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Scientists Have 'Hacked Photosynthesis' To Boost Crop Growth By 40 Percent (npr.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: There's a big molecule, a protein, inside the leaves of most plants. It's called Rubisco, which is short for an actual chemical name that's very long and hard to remember. Rubisco has one job. It picks up carbon dioxide from the air, and it uses the carbon to make sugar molecules. It gets the energy to do this from the sun. This is photosynthesis, the process by which plants use sunlight to make food, a foundation of life on Earth. "But it has what we like to call one fatal flaw," Amanda Cavanagh, a biologist and post-doctoral researcher at the University of Illinois, says. Unfortunately, Rubisco isn't picky enough about what it grabs from the air. It also picks up oxygen. "When it does that, it makes a toxic compound, so the plant has to detoxify it."
Plants have a whole complicated chemical assembly line to carry out this detoxification, and the process uses up a lot of energy. This means the plant has less energy for making leaves, or food for us. Cavanagh and her colleagues in a research program called Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), which is based at the University of Illinois, have spent the last five years trying to fix Rubisco's problem. "We're sort of hacking photosynthesis," she says. They experimented with tobacco plants, just because tobacco is easy to work with. They inserted some new genes into these plants, which shut down the existing detoxification assembly line and set up a new one that's way more efficient. And they created super tobacco plants. "They grew faster, and they grew up to 40 percent bigger" than normal tobacco plants, Cavanagh says. These measurements were done both in greenhouses and open-air field plots. The scientists are trying to apply this technique to other plants, like tomatoes, soybeans, and black-eyed peas, which are a staple food crop for a lot of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Cavanagh and her colleagues published their work this week in the journal Science.
Plants have a whole complicated chemical assembly line to carry out this detoxification, and the process uses up a lot of energy. This means the plant has less energy for making leaves, or food for us. Cavanagh and her colleagues in a research program called Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), which is based at the University of Illinois, have spent the last five years trying to fix Rubisco's problem. "We're sort of hacking photosynthesis," she says. They experimented with tobacco plants, just because tobacco is easy to work with. They inserted some new genes into these plants, which shut down the existing detoxification assembly line and set up a new one that's way more efficient. And they created super tobacco plants. "They grew faster, and they grew up to 40 percent bigger" than normal tobacco plants, Cavanagh says. These measurements were done both in greenhouses and open-air field plots. The scientists are trying to apply this technique to other plants, like tomatoes, soybeans, and black-eyed peas, which are a staple food crop for a lot of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Cavanagh and her colleagues published their work this week in the journal Science.
Able to resist being covered in increasingly caustic pesticides = bad modification.
If they don't harm humans or the environment, is that a bad modification?
Let's not go that far. Roundup (the most GMO targeted pesticide) is by definition a poison and does have ill effects on humans in concentration. It's all about the dose. It may also be linked to bee colony collapse, but I don't know if that's definitive. It's meant to kill insects so not really a shock if it is.
If they don't harm humans or the environment, is that a bad modification?
It is if that modification makes it easier to do so - as in Gravis Zero's example.
Anyway I feel like science is moving towards a situation where DNA of all species currently on this planet serves as "software distribution v1.0", and where modified species are deployed at will to do some specific job. Kind of like how a carpenter picks a chisel or a hammer from his toolbox. Politics or public opinion aside, if it's technically possible & profitable, somebody will do it.
I find it a bit amusing that you proceeded to ALSO not give us the actual name despite complaint...
It is:
Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase
I agree, it was not THAT long. Probably whatever grammar checker system they had refused to let it pass. Or like you say he was just lazy and thought all his readers were morons. Either way, not a good look.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Some plants HAVE evolved ways of improving CO2 capture. It's just that the vast majority of the food crops people desire to eat are still using the old mechanism. Do some research on C3 vs. C4 and CAM photosythesis. Corn is one of the few food crops that uses the newer C4 photosynthesis engine. Corn's productivity is likely one reason why pretty much all of our cheap junk food today contains corn in some form or another.
When you have companies trying to manufacture seedless versions of plants to replace the normal ones to the point they can potentially replace a sizable portion of our food supply with them and making us dependent on them
RR seeds went off-patent in 2015. BT corn (maize) went off-patent in 2016.
No other GMO crops are even close to a "sizable portion" of our food supply.
Anyone is free to grow, save seed, whatever. Glyphosate (Roundup) is also off patent. Anyone can make it, and plenty of generics are available, even at Walmart.
The "seedless" crops do produce seeds. What they don't produce is pollen. They use a "terminator gene" to block the spread of the genetic material. This is a GOOD THING, and it is also not used or sold anywhere because of protests by hypocritical environmentalists outraged that some of their best criticisms of GMO (pollen infecting neighboring farms, genes leaking into the wild) can be easily prevented. So instead of embracing the improvement, they fought to ban it.
Roundup (the most GMO targeted pesticide) is by definition a poison
Roundup works by blocking a plant enzyme that does not exist in humans. So it is not "by definition" a poison to humans.
and does have ill effects on humans in concentration. It's all about the dose.
Sure. Distilled water also can have ill effects on humans. It's all about the dose.
GMO crops generally reduce the need for herbicides and pesticides.
The worst use of Roundup/glyphosate is as a crop desiccant, sprayed on green crops to dry them out shortly before harvest. This means the herbicide is on the crop as it is harvested. This is BY FAR the reason Americans are exposed to the most glyphosate. This practice is banned in many other countries.
But guess what? It only works for crops that are NOT RR-GMO. So if you want to avoid glyphosate, don't buy any soy product that says "Non-GMO".
Some plants HAVE evolved ways of improving CO2 capture.
The evolution of the C4 pathway happened in grasses, and they spread around the world about 6-7 million years ago. Tropical savanna replaced woodland in Africa, as the grasses outcompeted forests via more efficient photosynthesis. Hominids moved out of the forest into the expanding savanna, learning to walk upright, freeing up their hands to use tools.
The C4 pathway also meant plants could pull more CO2 out of the atmosphere, lowering global temperatures. The spread of C4-capable grasses may have been the main trigger for the ice ages.
Corn is one of the few food crops that uses the newer C4 photosynthesis engine.
Another big C4 crop is sugar cane. Millet and sorghum are also C4.
I don't want irradiated food because the radiation kills the plant. Dead food has far less nutritional benefits compared to fresh picked food that is still alive.
Furthermore, if I can get non-irradiated food, I can plant the seeds and get my own copy of those plants to grow in my garden. In my opinion, THAT is the real reason why the ag industry wants to irradiate all of our food. It prevents propagation of desirable plant species, making people subservient to and reliant upon the ag industry.
You know what? cooking food kills the plant, I don't see you advocating for all raw food, and if you are well, enjoy that salmonella. For that matter, taking a vegetable out of the ground or off it's tree/vine is slow killing it too. Which is neither here nor there because that's not how irradiation works.
Also, hate to burst your conspiracy bubble, but farmers rarely sit around peeling apart last years crop to get seeds for this year. They buy seeds from dedicated seed farms, just like the majority of people who want a garden go down to the garden shop and buy packets of seeds. You get higher quality, more consistent seeds. Just because a fruit or vegetable is raw doesn't even mean it's in it's seed baring form either.
Roundup works by blocking a plant enzyme that does not exist in humans. So it is not "by definition" a poison to humans
Two huge flaws in your argument.
1. We are symbiotic with our microbiome, much of which does have the shikimate pathway targeted by glyphosate. Therefore, it most assuredly, and emphatically, is a poison to humans, if we consume it in sufficient amounts to affect the microbiome. This is no longer even debatable or disputable. The ONLY question at this point is to what extent.
2. Roundup does not consist solely of glyphosate. It contains other ingredients which increase both its effectiveness in its intended use, and also its toxicity, since what kills our microbiome more efficiently kills us more efficiently as well.
Nonaggression works!