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Scientists Sequence Coffee Genome, Ponder Genetic Modification
nbauman sends word that researchers have completed a project to sequence the genome of Coffea canephora, a species of plant responsible for roughly 30% of the world's coffee production. In the course of their genetic mapping, the researchers "pinpointed genetic attributes that could help in the development of new coffee varieties better able to endure drought, disease and pests, with the added benefit of enhancing flavor and caffeine levels." They also discovered a broad range of genes that contribute to the production of flavor-related compounds and caffeine. Plant genomist Victor Albert said, "For any agricultural plant, having a genome is a prerequisite for any sort of high technology breeding or molecular modification. Without a genome, we couldn't do any real advanced research on coffee that would allow us to improve it — not in this day and age."
I don't drink coffee
Bring it on!
#o#
O Moo.
Add THC to the coffee bean, sell it at Starbucks. You'll make billions.
Without a genome, we couldn't do any real advanced research on coffee that would allow us to improve it — not in this day and age.
Is pure shite. It is called selective breeding, and it has been done for centuries. While that may not be advanced enough for you tastes, it works, and it improves plant varietals. You do not have to splice DNA to make improvements.
One day we may just go to far and drop like honeybees in a Monsanto cornfield.
Silence is a state of mime.
knowing the threat to our vital supply of hot black ichor was in peril, scientists of all fields have clearly exhibited a remarkable drive to solve this problem. Cancer, supercomputing, and most modern breakthrough technologies would have ground to a halt without some means of ensuring a steady supply of our dark glory bean. In honor of these brave scientists, I propose a toast of the finest coffee this mornings breakroom has to offer.
Good people go to bed earlier.
"This has genomes? LET'S MODIFY THEM!"
Did any geneticist stop to think maybe, just maybe, we don't need to genetically modify everything? I get it--it'll herp all the pestilence and derp all the starvation or whatever--but organizations like Monsanto have been modifying genetics for decades (often with quite the vicious approach to people whom legitimately question them) and we're likely the hungriest among rich nations. Sure seems like all that genetic modification cured every bit of starvation!
"Without a genome, we couldn't do any real advanced research on coffee that would allow us to improve it -- not in this day and age."
Because artificial selection of plants based on their expression of desirable characteristics has somehow become impossible?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
A potent skunk variety of coffee has been recently banned !! . Reports suggest the so called "lunar launcher" could be 20-40% more potent than regular coffee. Some states are pushing for a legislation to allow it for medical use.
_________________
what? it's morning already!!! zzz
Coming soon to a Monsantobucks near you!
Don't fuck with my coffee!!!
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
I was not familiar with the name coffea canephora so I looked it up. This is what I have heard in the past called coffea robusta. Maybe the name got changed to disguise what it is. A lot of people know what robusta coffee is. For those who don't know, robusta is considered an inferior species of coffee. Ever heard of coffees that say that they are 100% arabica? This is because just about everybody considers arabica to be superior to robusta. Robusta is used in blends because it is is very bitter. Robusta is more disease resistant and has higher crop yields than arabica, but I've never heard of it being used in concentrations of more than maybe 1o to 15% in blends. Usually the amount used is less than 10%. This is great, I guess, and I suppose if there were 100% robusta blends some crazy people would love it. Currently in the USA there's a big interest in making craft beers as bitter as possible. Those kind of people, who are in the minority, would probably love large robusta blends. But until they sequence and maybe talk about doing things to protect arabica from disease, this is mildly interesting and no more.
Coffee is already perfect. Mess with it at your peril.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Which pairs taste good?
A: adenosine
C: cytosine
G: guanine
T: thymine
Tastes better to who?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
For we many coffee snobs, changes to robusta beans won't affect us much, except for a few espresso blends. Until they genetically modify robusta to the equal of arabica, that is.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Make it so we can grow coffee in the midwest and we won't have to import it.
"help in the development of new coffee varieties better able to endure drought, disease and pests," Sounds a lot like Monsanto. GMO to fight against pests will certainly backfire at some point in the future. It sounds more like, let's do it because we can, and not because there's good reason.
Let's do it for science.
I don't drink that crap, only good stuff. Makes me wonder, who is paying for this agro research? Is it folgers or some other shitty brand?
Isolate out the caffiene genes, and start adding it to other plants. There are times I'm eating breakfast, and I'm thinking "Why am I only getting caffiene from the coffee? Buzz up them hashbrowns! Perk up that toast! If we can introduce it into animals, think about caffinated eggs, or butter, or cheese. We can finally jitter up the world.
I'm still bummed out that the "Grapple" isn't some genetic abomination created by a DNA scientist in a lab somewhere. The reality is far more boring. If these scientists wanted to do something truly horrific, they could engineer up a strain of coffee with no caffeine. That's like one step off of building a "Death Ray" and holding the world for hostage with it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I don't want anybody holding a patent on the coffee plant.
Until I see a government that's prepared to hold corporations accountable for misconduct, monopolistic and anti-competitive practices and general mopery, no, you don't get to have intellectual property protection on that genome you modified in the lab.
This is why we can't have nice things.
You are welcome on my lawn.
GMO FTW
This is more evidence of why we need a ban on GMOs. We don't need bubble gum flavored coffee or whatever crap they come up with, I like how my coffee tastes just fine. I like the bitterness that coffee can have its flavor profile as it is, the flavor of coffee is what makes coffee what it is. We don't need people telling us to drink less caffiene, if someone doesnt like the caffiene, drink decaf, or mix decaf and regular coffee to get the caffiene level that you want. No need for screwing up the coffee genome.
The fact is, GMOs are not safe, and its not the same as selective breeding. Selective breeding puts natural limits on reproduction since only the genes of two of the same species can be combined. There is a slower rate of change which limits the risk and the danger. Because GMO allows for changes that would not occur in regular selective breeding, the danger is greatly and vastly increased. Studies have shown that GMOs can cause liver and kidney damage and can cuase cancer. I know some of these studies were done by Greenpeace. So what. Do you expect the pharmacuetical corporations will be glad to carry out studies that show their own products kill people? Its much easier to see a profit motivation behind studies funded by pharmacuetical companies who have a profit motive, than a non-profit like Greenpeace which only has your welfare and the welfare of the environment in mind.
I disagree. Modify everything!
Make all plants and animals cube shaped too. It makes them stack neater.
Nature has already perfected coffee, just as nature has already perfected ALL of the foods we eat. No amount of genetic engineering can make food taste better than hundreds of thousands of years of co-evolution (between plant and animal). The notion is absurd. And no, selective breeding is NOT the same thing as genetic engineering.
Now perhaps genetic engineering can improve resistance to pests, but let me point out that most genetic engineering DOES NOT achieve pest-resistance by making the plant more resistant to the actual pest, but merely by making it more resistant to pesticide, so that they can smother it, thereby creating more profit for the chemical company.
Science isn't always on your side just because it's science.
The pest people are worried about is rust, which is killing off a lot of coffee trees and driving up the price of coffee.
Genetic modification is probably the only way to make decaffeinated coffee that's still tasty. Breeding for low caffeine content produces sickly, unproductive strains, and decaffeination ruins the taste. There's a huge market for decaffeinated coffee that tastes less bad:
http://www.economist.com/node/1858921
It's a problem. Snobby espresso shops usually refuse to even make decaf. Also decaffeinated coffee isn't really caffeine-free, so this could be improved. It's about 0.1x as much caffeine as regular coffee:
http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20061011/decaf-coffee-isnt-caffeine-free
Breeding methods probably won't do better than that, but proper genetic engineering might.
I realize you personally may like as much caffeine as possible in your coffee, but that doesn't mean there isn't a huge untapped market for better decaf.
This is a bunch of MBA's, and marketing wizards trying to create a niche coffee market using science! Hey. A new market we can profit on!
Granted there is ~some reason and interest to keep the coffee plant drastic weather tolerant with genetics, but these people aren't going after that, and certainly not for seed and strain protection. There's nothing wrong with coffee. It doesn't need to be tinkered with to add 'rosebud' gene LC5A, or some damn obscurity.
Quote apropos: "Just because we can, doesn't mean we should!"
The coffee world is already deep in bed with the organic, fare-trade, square-deal, jump-through-hoops, still-tastes-the-same movement(s). GMO coffee will make these folks lose their excrement in old testament fashion. Should be amusing to watch.
Give me coffee with tetrahydrocannabinol, chocolate and caffeine.
No, make them all sphere shaped so the physics is easier!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Happicuppa here we come!
spherical sheep vs cubical cow. FIGHT!
Pile it on, baby.
I agree whole heartedly. Here is a recent, rigorous and relevant paper advocating a non-naive precautionary principle (much like you are): http://www.fooledbyrandomness....
Engineer that in and you'll have a hit.
Have gnu, will travel.
cubical cow
I'm a monkey, not a cow, you insensitive clod!
Don't you get it... This is not for the betterment of the coffee but to produce some patentable seed that a corporation can charge a price for and keep it out of the farmers control. You can only grow it if you pay us money. You cannot save the seeds to grow another crop. If it cross breeds with another plant then that plant is considered to be the property of the GMO corporation... Listen do it the natural way by selective breeding and then it remains free for all to use. You will then not be locked into some oppressive Mosentoaist regime that prevents you from growing food freely and using the seeds as you wish. Ditch the GMO crap it is just a way to make sure we cannot grow our own food without paying some freak'n corporation for the privilege.
Nothing is ever good enough for some people. They always want to make it better, or smaller, or more powerful... Can we just leave this one thing alone?
Just like that huge, untapped market for weed without THC.
I am a cubicle drone. Where do I fit in?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
These days? In a space about 1m cubed.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Right when we're on the verge of inventing cryosleep for interstellar space travel, come NASA's new wave of coffeemaker makers. No sleep for the wicked, and none for the shuttle pilot either.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Then you are irrelevant in sheep vs cow. Just keep your mouth shut and fling feces.
"could help in the development of new coffee varieties better able to endure drought, disease and pests, with the added benefit of enhancing flavor and caffeine levels"
Or something as bad as killer bees cold be created.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Then coat the trees with zinc, chrome or nickel. Jeez, it's not rocket science, it's just basic metallurgy!
You can screw around with corn, soy and wheat all you want but keep your FUCKING HANDS OFF MY COFFEE!
I bet you sheep will slurp that shit down like good little pigs.
Enjoy your further genetic code modification by your international banking/military industrial complex masters
In a world where science has gone completely rogue, we need scientists to acknowledge damaging practices that other scientists are reaking on the planet and come up with formidable solutions. Aluminum and barium are being sprayed into the atmosphere around the planet in super high quanties. There are nanochips being inundated into the atmosphere also. Much of the future of growing everything from plants to livestock to marine life is uncertain and hanging in the balance. Don't mess up the coffee bean. Please!
I'm sure this is a waste of time replying to an ignorant Anonymous Coward, but do you have any idea what level of spray actually hits fields on a per acre or even per square foot basis? I bet if you ran the actual numbers, you'd be dumbfounded at just how little an amount something like Roundup is required to have the desired affect. We're literally talking about oz. per acre, diluted into gallons of water. It'd be quite a stretch to call that "smothering".
Also glyphosate as a chemical is now off patent and anyone can make and sell it.
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
If all the organic coffee is wiped off the face of the earth due to the pathogen, I think people's caffeine addiction will overrule any anti-GMO or organic sentiments.
I wouldn't say that it is 'merely an extension', and consequentially I didn't. so you're first sentence is a bit pointless. They are similar in that they both involve genetically modifying populations. It might be like saying that space travel is like sea travel in that they both involve moving from one place to another.
so what you are saying is that aggressively breeding mutated organisms without knowing the nature of the mutations is good
but if we know what the mutation is ahead of time and deliberately introduce it, that's bad
because....an appeal to nature?
But the reason we selectively breed in the first place is that without doing this, these things do NOT occur in nature (or at least where they do, they don't generally naturally propagate). The evolutionary process is not interrupted by replacing random mutations with directed ones and if you want to argue it is then the same applies to selective breeding - this interrupts the evolutionary procedure by undermining sexual selection / mate choice. And who cares about preserving the evolutionary process in any event - it isn't some God that must be revered. Preserving the evolutionary process would mean allowing pests the time to evolve counter strategies and simply results in an evolutionary arms race with people that need to eat being the civillians in the cross-fire...basically like most of human history. That is to say: The evolutionary process is not our friend, it doesn't even have our number on its phone. However, vaccines seem to have done quite well, selective breeding has done us quite well.
If your family was getting less and less food every year - and the trend was looking fatal - would you choose to preserve the evolutionary process or would you use the tools at your disposal to grow food that won't be destroyed by whatever conditions are causing the famine to begin with?
Let me ask you another question. suppose there were two genetically identical corn plants. One plant had had bacterial DNA inserted into it by genetic scientists in order to provide insect resistance. Another had the same bacterial DNA inserted into it by a completely natural, evolutionary pure process of horizontal gene transfer without any purpose behind it whatsoever (Dawkins' blind genetic scientist you might say). HGT in eukaryotes is rarer than between bacteria, but there are some known examples such as with a Bean weevil, Purple witchweed, the pea aphid, as well as HhMAN1 in the Coffee borer beetle. Would you be arguing that both corn plants should not be used because they are dangerous, unpredictable or in some other way problematic? Would you argue that in fact because one happened 'naturally' that makes them both good. Or would inexplicably prefer the natural-HGT plant over the otherwise identical scientist-gene-transferred plant? Finally - how long do you think you'd have to wait around, breeding crops, until a bacterial HGT event occurred at a spot that conveyed this kind of advantage?
they're pretty terrible at reporting celebrity gossip too - it's just celebrity gossip is so crap in the first place, you might not have noticed.
You could just leave it the fuck alone.
If you're a serious coffee drinker, you're continually exploring and refining the techniques, the equipment, the beans, the water, the temperature (a la the Breaking Bad coffee clip)...all in search of the perfect cup. Those of us with a chemistry background can discuss coffee and its maddening number of compounds, well, ad nauseum. The genome of one species of coffee can provide information that takes us closer to that brewing the perfect cup OR even helps us make the perfect cup by adding another variable over which we can have some control (especially using a more precise and cleaner genetic modification tool like CRISPER). My cup of coffee this morning was better than most people's, but it wasn't perfect...
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
If you are going to sequence something how about you CURE SOMETHING? A good start would be Ebola......
Guys, no. If tinkering with genomes was inevitable doom, then evolution has made a huge blunder. For the creationists, we have dominion over the plants and animals and can reverse anything we want to. The agnostics will shut-up and eat-up. P.S. If you are thinking to yourself, "once the gene is out of the bottle, you cant put it back in.", refer back to the time when I talk everyone down from the tree. "If the future isn't scary, it isn't the future." - A guy
He is crazy if you think about it; I am not.
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