact that the enzyme is called 'Luciferase', things could get rather warm for the company (at least in the US)
We could simply rename the enzyme. I'm sure something like 'Obamase' would solve the problem.
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Could we rename the enzyme? Yes we can.
Thank you, and I'm not even an American...
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
I don't think that means what they think it means.
Seeds will be shipped within the USA only!
Way to make it a global initiative..
Early prototypes take way too long to turn on , and can only be turned off once.
What's to know? What's the issue with it?
Learn to love Alaska
We could simply rename the enzyme.
Hey, it worked for Rapeseed oil: when they cultivated it, they renamed it Canola oil.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Did some work with a couple of species of Arabdopsis last summer. The lab sequenced one of genes that the plant uses for glycolysis and compared it across several different species as part of a phylogenetic study. It was a joint effort between our lab and a lady in South Africa.
Go to google and type in "gmo tumors" or "gmo infertility" to research for yourself.
Wow. While I was at it, I googled "measles and autism" and "moon landing hoax."
After all, they can't put anything on the Internet if it isn't true.
How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!
Isaiah 14:12. The entire chapter is not very cheery, and could be read as a pronouncement against the Devil, a fallen angel.
Sounds like you read the Forbes article and are just repeating what they said.
Especially fun is that the Rats that they fed the fucking roundup pesticide live longer than any of the other rats.
Just because they didn't get cancer from drinking the pesticide doesn't mean the pesticide-resistant GMO crops are safe.
And that's really the problem with GMO, testing sucks. There are very few, if any, meaningful and rigorous tests. Lots of short term test and tons of grandfathering in genes because they came from other organisms where they were not a problem. But when it comes to comprehensive testing that could reassure the general population of the safety of GMO crops, there just isn't any.
Given the history we have with things like thalidomide, DDT, leaded gasoline, fen-phen, etc it is not unreasonable that people be genuinely concerned about GMO crops, especially given how widespread they've become with such little public notice. Dismissing those concerns as the equivalent of creation science is at least as bad as creationism itself because it is just another misplaced faith.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Everybody know already some plants could produce light, as seen on Plants versus Zombies. Then someone had a "bright" idea to bring that to real life.
Pfff. Old news ;)
So how do we turn the light off? Move the pot out of the room?
I'm hungry!
Oops. Misread "lighting" as "lightning" in the grant proposal. Nice new weapon system though. Little hard to control...
The name is derived from Lucifer, the root of which means 'light-bearer' (lucem ferre).
If the plant is genetically engineered, can it still be called natural?
Is testing of non-GMO crops better?
The big problem with pesticide resistant crops isn't that the are genetically modified, it is that they use a ton of pesticide on them. The people eating them get more pesticide in their system. Pesticide is not something you want to eat.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
It's impossible to "reassure the general population". See the anti-vaccine movement for proof of this. The general population will, in general, believe FUD. But Slashdot doesn't have to.
Given the history we have with things like thalidomide, DDT, leaded gasoline, fen-phen, etc it is not unreasonable that people be genuinely concerned about GMO crops, especially given how widespread they've become with such little public notice.
How widespread do they have to be, and for how long, before we stop hearing non-specific FUD about them?
And why are we talking about "GMO crops" instead of a specific GMO plant? Which one is the evil one? What did it do wrong? Why are all the other GMO plants guilty by association?
Especially fun is that the Rats that they fed the fucking roundup pesticide live longer than any of the other rats.
Just because they didn't get cancer from drinking the pesticide doesn't mean the pesticide-resistant GMO crops are safe.
Roundup is an herbicide, not a pesticide. While I wouldn't go drinking a shot of the stuff, it's pretty safe to people in the grand scheme of things.
----- - The beatings will continue until morale improves
Now my wife will be jabbing me in the ribs telling me to get up and turn off the plant.
Where's that darn switch..?
So Satan lives on Venus? I've never heard that passage before, and didn't realize that "morning star" was used as a nickname for Satan.
Learn to love Alaska
Lucifer, the Light-Bringer, the Morning Star, also known as The Fallen One, Satan, and the Devil.
anyone in the Sunnyvale, CA area can meet up with the team at the Bioluminesence Community meetups at BioCurious
Curious .. yes. Bio Curious? Not sure, but I must admit to being cautious about attending.
Originally it was a nickname for the king of Babylon, one of Israel's enemies. But the passage was reinterpreted long afterward to refer to Satan.
And that's really the problem with GMO, testing sucks.
Not true.
Lots of short term test and tons of grandfathering in genes because they came from other organisms where they were not a problem.
What are you talking about? They didn't 'grandfather in' any of the genes inserted into crops. The genes are the various cry genes from Bt, the C4 EPSPS from Agrobacterium, the pat gene from Streptomyces hygroscopicus, the cspB gene and the NptII gene from E.coli, and the genes for coat proteins from papaya ringspot virus and cucumber moasic virus. Although I can find no cause for concern among those genes, I don't recall any grandfathering going on during the deregulation process. You are misinformed. At best you could argue that the herbicide applied to some GE crops is dangerous, but contrary to some very poor papers that attempted to make that case, that is not the case and ignores both modern weed management (surprise! It's more complected than simple talking points make it out to be) and the properties of those herbicides. And even if it were the case it would still say nothing of the rest of the GE crops.
But when it comes to comprehensive testing that could reassure the general population of the safety of GMO crops, there just isn't any.
No amount of testing is going to stop hard core denialists from spreading fear among the public. There's plenty of proof that vaccines are safe, that climate change is happening, and that evolution is real, yet those topics are still controversial. Genetic engineering is just one of those topics, unfortunately. Stuff like this is easily dismissed as part of the giant Monsanto conspiracy that controls everyone who doesn't say GE crops are poison.
Given the history we have with things like thalidomide, DDT, leaded gasoline, fen-phen, etc it is not unreasonable that people be genuinely concerned about GMO crops
And the based, emotion, belief, and politics driven bullshit doesn't help any either.
especially given how widespread they've become with such little public notice
Silly measurement. Did you know that the last apple you ate was probably a bud sport? Do you know what that is? I rest my case.
Dismissing those concerns as the equivalent of creation science is at least as bad as creationism itself because it is just another misplaced faith.
No, giving into baseless nonsense is what is bad. Do you have evidence suggesting that GE crops are, in any way, bad for you, or do you just have the same appeals to ignorance and fallacious tactics everyone else opposing scientific consensus has?
So the fuss would be in the name of the enzyme responsible for the light?
Reminds me of what happened in a small fishing town near where I was raised. "Mud-fish", a bottom feeder/scavenger fish very plentiful around the docks, had a bad name, so the local restauranteurs renamed it to "Sun Fish", put it on the menu, and it sold like hotcakes to tourists. The locals still would not eat it, but tourists loved it. Three cheers for the local restaurant critic - people will eat damn near anything they read about in some review.
It's impossible to "reassure the general population". See the anti-vaccine movement for proof of this.
Well, as long as there is a pre-determined outcome, there is no point in trying, right?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Adding the Luciferase gene is fine and dandy. But to get the plant to glow, it also has to produce the appropriate luciferin. The photo they use of a glowing tobacco plant was produced by watering the tobacco with luciferin solution and then using a very long exposure. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glowing_tobacco_plant.jpg)
That said, the luciferin found in dinoflagelates is derived from chlorophyll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luciferin) and it is conceptually possible to introduce the relevant algae genes into their plant... once the genes have been identified. This sort of metabolic engineering is a MUCH bigger task than the Kickstarter campaign people are planning for.
The energetic difficulty could be worked around by making the plant into a biological capacitor... where it builds up luciferin all day and then discharges in a flash at night. The plants wouldn't be of any use in landscape lightly, but they would be a really cool landscape feature. The downside is they might drive any local fireflies insane.
Produce glowing wankers and tits, and profits will shoot sky high
Table-ized A.I.
What are you talking about? They didn't 'grandfather in' any of the genes inserted into crops.
I'm talking about the concept of "substantial equivalence" which presumes that genetic modification is equivalent to selective breeding and thus any significant testing is unnecessary. Even when there is no way one could selectively breed a gene across species the way GM engineering transplants them.
Safety testing is at best limited to comparing changes in the level of certain chemicals that already exist in the original version of the plant with no requirement to look for new substances in the new plant.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-26/news/mn-144_1_genetic-engineering
While I am sure there are some anecdotal tests that go above and beyond the level of treating genetic modification as selective breeding, the fact that the minimum requirements are basically non-existent is the issue of concern.
My personal experience with "substantial equivalence" is in the software world where many government defense contracts use it as an out to avoid rigorous testing of patches and point-releases but still retain various levels of certification. It only works through sheer luck in that world, I don't expect it to work any better with GM foods.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I gotta get my beauty sleep!
I'm going to start modifying everything I can think of and releasing it into the wild. I want rice that grows like a weed but that has almost no nutritional value, potatoes that start to rot after being dug up as soon as possible, and my favorite - a variety of food products that are highly susceptible to Round Up but that have no shutdowns on their seeds. Without any labeling requirements, we can go hog-wild with this stuff! Just for fun, I want raccoons to have poisonous bites and a strain of crows with increased aggressiveness just to see if they can start to dominate and proliferate. If anyone thinks this might be a problem, they're welcome to lobby for some regulation against rampant unchecked GM... oh wait... too late! :D
You can run a kickstarter for genetic engineering now? Well why the HELL don't we have anime cat girls yet, then?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You don't get out much, do you?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Worked in the other direction as well. People would never have stood for illegalizing such a common and useful plant as hemp. Rename it as marijuana and demonize it and no problem illegalizing one of the most useful plants on the planet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The name is derived from Lucifer, the root of which means 'light-bearer' (lucem ferre).
Wait... So, God allegedly says "Let there be light", and it's Satan that makes the Sun? The single most important object of this corner of the Universe? Not just one of them, but he's apparently done such a good job of the "light bringing" that there are billions upon billions of suns to chose from -- variety being the spice of life, and all that. Yeah, I'd be pissed at my boss too if he ignored the beauty of that master piece and instead went all gushy over a bunch of insignificant ungrateful chemical reactions on a single wet rock; That's like giving the GUI designer praise for a stable kernel and file system. Oh, hey, I know, Let's cast the insubordinate angel down into the thing he hates most -- Nevermind him having the power to create Stars, all of 'em -- instead of oh, I don't know, giving him his own different wet rock and saying, "Well if you're so damn smart then let's see YOU make some life"; No, the prickish boss of the Universe wouldn't want to give anyone else the chance to outshine them, eh?
Seems to me Satan's just under appreciated, and the fact the world still exists would point to a god-like degree of restraint or at least pity for said mentally midgetized primates -- I mean, it's not their fault they exist. I can't fault the guy for tripping up the little hairless apes whenever the opportunity presents itself to point out just how fickle and stupid they are -- I mean, what the fuck else did God expect to happen? Seems a bit of a dumb thing to do, IMO, unless you WANT the humans to wind up on the short end of the morality stick.
Well, I guess you can't blame the writers since they hadn't invented the terms "plot hole" or "antagonist sympathy" yet and thus had to rely on the oldest plot-hook in the book, "irrational demonization". No wonder new UFO religions are springing up; I mean, if there's a market for origin stories this bad then ANYONE could weave a more believable tale and make a fortune.
How many of you immediately thought of Slaver Sunflowers?
(Ref: Larry Niven "Known Space" series. If you haven't read it, do...)
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
First toughts about this, was that this genius plant was in old comic book I had back in the day, where Donald Duck founded Island full of plants that give light and heat. Problem with this plant was, that as soon as season changes, it give exact opposite reaction to summer season. Probably not the problem for scienctists, but still-gene engineering is where you can really mess things.
BTW why should this gene be familiar with satans old name?
How do you turn it off before you go to bed?
+1 biblical
am i the only one here watching non-nerdish office comedies? this to me seems to be direct copy of idea here http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1479423/ where phil and lam try to use this same idea to put firefly genes into plants (only side effect being the squirrel eating those plants died as she cannot sleep in that light)
everyone downmodding this post will be prosecuted for reading my post without first buying a license!!!
And people complain when someone asks for donations for an art project...
There are a billion nicknames for Satan, many of them relics of times when people thought names had power and feared that to use his name would summon him or invite unwelcome attention. Actually, it would not surprise me if I found that a sizeable chunk of the US population still believe this crap.
just saying ...
AKA Pixie McSnuffeluffagus for what it's worth. Anyone having a problem with the company over this needs to be dragged out into the street by their nostrils and beaten with an einstein-shaped dildo until they see the light.
Self-powered Christmas Trees.. http://gmbiotech.com/current.htm
So, God allegedly says "Let there be light", and it's Satan that makes the Sun?
The cornerstone of effective management is delegation.
Why should you do what you can assign to a lackey?
Could some of the more rebellious elements be persuaded to send some of the plant seeds to Europe?
Surprisingly, there's a "Morningstar Christian Bookstore" near where I go for "big-city" shopping.
I'll stick with their newspaper thank you very much
Well, you see, obviously God forgot to tell Lucifer when to stop...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
You don't get out much, do you?
It might be too late and the alternative might have too many syllables, but there is at least on other word for the action called rape: Violation.
It doesn't work in the other direction as canola oil can be mustard oil or rape oil. Not to mention that canola is a person of the irish mythology. In other languages the word for the plant is similar, but can't be mistaken for the action as it stems from the translations of violation.
And next up, GMO security guard trees which moo loudly when strangers pass.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
It gets better.
Satan "lives" in hell a place of infinite burning. Guess what the stars are? Satan Gets earth, well one day the sun will go nova and torch the earth .
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Wow, really? We still call it rapeseed in the UK!
It's been called colza oil for quite a while, as well.
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
This seems to be more of a publicity stunt for Cambrian Genomics and their "genome compiler" than anything else. The idea of using biological light sources has been around a long time, and it's starting to get practical.
As for this particular project, since they are just repeating a standard lab procedure (introducing luciferase), they can't really fail, and in the worst case, they can just tweak the system a bit using traditional techniques.
You over-estimate the intelligence and reasoning ability of over half of the United States population. Once the word "lucifer-anything" is heard, millions of brains will switch off.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Why?
While I think this is pretty cool and all (Avatar anyone?), once people get a hold of the fact that the enzyme is called 'Luciferase', things could get rather warm for the company (at least in the US).
It seems to me that they are just trying to recreate the holy burning bush. Maybe it's proof that this kickstarter project will succeed and that we will also discover time travel. All the implications in this thread that the holy burning bush was the work of Satan certainly put this whole religious narrative into a new light too.
That would mostly be glyphosate, which is definitely the least bad pesticide to eat. If the glyphosate- resistant crops have less of other pesticides on them because glyphosate is used in stead, they are probably more healthy.
Wait... So, God allegedly says "Let there be light", and it's Satan that makes the Sun?
No, before you launch into a long post... to late I guess.
"Lucifer" is an old name for the morning star (Venus). When Isaiah speaks of how Lucifer has fallen from heaven, he referred to a Babylonian king who was nicknamed or identified with the morning star. Although it etymologically can be read as light-bringer, the conflation with the myth of Prometheus is a much, much later invention.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Wouldn't it be cool if some of the "junk DNA" we see in modern living things contained names or messages from some advanced prehistoric race which genetically manipulated life on earth?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
To answer your question:
"Avatar anyone?"
Nope. Not me.
I think that the Luciferase gene has to have the greatest name ever in biology!
USA only, because nobody would ever think of posting some to a friend in another country / plant seeds won't ever blow across a national border without checking in with customs officials first of all?
Are the plants sterile, or are we going to find them gradually spreading in the wild?
I like the idea very much, BUT luciferase is not enough, the plant should also produce luciferin (the substrate for luciferase) at the same time. As far as I know, no plant ever produced light by itself via luciferase. I have to spray luciferin on them to make them make any light (which is really expensive stuff!!!). And then I need a supersensitive camera (photon counting, cooled to -70C) to actually "see" any light...
Hope they have some brilliant idea to get around these problems....
GOOD LUCK!
SATAN!!! :-o
Are all atheist as stupid as you? Really, I read the criticisms of God and they're all as shallow as this. Research before you comment. "Light Bearer" is not the same as light creator.
It's just a ignorant as me saying that Jonas Salk was incompetent because shots hurt. How short sight Salk was!
I always thought "Devil Rays" was a pretty cool name for a Gulf-coast baseball team.
Too bad there's too many religidiots that don't know that's a real fish.
We could simply rename the enzyme.
Hey, it worked for Rapeseed oil: when they cultivated it, they renamed it Canola oil.
Rename Luciferase to Canada-eh's?
Pesticide is not something you want to eat.
Why?
Unless accelerating death is your goal, in general, it is not recommended to ingest substances that kill living organisms.
I definitely read that as "lightning", I was going to be impressed if a plant could generate that much electricity! When I saw the reference to a firefly part of me was like "Well, they ARE called lightning bugs!" and then I caught on. Come on coffee, work!
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
Given the history we have with things like thalidomide, DDT, leaded gasoline, fen-phen, etc it is not unreasonable that people be genuinely concerned about GMO crops...
You realize that you've cast a very wide net with your examples -- about forty years and a wide variety of applications and you have four examples? I'm sure there are more, but consider the vast amount of chemical engineering in that time period that has turned out to be entirely safe -- to say nothing of beneficial.
...given how widespread they've become with such little public notice.
It certainly seems like people have noticed.
Your percentage is way off. Way off. I know it's fun to have an elitist attitude, and feel like you're one of the enlightened few who will save the world, but the number of people who think Lucifer is a horned devil who loves foo-ball and looks rather like Fairuza Balk is small. For further study, see "misleading vividness".
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
forty years and a wide variety of applications and you have four examples?
What an utterly silly objection. By that same argument your list of precisely zero beneficial developments over the same forty years really shows just how little benefit has come from chemical engineering over the last 40 years...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
More bad news for you: GMO rennet is the most common variety for making cheese. Vegetable rennet is expensive an thus rare. The classic stuff is made from the stomachs of baby cows.
The GMO stuff is the cheapest and so it is in most cheese you will find.
Mmmm cheese, it GMOlicious!
Relax, while there are risks to everything, GMO risks like MSG risks have been blown out of proportion.
Another crowdsource fail if anybody thinks this will result in a viable product.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
How many of you immediately thought of Slaver Sunflowers?
(Ref: Larry Niven "Known Space" series. If you haven't read it, do...)
Holy crap, that takes me back. Those could be really useful for solar farms, if you could stop them from pointing at airborne objects on their own. OTOH, they make for a great "no fly" zone.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Originally it was a nickname for the king of Babylon, one of Israel's enemies. But the passage was reinterpreted long afterward to refer to Satan.
True, but good luck convincing your average US Christian of that. Most have grown up hearing "lucifer=satan" their entire lives.
And he wouldn't be the first to get conflated with Ol' Scratch - there's Old Nick, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub, Baal, Cerunnos, Baphomet, and a load of other old pagan gods that got demonized. (Interestingly, they either got demonized as the devil or canonized as saints.. go figure)
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Pro:tip . don't eat glowing plants
There are mushrooms that already are known to produce enough light to be a torch, naturally. Foxfire, faerie fire... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxfire They use liciferin, too, and its a constant light. No "charging" needed by UV light or otherwise outside of keeping the growth healthy.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
You over-estimate the intelligence and reasoning ability of over half of the United States population. Once the word "lucifer-anything" is heard, millions of brains will switch off.
Kind of like the phrase genetically modified.
I would want this done to my penis... I will call it Zeus!
What's wrong with rape?
No matter how outwardly attractive your product line might be, if you advertise it under that name, I suspect you'll find most (if not all) potential customers will lose interest in having you plant your seed in their property.
(And of course, planting without consent is immoral, illegal, and could potentially lead to decades of financial liability if the seed takes root.)
I should add that some agricultural theorists, notably McKinnon and Dworkin, have argued that all traditional seed products are actually relabeled versions of the product you mention. It's a controversial position, but there's been some convincing evidence to that end, and I suggest studying the work of Monsanto for possible research examples.
You completely and totally misunderstand the concept. Substantial equivalence says that if a GE and non-GE plant are found to be the same functionally, they should be treated as such, and that the genetic fallacy has little merit (which, of course, is true). They still do millions in testing. Why do you think they haven't released the Actric apple or Aqua Advantage salmon, od dicamba resistant corn? Is Monsanto taking so long to release their new products out of the goodness of their own hearts? I don't tink so. Of course, even though no one has even proposed a plausible reason as to why genetic transformation would be fundamentally different from all the other genetic alternations humans make, the notion that genetic engineering and breeding are the same is ridiculous. One selects and inserts a single well characterized gene. The other randomly and haphazardly mixes thousands of genes and hopes to not make another toxic crop. Clearly, not the same.
Even when there is no way one could selectively breed a gene across species the way GM engineering transplants them
And that matters how? What, because one thing could happen naturally it is safer?
While I am sure there are some anecdotal tests that go above and beyond the level of treating genetic modification as selective breeding
If you completely ignore the massive amounts of testing that has been done all over the world. You are doing the same things anti-vaxxers do to spread their FUD.
Well, it's a coinage that's over a century old. (I found a 1908 paper that... ironically, debunks a long list of suspected cases of naturally-occurring luminous plants.) If you want something else to predict they'll get upset about, I highly recommend reading through here.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
And yet, I'll bet you still put black pepper chock full of insecticidal piperine on your potatoes. Thankfully, it is a bit more nuanced that you make it out to be, otherwise you would have to avoid everything because most pesticides arenaturally occurring.
Singularity University, looks legit!
Wait a minute, didn't I read about glowing trees back in the Simarillion? Seems like the Tolkien Estate can show prior art.
An illuminated bush? Didn't Moses come across one of those already? If I were a Christian of the conservative variety, I would be a bit upset about some crazy scientists trying to play God. As if those pretentious molecular biologist aren't arrogant enough stealing the name of such a shady character for something as beautiful as the warm soft glow of summer evening fireflies.
========== "Hello World" in my programming language of choice: ATG - LET THERE BE LIFE - TAG ==========
You completely and totally misunderstand the concept. Substantial equivalence says that if a GE and non-GE plant are found to be the same functionally, they should be treated as such,
Nope. Substantial equivalence only cares about functionality from the original genes sources not any unexpected side-effects that don't exist (or the company is ignorant of) in the original or the gene source.
They still do millions in testing. Why do you think they haven't released the Actric apple or Aqua Advantage salmon, od dicamba resistant corn?
Because the new stuff doesn't work as well they hoped.
Even when there is no way one could selectively breed a gene across species the way GM engineering transplants them
And that matters how? What, because one thing could happen naturally it is safer?
Because living organisms are complex systems - poking them in one area can cause unexpected results in other areas. Genes that occur naturally have had centuries to work out those kinks, transplanted genes have not.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Indeed, it is nuanced.
Still, given a choice, I don't eat lima beans.
Let's put this gene into every living thing. Think of how much energy we could save by not buying light bulbs. It will reduce global warming and save the planet. Besides, we know better than God what is best for the earth.
Oh, it will keep working in countries where evolution is just a theory.
Bert
This will only work if the people who don't believe in evolution choose, therefore, not to swat the glowing mosquitos. Otherwise, the genes for glowing will quickly be bred out of the population. I know a number of people who say that they believe in microevolution (survival of the fittest within a species), but who deny that a series of small changes can add up to macroevolution (a new species).