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Synthetic Chromosomes Successfully Integrated Into Brewer's Yeast
New submitter dunnomattic writes: "Researchers at New York University School of Medicine have achieved a milestone in synthetic biology. A fully synthetic yeast chromosome, dubbed 'synIII,' has successfully replaced chromosome 3 of multiple living yeast cells. The researchers pieced together over 250,000 nucleotide bases to accomplish this feat. Dr. Jef Boeke, the lead author of the study, says, 'not only can we make designer changes on a computer, but we can make hundreds of changes through a chromosome and we can put that chromosome into yeast and have a yeast that looks, smells and behaves like a regular yeast, but this yeast is endowed with special properties that normal yeasts don't have.' Work is underway (abstract) to synthesize the remaining 15 chromosomes."
(Yes I do realize that first link is The Onion but its funny because its basically true)
I don't particularly have ill feelings toward genetic engineering, in fact I believe it can be a good thing, but what I do care about is the profiteering of it that Monsanto has used to hold everyone hostage, though that is more of a symptom of the broken legal system than anything.
Monsanto has achieved a monopoly status by using the legal system to patent their modifications and then they sell those patented GMO plants that are (supposedly) only immune to Monsanto pesticides and then they go around and sue everyone bankrupt for using unlicensed Monsanto technology because nature did its thing and cross pollinated with some nearby farmer's crops. Monsanto's exploitation of nature to achieve a monopoly is so bad that some countries have completely banned Monsanto and its products. At this point it surprises me Monsanto doesn't have a protection racket going on where you can buy a "subscription" to GMO products that might happen to pollinate with your old fashioned non-GMO plants.
Oh and I'll just throw it out there that Monsanto were the ones who developed and peddled Agent Orange to the U.S. Government as a cure all for jungle warfare back in the day.
Or, Montsanto will, besides owning the entire food business, also own the entire alcoholic drink business as well.
Welcome to the new world - where the only thing you can have is specially filtered water. After all, a plain glass of tap or bottled may have Monstanto yeast in it, and you'll need to license that bottle if you want to drink it.
Co-evolution only looks "co" on very large timescales; every new trick our immune systems have come up with has been in response to something a pathogen already came up with. Sure, there always can (and will) be new plagues, whether the victims are trees or people. I just think they're a whole lot more likely to come from the nigh-uncountable number of random "experiments" taking place in the wild than they are from anything done in a lab.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
All yeast dies off from alcohol at some level. If this is a serious commercial adjustment to the organism then I would be working on increasing alcohol tolerance.
I would be wanting to make it make a biofuel better than alcohol. If you're gonna think about gene-tampering, think big.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's not a perfect analogy, but German and Belgian beers are a good example of what you can do with narrow and open views on ingredients, respectively. The Germans were limited by the Reinheitsgebot to what they could use in their beers, and they produce a relatively narrow range of lagers which are, in my opinion, unspectacular. In contrast, the Belgians use a much wider range of ingredients and adjuncts. They produce what are widely considered some of the finest beers in the world, and they have a much wider range of styles.