Controversial Trial of Genetically Modified Wheat Ends In Disappointment

sciencehabit writes: A controversial GM wheat trial has failed after more than £2 million of public money was spent protecting it from GM opponents. Researchers had hoped that the wheat modified to produce a warning pheromone would keep aphids away and attract their natural enemies, reducing the need for insecticides. Despite showing promise in the laboratory, the field trial failed to show any effect. “If you make a transgenic plant that produces that alarm continuously, it’s not going to work,” ecologist Marcel Dicke of Wageningen University in the Netherlands says. “You have a plant crying wolf all the time, and the bugs won’t listen to it any longer.”

Comments

GMOs have so many different problems

[pubwvj]

Proponents of GMOs tend to focus on the opposition to GMOs based on perceived health risks but there are many other reasons that GMOs are problematic. A huge issue is that patents are being granted on life, on genes. The patent applicants did not invent these genes. Rather they stole them and now want to patent them so they can control the use and make money. All GMO work should be open source and open license. This doesn't solve the many other problems but it chips away at the problems. Of course, the GMO proponents will oppose this.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm somewhat a proponent of GMOs, being a Molecular Biologist I suppose helps, but I don't oppose what you say.

You are right that granting patents to genes is stupid - the researchers didn't invent the genes at all as they exist in nature, much like gravity exists and cannot be patented.

Rather, the novel application of a gene should be allowed to be patented, not the gene itself (and by extension all applications regardless of any innovation). Simply making everything open source and license won't solve anything, it only creates problems with RnD recovery. The real issue is that the basic discovery of a gene can be patented even if no novel use is applied, which is actually quite trivial these days (i've just done this myself, and it wasn't that hard to "discover").

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[CrimsonAvenger]

Of course, the GMO proponents will oppose this.

Of course they will. Because if it costs money to develop GMOs, then there had better be a return on investment. Or noone will bother.

And since GMOs, like any new drug, includes a lot of trial & error (mostly error), your successful new GMO (or drug) has to carry the costs of all your unsuccessful ones. So you have to be able to make a lot of money on any success, or noone will bother.

Note that the cost of developing this failed GMO will have to be paid, down the line, by higher costs on other products produced by the same people.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

This article, and others, make me think what is long term benefit from genetic manipulation of plants, because often it seems to be arms race with nature where GMO tends to lose.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[jbmartin6]

"it only creates problems with RnD recovery"

Could you clarify what you meant by this?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Plant patents have existed since the 1930s in the USA. People act as if plant patents are a new thing because of the publicity around GMOs.

As for the genes being stolen, that's ridiculous. The genes themselves are not patented (and never belonged to anybody to begin with), it is the arrangement of genes that is patented.

I actually do agree that there ought to be more "open source" GMOs. Some do exist, and I'd think it would be great if more of the prominent traits were open source rather than patent-encumbered; I think we'd see more interesting work done if that were the case.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

The same could be said of antibiotics and antiviral drugs.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[pubwvj]

Yes, and I would argue those plant patents should not be granted either. But I would disallow almost all patents or set their periods to be extremely short.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of this article, the cost recovery of developing a GMO plant that deters pest insects.

That includes developing a line of plants with the desired trait, approvals, tests, retests, and more retests, a long with further approval for commercialisation, etc.

In this I'm not referring to gene discovery costs because if done right, are actually a pretty small cost of the research.

Does that help?

Re: GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you think the money comes from to pay for those trials? Of course they have to be paid for.

Re: GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

If all failures were paid there would be only successful companies.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[bws111]

In other words, preventing someone from making a profit is more important than having a cheap and plentiful food supply.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

A few patents on actual genes have been granted, yes. But most of the patents are on methods for introducing those foreign, unnatural genes to the plants.

Re: GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I call it overhead. Its part of the risks of doing research. If you don't want to accept the risks get into another business. If we had decent courts who actually understood that the law means exactly what it says, rather than what you want it to say this wouldn't be a problem. A particular gene sequence is a discovery, like the discovery of any natural phenomenon, and should not be patentable, as discoveries like gravity and relativity were not patentable.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong on the law. Isolating or identifying genes is not patentable, at least after Myriad: http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/Assn_for_Molecular_Pathology_v_Myriad_Genetics_Inc_No_12398_2013_

Even if you isolate a gene and use that gene to splice into another creature/plant, it's obvious to a person of skill in the art once isolated that splicing this gene will lead to expression of certain effects. To that extent it is not patentable.

Now, you might argue that the wheat failed in the above instance, so it involves experimentation. Yes the wheat failed, but not because of gene expression, but because of how the natural predators found out they were being gamed. Had nothing to do with producing the pheromones, which worked as anticipated. So, not patentable anyways.

The only trouble is proponents of GMO's have too much money and will continue to peddle, oh only isolation is not patentable, we can work around that using patent language. Look at Alice from the supreme court, where they decry the use work around language to get around judgements.

I am sorry, I have no love lost for GMO's and the companies that peddle them. They are evil as they get. They sue farmers. They even allege, if its 90% GMO crop, they own the entire bunch. You only have to look at monoculture issues like cavendish bananas to see that we could have human mass extinction, because of GMO crops and monoculture.

If you get a 20 year patent on GMO's. Unlicensed folks cannot use these plants to create other plant varieties, i.e., selective breeding. So, you are encouraging monoculture. If there is a natural predator which takes a liking to a GMO, all of the crop across the world will be wiped out in a matter of years. So, we will at best lose that one crop. Imagine if that happens to corn or wheat? 90% of the products on our supermarket shelf will disappear.

Patents on GMO's are horrible. Plant variety protection act thought of these difficulties and issues and balanced the rights of framers and the dangers of monoculture. But Monsanto had enough money to pull of the Bowman v. Monsanto win. None of these monoculture issues were highlighted in the case. Sad really.

Just so we are clear. I don't have a problem with GMO's. I have a problem with patents on GMOs and monoculture because of patent rights for 20 years. Let me give you a hint. A GMO crop won't change all that much for 20 years, and is sold as standardized seed. But the natural pathogens evolve at a frightening pace for those 20 years. It's a problem waiting to happen. PVP on the other hand gives crops a fighting chance, when farmers breed them.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

http://theconversation.com/australian-federal-court-upholds-gene-patents-31350
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_patent#Australia

You can patent genes - just not in all jurisdictions.

Your other issues i didn't cover because the OP didn't mention them.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[NotDrWho]

You right, better to go back to using non-GMO plants--and getting much lower yields, needing much stronger pesticides, and letting half the world starve.

Problem SOLVED!

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[pubwvj]

People have done research before without all the greed that is surrounding GMOs. I do research. I release my results open source. No need for the likes of Monsanto to control the world. They're too greedy. Denying them patents would help.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[thegarbz]

I do research.

Do you do it gratis or does someone pay you to do it?

Re: GMOs have so many different problems

[ranton]

If all failures were paid there would be only successful companies.

While you are likely trolling, no one is suggesting failing companies should be propped up with public money. But successful companies still often have many failed projects, and this is especially true for any company which relies heavily on R&D. Like they say, if you aren't failing you aren't innovating. A solvent company needs to pay for its failed R&D projects with its successful projects or it would go under.

It is very similar to running a VC company. They obviously don't think ever venture will be profitable, but they are hoping to make an overall profit on those 20% of companies that actually succeed.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Applehu Akbar]

This is the "GMOs are evil because Monsanto" argument. So why do the flat-earthers attack GMO test plots that ARE open source, like that golden rice in the Philippines? Your argument is against legal bullying by corporate extension of patent, not anything to do with genetic engineering.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ChromeAeonium]

If you don't like patented plants, no one is forcing you to use them. Problem solved. You use the things that were not built on patent royalties, let others pay extra for the things that were, and in 20 years, they're both the same anyway when the patent expires. Isn't that how the patent system is supposed to work, you develop something, recoup your costs (and heaven forbid make a profit), hopefully reinvest into new innovation, then eventually the thing falls to the public? What's wrong with that system? This isn't copyright's 'life of the universe plus 10 years' schtick.

Rather they stole them

Oh, did they download a car? What was stolen, from whom, by who, and how?

And furthermore, I like how no one ever brings this up when conventional breeding is mentioned...no one ever opposes Honeycrisp, for example, which was once patented (since expired). No one ever says 'Ah, those damned greedy apple breeders, trying to keep their apple breeding program well funded so they can go on to develop new awesome varieties like SnowSweet that otherwise might not even exist!' That alone tells me this has more to do with justifying opposition to genetic engineering than any legitimate gripe with plant patents.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always an arms race. Have you ever wondered why we rotate in new breeds every 5-10 years (on average) depending on the crop?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[mrchaotica]

Exactly, which is why GMOs, like antibiotics, should be used very judiciously, not strewn about all over the place!

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[alvinrod]

Someone needs to invest the money necessary in order to prove that a GMO actually works or does what is claimed and then additional testing is done to ensure that it's safe for human consumption or that there aren't unintended side effects. If as soon as any company could prove a particular GMO safe and fit for use, another could simply start producing it as well without having to spend the initial investment, it makes companies more averse to doing the research.

Put frankly, you might spend $10,000 if you had a reasonable belief that you could generate $20,000 in return from your investment. You might not do the same if your $10,000 is a lot more likely to result in only $5,000 back for you.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ChromeAeonium]

Yep. People oppose the various big company made ones, claiming they don't like big companies. But then they'll also oppose things like the Arctic Apple (developed by a small company), the Rainbow papaya (developed by the University of Hawai'i), Golden Rice (developed by non-profit International Rice Research Institute), and Honeysweet plum (developed by the USDA), among plenty of other examples. Many will oppose university, NGO, and government developed GE crops, then say it's just about Monsanto...not buying that. Even this wheat in question was publicly funded and developed by Rothamsted Research,and what happened? This group called Take the Flour Back wanted to destroy it, which is better than what happened to CSIRO's publicly funded GE wheat research in Australia, where some book burners from Greenpeace successfully did destroy the research. All that aside, there are plenty of patented non-GE plants which vary rarely encounter controversy. The only consistent thing that gets controversy it genetic engineering, not public or private, patented or not. This controversy is not about patents, or quite bluntly any of the other common excuses for opposition to genetic engineering for that matter.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ChromeAeonium]

No one says when hessian fly resistance genes in wheat are overcome by the pest, or when late blight genes in tomato fail (both being non-GE), that it means conventional breeding is of questionable benefit. But when the GE crops have the same problems non-GE crops do, then suddenly they're of questionable benefit? The problem is people don't know how much they don't know, and rather than assuming maybe there's a reason plant scientists aren't in revolt against genetic engineering, they assume they've got the whole story. Fact is, this is basic population genetics, you apply selection pressure to a large fast reproducing population like pests, weeds, or pathogens, you risk genetic shifts which might not be what we as humans want, and nature really doesn't care if that pressure is coming from breeding, genetic engineering, chemical controls, or what. You are using a universal problem as an argument against a specific thing.

Re: GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

And how many unsuccessful companies exist?

And those failed ones, how much did they lose/cost?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Plant Breeder's Rights have been around in the US since 1930, long before the age of transgenic organisms.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Ol Olsoc]

If you don't like patented plants, no one is forcing you to use them. Problem solved.

You have some research to do in biology. GMO genes do have a bit of a tendency to spread out. Nature and all.Eventually it will be a bit difficult to avoid the altered genes.

http://www.gmocompass.org/eng/...

Then comes the question of who owns the now altered plant.

I'm pro GMO by the way, just wanted to make a little correction.

The Monsanto donnybrook muddies the waters of GMO, because their particular version is not per se to increase yields, but to have plants that resist Roundup get big doses of Roundup to kill other plants. That's arguably an irresponsible use of GMO. Certainly it makes Roundup a short lived herbicide, as plants develop resistance to it. And they will.

But plants with increased nutrition, resistance to diseases, with more energy put into seed or fruit production than stalks or other inedible parts simply makes sense.

We also have to encourage "heirloom" crop growing in order to have as much genetic stock as possible. Everyone can win at this game. As long as they aren't asshats about it.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[sjames]

Part of the problem with GMOs is that the potential damages exceed the ability of any company to actually pay fair compensation.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ceoyoyo]

I do research too. Part of my research is paid for by public grants, part is paid for by companies who want me to test their (patented) products. I much prefer the public grant model, and I think research in important industries like health and agriculture should be mostly done publicly. But that's not the case now, and it's only heading towards less public funding. The cost for that is patents and proprietary techniques. You can't have it both ways.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Stuarticus]

Some of the greatest research ever done was done in Universities with grant money with no thought of any commercial applications. The problem with current research is the assumption that it must produce a monetary reward. Obviously commercialisation and testing is a different issue, that is where capital becomes relevant. Knowledge should be it's own reward.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ceoyoyo]

It's pretty clear that you can't just shake some of your patented magic dust on my stuff and then claim it as your own. Monsanto got a lot of press for bullying farmers, but to my knowledge no case against someone accidentally growing a GMO has ever gone to court. In the Schmeiser case in Canada, Monsanto dropped all the claims regarding accidental contamination, probably because the court would have found against them.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[jedidiah]

Who cares if it can make money or not. That is simply not the correct metric to judge whether or not a certain type of patent (or other thing) should be allowed. We should not suddenly re-align all of our interests merely to pander to the desires of a few large megacorporations.

Our society is simply not driven by the need for Monsanto to make a buck.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[jedidiah]

We already have a cheap and plentiful food supply.

if you think otherwise then you are highly uniformed MORON.

We have been letting food ROT in this country in order to prop up commodity prices since before you were even born. That's just the stuff that actually gets harvested. Some of it doesn't even make it out of the fields because it doesn't meet stringent packaging guidelines.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Zalbik]

Some of the greatest research ever done was done in Universities with grant money with no thought of any commercial applications.

Yes, but most of it wasn't.

Obviously commercialisation and testing is a different issue, that is where capital becomes relevant.

Commercialization and testing are almost entirely irrelevant compared to the capital required to research and develop new technologies...particularly in biology/medicine.

As with most things, this shouldn't be a black or white "patents are good" or "patents are evil". The question is how long should patent protection last and when should patent protection start. Some people think forever, others think zero years. The answer is most likely somewhere between those two :-).

I will agree that with the rate of technological change today, the current 20 year protection is ridiculous. Technologies are typically woefully outdated by the time patents expire. IMHO patents should last significantly less time than currently (say 5 years or so), and should require that the product be commercially produced within some reasonable amount of time after applying for the patent.

Knowledge should be it's own reward.

Unfortunately, you can't eat, drink, live in or wear knowledge. At some point monetary compensation is required. The question is how much and how is this compensation provided.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is none of what you said is true. GMO "food" has constantly failed to deliver on its promises.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Stuarticus]

Aren't we discussing GM foods- isn't that almost literally eating knowledge? I highly dispute your "most of it wasn't" as well. The whole "must make money" thing is a fairly recent and broadly unwelcome addition to science. The recent situation with drugs companies arguing it's not worth their while trying to cure diseases while investigating anything that can be sold to rich old white men is one of the more insidious results.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[onepoint]

While I will respect what you are saying. I believe you are speaking outside the scope of the thread.
the metric in question is : if I spend money doing R&D, and make a discovery, can I protect it and have a return on my investment.

In reference to what you are speaking : patent judgement is to secure the idea, nothing about the revenue model is discusses. While I can not cite the old source, I believe many ideas in the early 1820's to 1860's that were patented, expired to public domain, only to become useable in the 1880 onwards when manufacturing was capable of producing the item's. I wish I had an example of this but I don't recall it right now

Re: GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

"While you are likely trolling, no one is suggesting failing companies should be propped up with public money."

If nobody is suggesting that, then what the hell IS the answer to "Where do you think the money comes from to pay for those trials?"? Do they magic fairy it up? Do they have private investors that put their money on the trial and have lost it all, therefore are 2 million poorer and just lost it?

Because I believe the answer to the GGP query is "From the gouged prices from the successful products", which price is protected by patent law, therefore no different to a tax handout: enforcement of the NON-FREE-MARKET price of the good (remember: the marginal price of producing the goods) via government regulation (patents).

If the backers were paying for the trials out of their own pocket and NOT paying for it out of the artificially inflated price of a different monopoly product underwritten by government action (remember: illegal dumping is the same thing: using the price of one product to underwrite the losses of another), then it'd be fair comment.

But they don't.

If generics were available from day one, then no government tax is placed on the goods and it really IS private money being spent.

Since they aren't, it isn't private money being spent. It's OUR money being spent, via a tax on everyone by a private individual.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

All patents are wrong:

https://mises.org/library/case-against-ip-concise-guide

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[bws111]

So start your own drug company, with all the other 'no patent protection' types, and find the cure to diseases. Nobody is stopping you.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "research" that costs all this money, it's the large scale trials. Environmental impact analysis. Human health impact analysis. Finally, years of providing reports to regulators only to re-provide the same report again and again with minute permutations based on the last round of comments. These companies aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Individuals and even academic research teams aren't equipped for the time and investment necessary to develop a biological product and push it through the regulatory approval process.

Could your 'single benevolent researcher' model ever work? Maybe if there were no regulators. Would you prefer that?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[PRMan]

I have a massive problem with GMOs. Nobody was allergic to "wheat gluten" when I was a kid. I never heard of such a thing. But as soon as GMO wheat starts showing up unlabeled, everyone's suddenly allergic to it.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[PRMan]

You mean I can avoid patented plants just by reading the labels in my local supermarket? No wait, I can't, because they paid to have that voted down.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ArmoredDragon]

I like how the anti-GMO crowd comes out and speaks about potential damages, but then ignores the real damages (and deaths) caused by organic food:

http://www.cgfi.org/2002/06/th...
http://www.realclearscience.co...
http://www.americanthinker.com...
http://www.science20.com/chall...
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~a...

We've already had countless cases of people dying and getting sick from organic, and not a single case of anybody dying or getting sick from GMO, in spite of GMO already being consumed in bigger numbers than organic. Meanwhile we're supposed to listen to the food religion about the dangers of GMO.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot. Coeliac disease has been identified for at least a century. When you were a kid you were ignorant of these things.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[sjames]

And I just love how others make wildly inaccurate assumptions about my views on agriculture in general based solely on my misgivings about one technique.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They're not allergic to it.
It's a diet fad.

Celiac disease is real, and did exist when you were a kid. The rest of the people demanding "gluten-free" are deluded into thinking there's something harmful about it.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[hankwang]

"I will agree that with the rate of technological change today, the current 20 year protection is ridiculous. Technologies are typically woefully outdated by the time patents expire. IMHO patents should last significantly less time than currently (say 5 years or so),"

A farmaceutical product can well take much longer than that between the time the compound was discovered and the time it has passed all clinical trials and gets approval.from the authorities.

I work in the high-tech industry, where it can easily take 5 years between the first conception and the actual sale of the product. Only for small, incremental changes of existing technology, we sometimes get below 2 years.

The patent system is broken IMO, but not because of the 20-year term. The threshold for patentability is way too low IMO. Every big player in the industry is aggressively patenting every little idea just because the others do the same and nobody wants to be bitten in the ass by a competitor's patent or a patent troll. (I am personally in a strange position,since my employer provides various incentives to generate IP, so I end up contributing to the systemic problem.)

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Firethorn]

The patent applicants did not invent these genes. Rather they stole them and now want to patent them so they can control the use and make money.

At least in the USA, you're not allowed to 'patent' existing genes. What you're allowed to patent is the methodology used to detect them, insert them into a different genome, etc...

Take gene X. Well, specifically a mutation of it that causes cancer. Companies can't patent gene X, it's naturally occurring. But they can patent a test that detects it, as well as the process used to insert the gene into a lab mouse strain for further testing.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

GMO "food" has constantly failed to deliver on its promises.

If that were true, farmers wouldn't be paying Monsanto a premium price for GMO seed. Nothing is stopping them from going back to non-GMO seed. In fact, it would save them a lot of money.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Firethorn]

1. It's not a 'proper' allergy
2. It's been known about, depending on how you rate sources, for somewhere between eons and centuries.
3. That being said, there's a certain amount of 'fad diet' to it in that many people are assuming they have it without actually being tested for it.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Coren22]

It is nice to hear that you do research for free and accept no payment for your work.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Coren22]

And I just love how others make wildly inaccurate assumptions about my views on agriculture in general based solely on my ignorant misgivings about one technique.

FTFY.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with your statement is that no GMO wheat has been produced commercially. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Bupkis.

Sure, there's been lab tests and field trials of various GMO wheat strains, but none of that has ever deliberately made it into the food supply. All the wheat in the products you buy in the store? All bred conventionally.

Unless you're talking about some mystical homeopathic effect, where the mere presence of GMO wheat on earth suddenly changes non-GMO wheat, GMO wheat has *nothing* to do with wheat allergies or with gluten insensitivity.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Coren22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

In the few cases Monsanto took all the way to court, they were found in the right. This isn't evil Monsanto attacking the poor farmer type things. It is people intentionally committing patent/license infringement to get around the patent/license and being caught.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

If that were true genetic contamination wouldn't lead to lawsuits as the "arrangement of genes" would always be different.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually gmo seed makes the crop more expensive since the seeds must be bought as well as the herbicide according to the contract.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ArmoredDragon]

And I just love how others make wildly inaccurate assumptions about my views on agriculture in general based solely on my misgivings about one technique.

So knowing that organic food does cause actual harm and plenty of evidence to back it up, with zero evidence that GMO food causes any actual harm, what prompted you to throw out a warning call for the potential damages of GMO food, as opposed to making a warning call about organic food?

Let's hear it.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree, where does it say on the lable?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

The yield isnt necessarily any better in gmo sometimes worse

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[rthille]

He/she means that companies won't invest in the Research & Development when they can't patent the result to help ensure they can make back their investment (and more).

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[currently_awake]

Having the patent outlive the usefullness of the material makes no sense- just like having a copyright that outlives the desirability of the music makes no sense. As for silly patent rules that let profiteers patent anything they discover- those who want the patent system reworked don't have the time and money to fix the problems, while those who do have the time and money are benefiting from the problems.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[sjames]

Because the topic here is GMOs. For a similar reason, I also didn't offer any opinions on favorite microcontroller, paper vs. plastic, gasahol, or nuclear vs. solar.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[alvinrod]

Whether or not it makes money has nothing to do with patents, but everything to do with whether or not a company or individual is likely to engage in such an endeavor at all.

For example, let's assume that a system in which patents last 100 years exists. Even in such a system where a company can reap the profits of their research for generations, that company would be unlikely to devote resources towards finding a cure for a condition that affects a few dozen people.

Patents, copyrights, and the notion of intellectual property is merely a tool to incentivize creation and discovery. Like anything else, it's simply a matter of finding the ideal balance that provides enough incentive for pursuing new knowledge without keeping it locked away from society. However, regardless of whether patents exist or not, businesses won't engage in activity that isn't expected to be profitable. Because the effectiveness of new technology or the yields of research are not knowable in advance, you need some form of a system to make the investment economically feasible. If not patents, then you likely rely on government grants, which is going to have its own set of issues.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ArmoredDragon]

That only explains why you didn't throw out a warning call for organic food. Why did you throw out a warning call for GMO food?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you think research is, if large scale trials don't qualify?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Your.Master]

Look, I agree with you on GMO food, but the answer to your question is blindingly obvious.

We are on a website that literally prompts people to discuss subjects. The subject this time is GMO food.

What I'm more curious about is what prompted you to talk about organic foods. At time of writing, you are the only result in ctrl+f for organic on this page.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Your.Master]

Then ask the people who sell non-GMO products to label themselves non-GMO.

The whole label law controversy was about forcing GMO products to label themselves GMO. But that's totally backwards! Even for the people who want to avoid GMO! Because you don't want to have to look for the absence of a label, you want to look for a label, because things are easier to find than unthings.

If they don't label they must not consider it to be important, OR, they aren't confident that they aren't GMO, one or the other. Tell them you think it's important.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ChromeAeonium]

Eventually it will be a bit difficult to avoid the altered genes.

Well, kind of. All genes do that in an outcrossing species (a crop that pollinates others readily, like corn or squash). In a natural population, selection pressure will influence the spread of the gene throughout the population, however, crops are not a natural population. For example, I have seed of blue, red, white, and yellow corn, and seed of all sorts of heirloom squash (orange and lumpy, bright red and smooth, pale and long). How is it possible that each of those still manages to exist, if genes inevitably spread throughout the population? Simple, controlled crossing. Genes inserted though biotechnology are no different. If you are preserving a population of, say, heirloom crops, you don't want any crossing anyway, and if you are simply buying hybrid seed every year, which many farmers do, it doesn't matter what they get crossed with.

but to have plants that resist Roundup get big doses of Roundup to kill other plants.

That is a misconception. They do not have to withstand 'big doses' of the herbicide; do you honestly think that farmers are spending extra money on seed so they can spend extra money on herbicide? The gene inserted is an alternate form of an enzyme found in all plants; the amount you need to spray is not a 'big dose' but rather enough to kill the weed.

That's arguably an irresponsible use of GMO.

Fair enough, I suppose you have a better method of weed control then? Your options, realistically, are tillage (very damaging to soil health), hand weeding (completely unfeasible), or harsher herbicides. Not good options, but that's what we've got, and if you're going to criticize crops resistant to glyphosate, which is one of the better herbicides out there, you are going to need a viable alternative; this is not a case of herbicide resistant crops versus nothing, it is a case of them or something else.

Certainly it makes Roundup a short lived herbicide, as plants develop resistance to it. And they will.

Well, yes, just like weeds developed resistance to other types of herbicides. This does not mean you don't use them, it means we need to use them better to mitigate resistance by using multiple modes of action instead of over-relying on one mode of action (EPSPS inhibitors in the case of Round-Up). Additionally, conventional breeding is also used to make herbicide resistant crops; are you going to criticize conventional breeding as well?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[thinkwaitfast]

In 20 years the patents will be up. Best to get it out of the way while not much can be done about it.

Re: GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny. I was just about to say that. Glad you did first.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[ChromeAeonium]

No, GE crop labeling has failed, and rightfully so. Labels on patented crops were never an issue. Many non-GE crops are also patented. If you don't like them, don't grow them. If you want no interaction of any sort with anything patented, well, good luck with that. Even the non-GMO organic grown with patented stuff from John Deere.

Re: GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

My sister in law was told by her physician that she wasn't allergic to gluten. Instead of accepting that, she derided him and no longer sees him AFAIK.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[sjames]

Perhaps you should just go and read my post again. At that point you'll either answer your own question or prove you're not worth my time.

The chicken crossed the road to get to the other side. A zebra with a sunburn is black and white and read all over. Any other silly questions you'd like to get out of your system?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[david_thornley]

University research is not usually the same thing as commercial research. At a university, research is conducted by faculty in concert with postdocs and grad students, and the postdocs and grad students (if not tenured faculty) are in desperate need of publications. In this case, a university research project might find that splicing a certain gene into a certain plant gives a certain effect, and that's publishable. That's very useful, but hardly sufficient. In particular, it doesn't show that the modification is safe, does something in the real world, or mass producible. Those aren't going to get published in a scientific journal.

If a company wants to put that into production, the company has to conduct a lot of tests, and this may well include trying different genetic modifications. In addition, the project may not turn out to be commercially feasible, while the grad students don't care about that if they can get some papers published. There's a lot of expense left, and a lot of risk. If the risk is increased so it's almost certain that the company won't get a significant first-mover advantage or licensing fees, we're going to have a lot of potentially great ideas coming out of the universities and never being made commercially usable.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[david_thornley]

Is there any large industry in which this isn't true? If all Fords suddenly go berserk, accelerate as much as they can, and steer randomly while ignoring the brake pedal, Ford isn't going to be able to cover the loss.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[david_thornley]

If what you said was true, nobody would get the GMO seeds. Farmers use them because they make more money using them, not because they want to lose money in order to doom the world.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[sjames]

Sounds like the problem Toyota had, and they're still here. Automobiles and such aren't quite as susceptible to that scale of disaster as living organisms that can reproduce by themselves. And can cross-breed. Imagine Ford puts out a car with defective brakes and the trait starts showing up in all similar cars by other manufacturers based on which way the wind blows. Further, the trait shows up in other countries where the original defective model isn't even sold. To top it off, countries that haven't seen the problem ban import of any similar car from any country that has seen the problem.

That's an awful lot of people, some with deep pockets, suing for huge amounts of money in compensation and each one has a slam dunk case.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Ol Olsoc]

That is a misconception. They do not have to withstand 'big doses' of the herbicide; do you honestly think that farmers are spending extra money on seed so they can spend extra money on herbicide?

They are no tilling, and spraying herbicide to kill the weeds among the roundup ready corn, which is generally tolerant.

But aside from jumping on my use of the "big doses" perhaps you can proofread this page and let me know what is incorrect.

http://www.gardenguides.com/12...

But to your question of what they can do......

One of the interesting methods of killing weeds among crops is being developed by the USDA, and it sounds crazy, but works.

Oragnic farmers have a real problem with weed control, as you might imagine.

So some USDA researchers have found a weird but very effective way to "weed" without any chemicals.

They blast the bastards with fertilizers or soil conditioners.

http://loe.org/shows/segments....

Depending on the grit used in the blaster, it also acts as fertilizer, Or if you live in an acidic soil area, you can use a soil conditioner like limestone. It's an interesting read, and while at this time expensive- ~100 dollars an acre, there are a lot of offsets when a fertilizer or soil conditioner which will be applied anyhow. Just with more vigor. They are working on automating the process as we write. Not a perfect solution, but then again, neither is eating herbicide.

Not many plants can develop resistance to being sandblasted. I couldn't say this is the wave of the future, but it was sort of a headpalm moment for a lot of people, myself included.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, you can't eat, drink, live in or wear knowledge. At some point monetary compensation is required. The question is how much and how is this compensation provided.

We'll pay researchers salaries. Oh wait, already have that covered.

The additional costs of public research can be compensated by the government. We'll call it a grant, which means the public pays for it. Oh wait, that's already also covered.

Doesn't seem to be any need for academics (or universities) to also get patents. It will end up being another distraction from teaching. I'd say 80% of a typical university faculty in science or engineering are already badly distracted from doing their jobs well, as a result of the publish or perish system, do we really need to find more ways to encourage them to be terrible teachers (and effectively committing fraud against the students and their parents, since the services they are providing aren't don't match the marketing)?

The publish or perish system creates a huge ethical conflict of interest, and university faculty members historically have had problems doing the right thing in this situation. How do we teach students, the leaders of the future, to be ethical when the faculty clearly aren't? Patents create yet another ethical conflict of interest, not a good thing.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[volmtech]

Your thinking of steam locomotives. The competing patent holders wouldn't cross license. Only after their patents expired could third parties combine the patented parts and make useful trains.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Coward]

PVP on the other hand gives crops a fighting chance, when farmers breed them.

I thought Plant vs Zombies was only PVE? Where did you find a PVP version?

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[kurzweilfreak]

Obviously, your argument totally ignores the fact that conventional and even organic crops can be patented and protected as well. So your entire argument is invalid as it regards to being a GMO problem.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[kurzweilfreak]

[x] rekt [ ] not rekt

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[kurzweilfreak]

Thus showing the level of education and knowledge that the anti-GMO movement possesses about the entire topic they argue against.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[kurzweilfreak]

No need for the likes of Monsanto to control the world.

So much lol here. I can't believe you people actually believe shit like this.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[kurzweilfreak]

If I had to guess, I would say it's because the entire anti-GMO movement is at the behest of the organic industry in an attempt to spread as much FUD and misinformation about GMO crops as their main competition in an attempt to justify the higher prices and antiquated farming methods of organic crops. Whether people realize it or not, this is where the anti-GMO movement comes from.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[kurzweilfreak]

...because often it seems to be arms race with nature where farming tends to lose.

This is a more accurate assessment. Direct genetic engineering is simply the latest and most effective method of breeding.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[kurzweilfreak]

This is the "all farmers are dumb and can't math" argument. It's just wrong.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[kurzweilfreak]

...because their particular version is not per se to increase yields, but to have plants that resist Roundup get big doses of Roundup to kill other plants.

When your field is full of non-crop plants/weeds, all competing for the same resources and nutrients in your soils as your crops, your crop yield will necessarily be lower. By preventing weeds, you are increasing your yield by definition.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[kurzweilfreak]

They already do: there are labels for non-GMO and USDA organic, both of which indicate no "GMO content", whatever that means. The entire GMO labeling effort is obviously a Scarlet Letter attempt at demonizing GMO products with the "it's just a label, wink, wink, you know what we mean", while at the same time spreading as much FUD and misinformation about how dangerous GMO food is. The current rallying cry is "Right to know! If it's so safe, why not just label it?" that will turn into "If it's so safe, why does it need a special label?" Bait and switch.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[TheRealLifeboy]

The problem with that is that the "patent protection" types and their funders (e.g. the big drug companies) will fight tooth and nail to prevent your products from being used and marketing, using all sorts of false claims and supposed dangers to do so.

Case in point is colloidal silver which is well known to have amazing anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties, can be used to undo anti-biotic resistance and has been shown to even kill HIV among many other things. (Do resist the trollish urge to post one of the gazillion ill-informed "blue-man" YouTube videos to show the "danger" of CS, which have nothing to do with what CS can or can't heal, but rather with how it can be applied badly. Strangely enough, even with "bad" applications, the results are good, despite the discolouration of the skin, which is nothing compared to dying of viral-infection)

CS is unpatentable, can be made at home with a proper device (which can also be self-built by a competent person) and removes the need for a lot of drugs, yet the FDA, funded and staffed by drug-money, forbids it. If they do that to CS, what will they do with other free products that take a chunk out of the their obscene profits??

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[TheRealLifeboy]

A farmaceutical product can well take much longer than that between the time the compound was discovered and the time it has passed all clinical trials and gets approval.from the authorities.

I work in the high-tech industry, where it can easily take 5 years between the first conception and the actual sale of the product. Only for small, incremental changes of existing technology, we sometimes get below 2 years.

Ah, but there's the very first problem: Government regulation! Since companies are now practically exempt from prosecution for their mess, government, of all monsters that humans created, has to regulate. Scrap that. Llet companies carry the full brunt of the chances they take with products and it will soon stop. Than, while we're at it, get government out of education as well, so we won't have dumbed-down kids any more. Then people will be able to make good decisions again and not be bamboozled by media campaigns that deceive them currently.

The patent system is broken IMO, but not because of the 20-year term. The threshold for patentability is way too low IMO. Every big player in the industry is aggressively patenting every little idea just because the others do the same and nobody wants to be bitten in the ass by a competitor's patent or a patent troll. (I am personally in a strange position,since my employer provides various incentives to generate IP, so I end up contributing to the systemic problem.)

How about changing the patenting system to take into account the time needed and then give patent holders 5 years once they start selling? It also depends on the industry. A 20 year patent in software (which shouldn't exist in the first instance), is vastly different from a medical patent.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[bws111]

Oh please. The reason the FDA cracked down on colloidial silver manufacturers has NOTHING to do with the eeebil drug companies and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that there is no proper scientific evidence showing it is safe and effective. Is there some special reason colloidial silver should be exempt from this requirement?

So do the work required to get it approved by the FDA. Sure it takes a lot of money, but you're the ones claiming that the money and the ability to recoup it is of no importance.

Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Actually, Monsanto has only sued one farmer, and they did so because he intentionally selected for the seed his neighbor accidentally put on his fields. He knew exactly what he was doing. I'm not a fan of Monsanto, but it's intellectually dishonest to keep saying "they sue farmers" when they don't make it a routine practice. It's like that woman who sued McDonald's for the hot coffee - she got serious burns from that and just wanted them to pay for her medical care, since it was way hotter than it should have been, but people keep repeating it like it was frivolous.

Tampermonkey/Greasemonkey fix for the share button

[terriblesharebutton]

Source at http://pastebin.com/wZKjNi1S If you're sick of the share button ruining the Slashdot experience, install the Tampermonkey extension and paste the code below into a Tampermonkey script to restore comments link

-----
// ==UserScript==
// @name Slashdot fixer
// @namespace http://your.homepage/
// @version 0.1
// @description Restores the comments link, removes the share button
// @author The Greater Good
// @match http://slashdot.org/
// @grant none
// ==/UserScript==

var $ = window.jQuery;

$(function(){
$('article').each(function(){
var comments = $(this).find('.comment-bubble a').text();
var url = $(this).find('.comment-bubble a').attr('href');
var snip = '<a href="' + url + '#comments" class="read-more" title=""><span>Read the </span><strong class="comments">' + comments + '</strong> <span>comments</span> ';

$(this).find('footer div.popularity').html(snip);
$(this).find('footer div.popularity').removeClass('popularity');
});
});

Unsuccessful experiments still have value

[Mostly a lurker]

It is easy to explain why an experiment failed after the event, but that does not mean the result was obvious. This is a case in point. Had the experiment succeeded, cheaper, safer food with reduced environmental impact would have been possible. Sadly, it failed. Now, we need to look at other approaches.

Re:Unsuccessful experiments still have value

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. Hit the nail on the head. That is the purpose of science. We often discover more from our failures than our successes, which really begs the question: Were they actually failures then?

Re:Unsuccessful experiments still have value

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, the experiment was incapable of answering the question of interest.
1) The GMO plants were supposed to repel aphids
2) They planted them very near the normal plants
3) They observed far fewer aphids than expected on *all* plants

The modification may have worked or not. We have no idea because the different types of plants were too close to each other to tell. It was an unsuccessful experiment that should have never been performed. Explained more here: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7605111&cid=49995785

Bash transgenic foods all you want

[rodrigoandrade]

But don't complain when you buy whole foods that cost twice as much.

Transgenics are cheaper to produce, because crops grow faster, require fewer pesticides, yield better/bigger products, etc.

There's yet to me any serious study that proves that trangenic foods kill, cause cancer, kills babies, etc, because the technology is so new and groundbreaking.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[PopeRatzo]

require fewer pesticides

Sadly, no.

http://static.ewg.org/agmag/pd...

Re: Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lots of cheap, even free, ways to die. Living is more than twice expensive.

Re: Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

The food costs twice as much because of companies like Monsanto, corporate farming (greed), and costs of pesticides. Einstein...

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two points to this. In crops where insect damage is a big deal, the Bt trait has actually reduced total pesticide use. Where weeds are more prominent of a threat, pesticide use in the form of herbicides has increased. However, in the case of herbicide resistance traits (i.e. roundup-ready), the use of less-toxic pesticides (i.e. Roundup) has increased because that is what the crop has been designed to tolerate. Prior to the use of the RR trait, farmers primarily used various selective herbicides like atrazine which are a lot more toxic than Roundup. So this is actually a net benefit since Roundup can replace all of the toxic selective pesticides that were being used previously. Compare the LD50's of Roundup vs. the older pesticides to see proof.

http://www.crediblehulk.org/index.php/2015/06/02/about-those-more-caustic-herbicides-that-glyphosate-helped-replace-by-credible-hulk/

Re: Bash transgenic foods all you want

[bws111]

Yes, it is well known that businesses (like farming) use the highest cost option when there are cheaper alternatives available. That is why the farms switched to GMO even though cheaper (or free) seeds are available - because it drives their cost UP. Not too smart, are you?

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

There's yet to me any serious study that proves that trangenic foods kill, cause cancer, kills babies, etc, because the technology is so new and groundbreaking.

It's safe because we haven't had time to prove it's unsafe yet. Nice logic.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[ChromeAeonium]

After cursory glance at that, it seems neither of the graphs in the EWG thing you linked to even mention GE. More widely accepted publications tend to say otherwise, depending on the situation.

I also like the part where no one ever explains how insect resistance is supposed to increase insecticide use, but only when that resistance is transgenic. No one would ever argue against conventionally bred resistances, and somehow, once genetic engineering is involved, then the genetic component of integrated pest management (which is to say, select varieties and/or species resistant to your local insect populations as a first line of defense against them, as opposed to chemical controls later) is suddenly a bad thing.

I do love that they mentioned the insects that have overcome the transgenic defenses. Typical anti-GE nonsense: deny the crops help pest problems, meanwhile say the crop resistances are creating selection pressure for resistance overcoming insects (which shows they slept through population genetics), then deny there are benefits, meanwhile say that the resistant pests are a huge problem. I mean, yeah they genuinely are a problem, but because they threaten the benefits we've already gotten.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yes.

That paper neither adjusts for # of crops planted, so less pesticide / herbicide per hectare, nor is it adjusted for yield.

So from the growing more, getting more perspective, we are using less. While the planet keeps growing in population, you guessed it, we're going to be growing more and planting more, no matter what.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[PopeRatzo]

I also like the part where no one ever explains how insect resistance is supposed to increase insecticide use,

http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323463704578496923254944066

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[PopeRatzo]

So from the growing more, getting more perspective, we are using less.

Only among GMO proponents does using more = using less.

When it ends up in you water supply, more = more. Just ask the people who live where pesticide/herbicide runoff has made their water unusable even for bathing, much less drinking.

Re: Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the same AC, but your response is completely irrelevant. The post is clearly stating that to achieve the same yield, non GE crops would require more pesticide use. You ignore the argument of the post because it doesn't fit with your preconceived notion that GE crops are bad.

Re: Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

It can state it all it likes. It hasn't even tried to prove it.

However, we have proof that pesticide resistance on crops increases pesticide use.

Re: Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter which is the most expensive. After all, they all just charge more for the product. Therefore all that matters is the density of product on the limited land, NOT the cost per unit produced.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[PRMan]

And yet, with all this supposed "less toxicity" more people are allergic to wheat than ever before... Strange how reality doesn't match your argument...

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They are not allergic to wheat.
Gluten-free is a diet fad.

Celiac disease is real and not any more prominant than before. Anyone else is deluded into thinking there is something wrong with Gluten.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

They are "allergic' to the gluten, which has nothing to do with the genetically modified parts or the Roundup. Learn to Science please.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[ChromeAeonium]

The first sentence says exactly what I already said, which is how inserts overcoming the crop's resistance can lead to an erosion of already provided benefits, which is quite a well documented and easily explained phenomenon. That is very different than the claim that GE crops lead to more insecticide use.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[david_thornley]

Where are you getting your figures? Self-diagnosis is notoriously unreliable, particularly on a large scale. I really doubt more people are allergic to wheat than ever before, relative to population size. Gluten sensitivity is something of a fad nowadays.

I've known two people with good medical reasons to avoid wheat. One developed celiac disease fairly recently, and one was getting sick from wheat long before GMO anything existed.

Re: Bash transgenic foods all you want

[david_thornley]

Learn some economics. A farmer whose expenses go up can't just raise prices to compensate, because with other farmers selling cheaper nobody's going to buy that food. If expenses go up across the board, then food prices will go up, but even though food demand curves are pretty inelastic, the farmers aren't going to make enough extra money to make up for the increased expense.

Farmers will, in general, do whatever makes them the most profit. If GMO food is more expensive to produce, and has no other benefits (like maybe increasing yield), nobody will buy it.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[kurzweilfreak]

Strange how reality doesn't match your argument...

Says the person talking about GMO wheat that has never been sold commercially anywhere ever.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[kurzweilfreak]

Also might be due to the fact that simply being transgenic imparts no magical "toxic" qualities in and of itself, and there's not even a plausible mechanism by which any current GMO crops might somehow be unsafe. Also ignores all pre-market safety testing. If it were unsafe, some non-industry researcher would have shown this by now and picked up their Nobel prize for discovering some new groundbreaking genetics.

Re:Bash transgenic foods all you want

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

GMO wheat has never been commercially released.

Terrible summary

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have expected better from Slashdot than to say the experiment had failed. It might not have produced the result the experimenters had hoped for, but it has produced a result (the GM crop does not significantly deter aphids) and has therefore been a successful experiment. In addition, it appears to have given them other ideas (try to make a crop that only sporadically gives off the pheromone) which will progress this area of science.

Re:Terrible summary

[Deep Esophagus]

You don't even need to RTFS, you just need to read the title. It doesn't say the experiment failed; it said it ended in disappointment -- as in, they were disappointed that they can't reduce pesticide use by producing the pheromone. Yes, the experiment successfully answered their question, but as you yourself said, it was not the answer they had hoped for.

Terrible criticism of the summary. I would have expected better from AC than to say the summary was terrible.

Re:Terrible summary

[Translation Error]

The summary and title clearly call it a trial, not an experiment.

Re:Terrible summary

[ceoyoyo]

The summary says the trial failed. A trial is a particular kind of experiment that's more like an engineering test than it is a basic research experiment. In trials you're testing something that you very much want to succeed.

Re:Terrible summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the experiment successfully answered their question

Sorry, but no. This was a totally failed, poorly designed, waste of time study. This is the evil of "statistical significance" thinking. Whether the result is statistically significant or not is unrelated to the question of interest. We have no idea if these plants repelled aphids. This is explained here: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7605111&cid=49995785

It's NOT WHEAT!

[jddj]

It's QUADROTRITICALE!!!

Life finds a way

[Cazakatari]

I would agree with the "cry wolf" assessment. Having worked in pest control in my experience pheromones don't work well and/or very long; about the only good use I've found is for monitoring. I once talked to a Chemistry professor working with an Entomologist to synthesize fire ant trail pheromones (how they make paths to food) to see if it could be used to confuse workers. He told me it worked for all of a few minutes before they "figured it out" and started trailing through it like nothing happened. Smell is the primary sense for most insects and can be extremely acute (some moths can sense a few MOLECULES per square foot), so I think it will be relatively difficult to find a way to trick them in that way.

I'm glad they're trying new things, we're ganna need it along with intelligent usage so we don't end up needlessly wasting away their effective life-spans like we've done with previous pesticides and anti-biotics. Shelf what doesn't work but continue encouraging innovation (which I think the current gene patent situation is probably stifling)

Re:Life finds a way

[bws111]

Here is my question about the 'cry wolf' thing. In the story, the moral was not that people started ignoring the kid, it is that they ignored him even when there was a real threat. So why doesn't that happen here? Doesn't the cry wolf effect make the predators of the aphids that much more effective? Or is the problem that the predators are also a problem for the crops?

Re:Life finds a way

[ShanghaiBill]

Doesn't the cry wolf effect make the predators of the aphids that much more effective?

No. The pheromone is normally emitted by the wheat when it is under attack by aphids, thus attracting predators. But the GMO wheat emits the pheromone all the time, so the predators show up, and ... no lunch. So this would make them less effective. The goal was not to make the predators more effective, but to scare away the aphids, which are normally not attracted to wheat that is already emitting the pheromone.

Re:Life finds a way

[bws111]

I see, thanks.

Re:Life finds a way

[Cazakatari]

This situation is a little more complicated than cry wolf because it is a communication to both the townspeople and the wolves. I imagine it reaches some kind of equilibrium where newcomers on both sides heed it, but since it drones on 24/7 eventually they'll start ignoring it.

Re:Life finds a way

[TheCarp]

The moral of the story was that by crying wolf, the boy made him crying wolf the equivalent of him NOT crying wolf ever.

It is tempting, and even mostly correct, to think of bugs as little biological robots, but, they are robots that have very complex programs which have dealt with all manner of danger and trick in the past and survived. It shouldn't be surprising that they have coping mechanisms to detect bogus signals and adjust.

Just like the townsfolk recognized a bogus signal and adjusted. That adjustment was the correct response to the boy who cried wolf. It left them vulnerable the one time he was right, but, he was a signal they couldn't rely on.

You can take the moral several ways, but at its heart it is: If you develop a reputation for not telling the truth, people wont believe you when you do.

Re:Life finds a way

[shadowrat]

and here i thought the moral of the story was your workers are unreliable if they are overworked at monotonous jobs. The townspeople should have hired some more wolf watchers and provided some perks like a game room and espresso machine in the break room.

same for any sort of resistance

[Anonymous Coward]

be it anitbiotics, silver coatings, elevated radiation levels.

Look around

[nospam007]

"ecologist Marcel Dicke of Wageningen University in the Netherlands says. “You have a plant crying wolf all the time, and the bugs won’t listen to it any longer.”

It's the Netherlands goddamit, use the appropriate 'the dike leaks' metaphor instead of the wolf.

genetic manipulation has been done for millenia

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's distinguish between genetic manipulation, which includes artificial selection (only plant seeds from plants that have the properties you like), hybridization, etc. and "transgenic organisms" where you put genetic material from one species into another dissimilar one.

We've been doing genetic manipulation since wolves turned into dogs. And Luther Burbank did lots and lots of hybridization and such. Virtually every apple you eat or consume has been manipulated in some way, as have tomatoes, etc.
We've even done it with chemical assistance (using things like colchicine to cause mutations and polyploidy)..

Some work (hybrid corn), some don't (the rabbage)

Re:genetic manipulation has been done for millenia

[Applehu Akbar]

And now we know that transgenic processes occur in nature too.
http://arstechnica.com/science...

Re:genetic manipulation has been done for millenia

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's distinguish between genetic manipulation, which includes artificial selection (only plant seeds from plants that have the properties you like), hybridization, etc. and "transgenic organisms" where you put genetic material from one species into another dissimilar one.

[Naturalistic Fallacy]

Re:genetic manipulation has been done for millenia

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, he wasn't saying one was better than the others, but that they're separate items.

I think you had an idiot's fallacy.

Re:genetic manipulation has been done for millenia

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no scientific difference.

Re:genetic manipulation has been done for millenia

[jedidiah]

There are very important legal ones.

One allows your favorite megacorp to strip me of my personal property rights. The other one does not.

Re:genetic manipulation has been done for millenia

[jedidiah]

> There is no scientific difference.

If that were really true then there would be no value perceived in the "newer" alternative. The fact that these differences do exist despite the shrill attempts of "science fanboys" to say otherwise is why megacorps want to use these methods. At best they are a short cut. At worst, they convey unusual monopoly powers.

Re:genetic manipulation has been done for millenia

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong again. Traditional breading methods are patentable too.

GMO - fantasy

[Anonymous Coward]

So when is someone going to cross a Venus Flytrap with Kudzu and reduce
flies and mosquitos in the South?

In what way is GMO indicted here?

[Applehu Akbar]

The story does not indict GMO technology in any way. It just states that a given modification didn't work as intended.

To see what I mean, imagine this headline:

"Use of Hybridization to Cross Labrador and Poodle Results in Dog With Incredibly Ridiculous Name"

Re:In what way is GMO indicted here?

[plopez]

" It just states that a given modification didn't work as intended."

There's the rub. We are introducing combinations, some times cutting across kingdoms, never before seen into the gene pool. People are concern about the law of unintended consequences which can kick in with a vengeance when exotics are introduced into the Environment.

Re:In what way is GMO indicted here?

[Applehu Akbar]

Uhhh...no. All they did was introduce into wheat a gene from peppermint. What kingdoms there must be in your own mind to imagine any danger from that.

In the USA...

[bussdriver]

Monsanto would have spent the money and had it blocked from market because it does not use any pesticides. (remember their successful round up ready approach lets them charge for GM seeds AND for the pesticides for the genetic disease they unleashed. Oh yes, it's a genetic disease, they didn't make the plant sterile for the same reason they someday will likely create pathogens where only they have the cure. )

Re:In the USA...

[kurzweilfreak]

It's a shame that your argument falls apart when people realize that glyphosate is no longer under patent and people are free to buy it from any manufacturer and are not locked into buying Monsanto's RoundUp.

Re:In the USA...

[bussdriver]

Remember RoundUp and how EVIL it was. It's not relevant that some aspect of it is not as bad today; the damage was done and is still being done as well as new ways to repeat the same process with new chemicals and plants.

I didn't get into how they work to undermine science when it goes against them. People thought tobacco was bad with it's industry holding progress back for decades; Monsanto is more capable today than big tobacco ever was.

Wow. Way to editorialise!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it was 2mil spent on a project that was always predicted to fail by those not benefiting from the attempt.

Overspending on anti-environmentalist alarmism and unfounded fears cannot be blamed on environmentalist activism.

Re:Wow. Way to editorialise!

[HornWumpus]

A big part of the 2 million was spent on securing the fields so idiots wouldn't burn them down.

That cost is right on the eco nuts.

Re: Wow. Way to editorialise!

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the paper, their security was a 2 meter tall fence. No idea how they spent so much. Even if there were additional costs, theyd have to come to ~$2500/day. Waste of money. Also, the study was pointless anyway due to poor design. Search the post here titled "Waste of Money".

Re: Wow. Way to editorialise!

[Anonymous Coward]

It was an 80 by 80 meter piece of land, all they needed was one guy in a tower watching over it. Maybe even no tower, just have him walk around it once an hour. Its like a quarter mile perimeter.

If they're paid successful or no

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're paid successful or no, then in what sense are they taking ANY risk whatsoever????

And without risk, why the hell should they make any profit?

And without risk, why the hell should their efforts be protected? Just because I want to make money basketweaving doesn't mean the government can mandate that only woven baskets can be used.

If there is demand enough to pay for the product, then the minimum pay necessary to get someone to do the job is ALL that is justified if there is no risk. And government should not, in this case, make any guarantees for the non-risk venture.

Re:If they're paid successful or no

[bws111]

You're not making any sense. The 'they' you are complaining about being paid are the employees, the suppliers, the landlord, the utility company, etc. 'They' are not taking any risk at all, nor should they be expected to.

However, SOMEONE is paying out all that money. THEY are the ones taking a risk. If they never succeed they don't get paid, they are out their entire investment. However, if they DO eventually succeed, then it is perfectly reasonable to use the profits from that success to cover the costs of past and future failures. The reason they can have those profits is that they don't have to compete on price with all the people who just sit on their asses doing nothing until someone else comes along and invents something that works, and thus have NONE of the expenses associated with development, including the cost of failure.

You are entirely wrong about there being no risk - there is huge risk. However, your 'no patent protection' idea means that there is ONLY risk, and no possible reward. That is not exactly how to 'advance the sciences and useful arts'.

Huge differences, though.

[Anonymous Coward]

That form of transfer only occurs in a very small population and expands only very slowly, and in a situation where the rest of the ecosystem can adapt to the changed scenario.

Moreover, since it happens slowly, the bad effects can be seen before a massive problem is inevitable from the size of the mutated population.

However, in agribusiness, a billion acres of the same modified organism will be produced. So before any assessment of a problem can be found, the problem will already be massive in scale. Moreover, since it will be bred with active culling of other species and their coadaption limited, any coadaptive action that causes a problem will become a huge problem before it's able to be measured and explained.

Since the business makes massive profits nearly immediately and, long before any long term issue can arise (see Thalidomide), the ones who benefited from introducing the new product will be unreachable and the company held "blameless" because nobody there now is responsible for actions taken by others.

Lastly, the money involved will ensure that any problem will be swept under the carpet of "unreasonable doubt" and the problem peddled as "alarmist eco claptrap" because the profit is reaped now by the people able to do something about it, whereas the storm will be reaped by everyone and avoidable by those who have enough money (e.g. via profiting from the problematic product) to isolate themselves.

Such crossbreeding and transgenic transfer occur so infrequently and progress so slowly, nobody makes a quick killing off it before the problems can be seen.

"Stole"? Did you say "stole"?

[mi]

Rather they stole them

What?!?! Information can be stolen? Somebody lost their own copy? Oh, no... How can it happen, that the same site, that diligently insists on correcting any attempts to accuse pirates of music and movies of "theft", have moderated a post containing the same misapplication of the Eighth Commandment so highly?

What a load of claptrap

[Anonymous Coward]

'If you don't like patented plants, no one is forcing you to use them. Problem solved. "

Really? How do you manage that when

a) nothing is allowed to be labelled with GMO free or not on it
b) any farmer may be sued into using GMOs in the USA because their neighbor did
c) agribusiness buy up all the seed suppliers and close down all non-GMO product lines
d) they put all GMO and non-GMO products of the same use in the same bin, mixing them up hopelessly

Look at how butthurt the USA is with the EU refusing their products because they can't separate out their GMO stuff from the non-GMO.

Re:What a load of claptrap

[Anonymous Coward]

1) False. You are allowed to label stuff GMO or not. What you are not allowed to do is imply that there is something wrong with GMO or that your product is better than GMO, because that would be false or deceptive advertising.

2) Complete bullshit. Name ONE case where a farmer was sued into using GMO. They may be sued into paying for GMO that they used without paying for it, but nobody has been forced to use GMO

3) More bullshit. There is plenty of non-GMO available. It just isn't as popular with the farmers. There is zero need for anyone to 'close down' all non-GMO product lines

4) You're buying on the commodities market?

Head over to your local Whole Paycheck (Now with even MORE ways to rip off gullible idiots!) and you can buy all the non-GMO you want.

Money is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Money literally ruins everything.

Are GMO plants Kosher?

[plopez]

If they contain frog DNA for example? Is it vegan? I don't think this question has ever been addressed.

Re:Are GMO plants Kosher?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that their genomes already shares DNA, the answer is a big fat no.

Re:Are GMO plants Kosher?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because it's obvious. The DNA is 100% from the plant of question. If they added frog DNA, what they would mean would be DNA with the same sequence that frogs happen to have. It is not physically made from frog DNA. Even if they did use real frog DNA instead of a synthetic in the first step, every single copy would be plant DNA. If I wanted to put a frog gene in something, I would need exactly zero frogs. I would look up the sequence of the gene in question from a database, as frogs have already been sequenced, at least a few species, and then order up that DNA from a company either in small pieces which I have to stitch together myself, or as a whole gene, ready to go. They don't have any frogs either, they make it from scratch, chemically. Basically, if what you said were true, it's be equivalent to a birthday cake with a frog drawn on it not being vegan or kosher.

Re:Are GMO plants Kosher?

[david_thornley]

You have no idea how incredibly little I care about those questions. People who want to live their lives by picky arbitrary rules can define their own. If they're our friends, they can let us know what the rules are, and we'll try to accommodate them (because they're our friends, and because we're used to friends and relatives who have medical issues with certain foods). If they aren't our friends, then I really don't care what their rules are.

offtopic : Re:GMOs have so many different problems

[onepoint]

I grow heirloom tomatoes on my balcony. when I buy a house, I plan to grow a lot more and try to cross different heirloom to get more amazing flavors.

Disapointment? you mean Victory!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a victory for humanity and livestock. We don't want those toxins in our intestines.

You're making shit up

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you're willfully blind. What,exactly "doesn't make sense"?

The price of drugs or GMOs are inflated to cover the lost costs of failed projects. There is NO RISK WHATSOEVER. If they have a success rate of 90% or 10%, there is no change in how much risk they take: NOT ONE of the failed projects will cost them a penny.

The cost of failures are laid upon their customers.

"THEY are the ones taking a risk."

NO THEY ARE NOT.

Unless they NEVER succeed in producing a product AND have NO OTHER LINES to underwrite the loss, THEY RISK NOTHING.

Re:You're making shit up

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they NEVER succeed in producing a product AND have NO OTHER LINES to underwrite the loss, THEY RISK NOTHING.

That's like saying no business ever risks anything by doing anything. It's absurd. I'd say you can't see the forest for the trees, but in this case you can't see the trees for the forest.

Large capital companies exist to mitigate risks in this way. Taking a lot of long-shot high risk / high reward activities on outputs a company with a much lower risk and much lower reward through the law of large numbers. That's how insurance works too. But you're being stupid if you claim that an insurance company never loses money on any of their clients. They just don't lose money in aggregate because of how they set the prices. But they take a risk with each new client they insure, using real money.

I'm not talking about whether it's right or wrong to patent genes here, just the general concept is a business that aggregates high capital risks, and such a model can only be successful if you can get the reward * (1 - failure rate) > risk * failure rate. If you can't, it fails. Even if the failure rate is not 100% it fails because the reward does not automatically increase with the number of failures (if it could increase so easily, then they would take the increase even at a higher success rate).

(The reward for success can of course increase if there's an industry-wide increase in failures due to reduced competition at low prices, but that's automatically a result of your individual failure).

Re:You're making shit up

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Or you're willfully blind. What,exactly "doesn't make sense"?

The price of drugs or GMOs are inflated to cover the lost costs of failed projects. There is NO RISK WHATSOEVER. If they have a success rate of 90% or 10%, there is no change in how much risk they take: NOT ONE of the failed projects will cost them a penny.

The cost of failures are laid upon their customers.

"THEY are the ones taking a risk."

NO THEY ARE NOT.

Unless they NEVER succeed in producing a product AND have NO OTHER LINES to underwrite the loss, THEY RISK NOTHING.

Well that's just not true. People might not be willing to buy the product at the price they need to sell it at to cover for their failures. In that case, they lose.

Gene must have transferred over to humans

[Anonymous Coward]

because that is all we hear these days is people crying wolf or claiming to be victims just to get attention...

Waste of Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Who designed this study? They expressed an insect pheromone in wheat plants, then observed "field trials employing the single and double constructs showed no reduction in aphids or increase in parasitism" but also "Insect numbers were low". Then if we look at the methods we see the different types of plants were only separated by ~10 meters:

The trial to evaluate levels of aphid infestation and parasitism was conducted on Rothamsted farm.
A 4 × 4 Latin square design of 6 m × 6 m plots was used, similar to previous semiochemical trials14.
Treatments comprised two transformed wheat lines, B2812 R9P1 (single construct) and B2803 R6P1
(double construct) (4 plots each), plus a control treatment of untransformed Cadenza (8 plots). Plots
were separated from each other by 10 m (0.5 m space, 9 m barley, 0.5 m space) and from the edge of the
trial by 7 m of barley (0.5 m space, 6 m barley, 0.5 m space), plus an outer 6 m pollen barrier of wheat
(Cadenza). Two 2.4 m high chain-link fences surrounded the trial to prevent the entry of rabbits and
unauthorised persons.

http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/srep11183.

So the maybe aphids sensed the pheremones and just flew to somewhere else rather than 10 meters over. You can't tell anything from this trial. Waste of money.

I've seen this movie

[shadowrat]

The twist is, if they waited just a little longer, all those aphids conditioned to ignore the warning pheromone die off. They no longer protect themselves from the actual dangers! oh yeah. spoiler alert!

Yes, STOLE, Midget Intelligence.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they only claimed the actual organism THEY HAD IN THEIR POSESSION, then you'd be right, they stole nothing.

This isn't what they're doing, though. They are claiming that ANY existence of that organism, or ANYTHING derived from it belongs to them.

So, yes, STOLE.

Tell us about "AlmostAllAdsBlocked+" Coren22

[Anonymous Coward]

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Tell us about "AlmostAllAdsBlocked+" Coren22

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & LMAO @ U, boy -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

* Gonna go "cry in your cereal" now, boy?

(You ought to for being STUPID enough to use OR SUGGEST a blatantly INFERIOR solution! See below... it's fact & truth!)

APK

P.S.=> FACT: "AlmostALLAdsBlocked+" is INFERIOR vs. hosts - hugely so!

AB+ doesn't even DO what it's supposed to fully anymore being BRIBED http://finance.yahoo.com/news/... not to!

AB+ doesn't do a FRACTION of what hosts do for more speed, security, reliability, + anonymity online!

AB+ EATS 128mb of RAM (vs. hosts @ 11 *maybe* tops via my program with CURRENT data, the important kind vs. current threats + ads) http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte...

AB+ adds messagepassing overheads!

AB+ operates in SLOWER usermode (vs. hosts in PnP kernelmode)

AB+ creates huge CPU consumption!

I use what you already have that works & does more with LESS, no less - you by way of comparison? Pile on "MoAr" that doesn't do as nearly as much & what it's supposed to do, massively inefficiently no less (see above)? It NO LONGER DOES!

AFTER ALL THAT?

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If you say it is, you are *TRULY* stupid & I'd reply saying "argue with the numbers" & facts above, from reputable sources & analysis proving my points for me... apk

Tell us about "AlmostAllAdsBlocked+" Coren22

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & LMAO @ U, boy -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

FACT: "AlmostALLAdsBlocked+" is INFERIOR vs. hosts - hugely so!

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AB+ doesn't do a FRACTION of what hosts do for more speed, security, reliability, + anonymity online!

AB+ EATS 128mb of RAM (vs. hosts @ 11 *maybe* tops via my program with CURRENT data, the important kind vs. current threats + ads) http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte...

AB+ adds messagepassing overheads!

AB+ operates in SLOWER usermode (vs. hosts in PnP kernelmode)

AB+ creates huge CPU consumption!

AB+ is also detectable by clarityray (via native browser methods) nullifying it (not hosts).

---

I use what you already have that works & does more with LESS, no less - you by way of comparison? Pile on "MoAr" that doesn't do as nearly as much & what it's supposed to do, massively inefficiently no less (see above)?

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* AFTER ALL THAT?

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If you say it is, you are *TRULY* stupid & I'd reply saying "argue with the numbers" & facts above, from reputable sources & analysis proving my points for me!

APK

P.S.=> Gonna go "cry in your cereal" now, boy?

(You ought to for being STUPID enough to use OR SUGGEST a blatantly INFERIOR solution! See above - it's fact & truth via reputable sources)... apk

Coren22: Questions 4u... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

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+

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+

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Nature wins

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the weeds becoming "roundup-ready" and taking over hundreds of hectares where GMOs were grown and roundup sprayed way too much and the bugs becoming tolerant of the Bt built into the crop nature wins. The smart thing to do would be to work with it and not focus on selling glyphosate.

First generation (selective breeding etc) of genetic work was a success but takes a long time especially for trees.
Second gen (splicing dna from separate species together) has run its course and is now in the failure category.
Third gen (marker assisted selection) is getting great results without the problems of #2 but much faster than #1.

So what do companies invested in #2 deal with competition from #3? They buy them and then use #2 to insert their roundup ready genes. Sigh. Oh well more and more MAS companies are happening and there is a serious open source food project so soon the #2 companies will cease to be a factor.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like fake bird calls. Works for a week or two then no longer. For this No Till is best. Keep the good guys around.