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Anti-GMO Activists Slow Scientists Breeding a CO2-Reducing Superplant (thebulletin.org)

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists calls it "a plant that could save civilization, if we let it." Slashdot reader meckdevil writes: A "super chickpea plant" now in development could remove huge amounts of excess atmospheric carbon dioxide and fix it in the soil, greatly diminishing the impacts of climate change (not to mention producing large amounts of tasty hummus). But fear of anti-GMO activists has so far deterred her from using the CRISPR gene-editing tool to speed work on the plant.
The effort is led by Joanne Chory, director of the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences -- who according to the article will make much slower progress without CRISPR. "Even with advanced breeding techniques, Chory estimates that developing a super plant in this fashion would take around 10 years..."

"She estimates that if 5 percent of the world's cropland, approximately the total area of Egypt, were devoted to such super plants, they could capture about 50 percent of current global carbon dioxide emissions."

1 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Re: The activists ate my homework! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Science won, scare-mongering lost.

    You are a grade A idiot.

    My own wife thought she was developing gluten intolerance, could not eat wheat here, mostly bread, but the cramps and other pain was inconsistent; so she couldn't pinpoint it. Its been going on for years. She left wheat off her diet for years now.

    We went to Germany for 6 weeks starting midMarch. By accident, she ate wheat in a meal. No symptoms. Then she tried a bit of bread and pasta. Nothing. She's been hogging pasta and bread down like crazy.

    Then we come back and she tries pasta, no problem. Then next day, she ates bread. Boom. Major cramps that night.

    I hear more and more people like that. Yeah, science won. Moron.