Re:There's a reason econuts have no love for Monsa
on
Grow Your Own Plastic
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· Score: 1
The infertility is there for a good reason and is propably the only thing that Monsanto is doing right. It prevents the genetically altered material in the crop from spreading into the environment through crossbreeding with other plants. As with animals it can occur that plants from different species crossbreed. There is at the moment a heated debate going on about how propable this crossbreeding is and whether the offsprings are fertile. AFAIK it has not been proven to be nonexistent or indeed safe for the environment so the best way to make sure is to make the crop infertile.
Monsanto is of course only interested in preventing the weeds from becoming immune to RoudUp but the real concern is that the effects of altered genetical material on the environment are extremely hard to anticipate from theory and even harder to prove conclusively in experiments. Random mutations make the problem even worse since there is presently no way of testing for all possible ways in which the altered stands of DNA could get f...ed up to become voratious superweeds, plant deseases etc.
Of course Monsanto remains the despicable Microsoft/Nestle/AnyBigCorp that it is for patenting, bullying etc. but it hardly forces you to repeat-buy (you can switch to another seedsupplier anytime) and it isn't this reason why the greens/ecologists abolish the company. The real reason is the danger that it's strategy presents to the environment. When you hear the word genetically altered food you think (at least I did when I heard about it the first time) about genes that make the tomatoes bigger and the apples sweeter etc. when the truth, in fact, is that those things are extremely hard to achieve through direct engineering of the genes and much easier done by the timeprooven methods of breeding and crossbreeding. What is much easier to do and what almost always is meant by genetically engineered plants is that they are made to respond (or not respond) to different chemical compounds. Engineered foodplants are designed to be able to withstand the most efficient and dangerous plant-toxins in vast amounts. When these toxins are subsequently used in vast amounts Natures own weeds will, given time, catch up and develope immunity and it's superweed time with weeds not only take over the cropfields but also the livingspace of other plants.
Monsanto is despisable for taking the easy way out and thus risking the futur of our environment by getting into the ratrace of developing evermore powerfull pesticides and corresponding immune crops to keep ahead of mother natures own immunesystem. This cannot end well, imagine a future where you can throw acid on cropkilling weeds and they'll be able to withstand it! Granted I'm exaggerating but not much.
hmm... since the signal bounces of the atmosphere it gets to you from several directions but with different pathlegths depending on the direction. wouldn't it be possible to build a bi-directional antenna and put the signals coming from different directions through an interferometer to pinpoint the source?
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The infertility is there for a good reason and is propably the only thing that Monsanto is doing right. It prevents the genetically altered material in the crop from spreading into the environment through crossbreeding with other plants. As with animals it can occur that plants from different species crossbreed. There is at the moment a heated debate going on about how propable this crossbreeding is and whether the offsprings are fertile. AFAIK it has not been proven to be nonexistent or indeed safe for the environment so the best way to make sure is to make the crop infertile.
Monsanto is of course only interested in preventing the weeds from becoming immune to RoudUp but the real concern is that the effects of altered genetical material on the environment are extremely hard to anticipate from theory and even harder to prove conclusively in experiments. Random mutations make the problem even worse since there is presently no way of testing for all possible ways in which the altered stands of DNA could get f...ed up to become voratious superweeds, plant deseases etc.
Of course Monsanto remains the despicable Microsoft/Nestle/AnyBigCorp that it is for patenting, bullying etc. but it hardly forces you to repeat-buy (you can switch to another seedsupplier anytime) and it isn't this reason why the greens/ecologists abolish the company. The real reason is the danger that it's strategy presents to the environment. When you hear the word genetically altered food you think (at least I did when I heard about it the first time) about genes that make the tomatoes bigger and the apples sweeter etc. when the truth, in fact, is that those things are extremely hard to achieve through direct engineering of the genes and much easier done by the timeprooven methods of breeding and crossbreeding. What is much easier to do and what almost always is meant by genetically engineered plants is that they are made to respond (or not respond) to different chemical compounds. Engineered foodplants are designed to be able to withstand the most efficient and dangerous plant-toxins in vast amounts. When these toxins are subsequently used in vast amounts Natures own weeds will, given time, catch up and develope immunity and it's superweed time with weeds not only take over the cropfields but also the livingspace of other plants.
Monsanto is despisable for taking the easy way out and thus risking the futur of our environment by
getting into the ratrace of developing evermore powerfull pesticides and corresponding immune crops to keep ahead of mother natures own immunesystem. This cannot end well, imagine a future where you can throw acid on cropkilling weeds and they'll be able to withstand it! Granted I'm exaggerating but not much.
-timo
hmm... since the signal bounces of the atmosphere it gets to you from several directions but with different pathlegths depending on the direction. wouldn't it be possible to build a bi-directional antenna and put the signals coming from different directions through an interferometer to pinpoint the source?