Biotech crops.

[EchoSun13]

I have a huge end of the year project due soon for my science class. I got most of it done but still need more info about biotech crops. Is there anyone out there willing to help, or give an opinoin on it? And links.....would be a freaking life saver!

[SnakeCharmer]

I have a huge end of the year project due soon for my science class. I got most of it done but still need more info about biotech crops. Is there anyone out there willing to help, or give an opinoin on it? And links.....would be a freaking life saver! Are you supposed to write about ethical issues, safety and things like that? Or do you need to concentrate on the technology itself?

[EchoSun13]

Saftey and ethical issues. I just had to pick a topic....Im also doing it on rBGH. But, I need more info on Biotech.

[SnakeCharmer]

Saftey and ethical issues. I wouldn't touch that with a twenty foot pole Most of the opinions you hear will be based on very little (or no) scientific evidence. Keep in mind that both sides have huge financial interests and will distort the facts as is suits them. If you do find a credibile study that supports either of the views I would be very interested in reading about it. Anyway, if you have some specific questions about the technology I'll do my best to answer them.

[EchoSun13]

Ha.I should put that on the top of my poster. "I wouldn't touch that with twenty foot pole." Well..I figured I would ask to get a feel for how people thought about it. What do you think, would you eat it, or would you shy away from the food they grow that way?

[SnakeCharmer]

Ha.I should put that on the top of my poster. "I wouldn't touch that with twenty foot pole." Well..I figured I would ask to get a feel for how people thought about it. What do you think, would you eat it, or would you shy away from the food they grow that way? The way I see it: all the crops that have been used throughout human history are genetically modified. Crops have been modified by cross-breeding and selection for thousands of years. Now that the restriction enzymes have been discovered changes are done more precisely. Now it's about splicing genes instead of whole genomes. So, to answer your question: I don't really see the difference between GM crops and nonGM crops. Both are result of genetic changes introduced and selected by humans. Not only would I eat it, I believe we're all eating it, and have been eating it our entire lives.

[EchoSun13]

The way I see it: all the crops that have been used throughout human history are genetically modified. Crops have been modified by cross-breeding and selection for thousands of years. Now that the restriction enzymes have been discovered changes are done more precisely. Now it's about splicing genes instead of whole genomes. So, to answer your question: I don't really see the difference between GM crops and nonGM crops. Both are result of genetic changes introduced and selected by humans. Not only would I eat it, I believe we're all eating it, and have been eating it our entire lives. Hmm, I like that. If you don't mind, can I use this as a quote? I think it goes well with everything else I have. And I have to agree. I think it is a downer that we had to mess with it, but if are ecosystem is goig downhill like everyone say it is, GM foods are going to save this world from starvation. =] Neat. Thanks for the help.

[EchoSun13]

Oh and your English is wonderful. I didn't even notice.

[Xei]

Biotech... are you talking about genetic modification?

[EchoSun13]

I am. It's both, or maybe my teacher is just weird.

[Xei]

Both? I'm not so sure about the sucess of GM crops. The original vision was of vastly improved yields causing an end to hunger, but so far it's been a lot less dramatic than that... just herbicide resistance and things. A lot more was achieved via basic selective breeding.

[EchoSun13]

I read that one of the reasons was to kill o viruses and insects in fresh food. But..isn't that stuf they spray or whatever they do with it harmfull to the plants and us who eat it?

[SnakeCharmer]

Hmm, I like that. If you don't mind, can I use this as a quote? I think it goes well with everything else I have. You can transform it into a question, something to think about. If people tried to understand this new technology before forming an opinion, would they still think it's such a bad thing (worse than what we did before)? I'm not claiming it's better, but most people talk about it without bothering do do any research. Interfering with nature is the only thing that kept us alive so far As for the ecosystem going downhill: the ecosystem is doing the same thing it always did - it's changing. It would change even if we did nothing. And it's a self-correcting system so I'm not afraid for its future.

[Xei]

I read that one of the reasons was to kill o viruses and insects in fresh food. But..isn't that stuf they spray or whatever they do with it harmfull to the plants and us who eat it? No. It's harmful to weeds. If it harmed the crops farmers probably wouldn't spend thousands of dollars spraying it on them each year. There's very little chance that it is harmful to humans. There should only be a trace of it in the food, and these things are checked extremely thoroughly by regulators. An interesting one is golden rice, where they added the gene for vitamin A production to rice for people who eat it as a staple who were going blind.

[SnakeCharmer]

There's very little chance that it is harmful to humans. There should only be a trace of it in the food, and these things are checked extremely thoroughly by regulators. That's whishful thinking. In Europe you can still find traces of DDT in food from farmer's markets and DDT hasn't been used for decades. I've seen food samples taken from the store that contained 6 different pesticides , 2 of them were illegal because of their teratogenic and carcinogenic effects.

[EchoSun13]

Ok...awesome. This is good...feedback from two different sides. And Xei do you know more about the rice? I think that will help me out alot as well.

[Robot_Butler]

I have no problem with genetically modified food. I think SnakeCharmer summed up my feelings fantastically. One big current problem with bioengineered crops is maintaining biodiversity. If we depend exclusively on one genetic strain of crop, it can easily be destroyed by a single pest or disease specific to that strain. For example, we develop fantastic, delicious corn that grows faster, provides more nutrients, and is more pest resistant. The problem is, all the farmers will obviously want to grow that corn. They will all start growing the exact same corn. The government then needs to step in and regulate who can grow which kinds of corn, so we maintain some diversity. This gets highly political, because the government ends up controlling who gets the "best" seeds, and limiting who gets the "old crappy" seeds. Currently, there are enormous battles going on between the US and Mexico about this very thing.

[Odd_Nonposter]

I'm a farm kid. Biotech crops are almost no different than the "normal" kind. Unless you look at the genes, they're identical to one another. Without glyphosate resistant (Roundup Ready) soybeans, we almost wouldn't be able to do no-till soybeans. The weeds would shade them out. So it becomes a matter of whether you want soil erosion (which is very serious and nigh irreversible,) or GMO crops and herbicides. Besides, a lot of the weeds are starting to become resistant to Roundup already. The crops themselves would have developed it after a lot of time, energy, and wasted seed. We just found a faster way of doing it. The way I see it: all the crops that have been used throughout human history are genetically modified. Crops have been modified by cross-breeding and selection for thousands of years. Now that the restriction enzymes have been discovered changes are done more precisely. Now it's about splicing genes instead of whole genomes. So, to answer your question: I don't really see the difference between GM crops and nonGM crops. Both are result of genetic changes introduced and selected by humans. Not only would I eat it, I believe we're all eating it, and have been eating it our entire lives. ^This. So unless all you eat is wild fruits, nuts, and wild animals, eating anything GMO is unavoidable.

[EchoSun13]

Ok..this is really helpful. I am almost done!

[EchoSun13]

I finished.

[Black_Eagle]

There are two types of genetically modified organisms which humans produce. 1. Selectively bred organisms 2. Organisms that have actually had genes inserted. They are completely different processes. One is fully controllable while the other not so much. Now, I think much good can come from genetically modified organisms, but I also believe things have the potential to go very wrong. When they insert a gene, they have no idea as to what ALL of the effects will be. One gene change has the potential to cause multiple physical changes within the organism itself. They modify the plant, identify a desirable trait, and start marketing the thing without searching for other potentially hazardous characteristics. Though I have no idea what precautions are taken regarding genetically modified plants, so that's just paranoia on my part. Also, there was a thread that is very relevant to this one, but I cannot find it. It was titled "They will kill us all part 1"

[The Cusp]

I used to be dead set against bio engineered crops, didn't like the idea of tinkering like that in case we accidentally destroy our food stocks. But it turns out DNA can spontaneously heal it's self. Plants that have been genetically modified spontaneously repair themselves every X generations. They just undo the changes that were done to them and go back to their original DNA configuration, even though that flies in the face of evolution. Same thing with fruit flies. Geneticists removed the gene sequences that form eyes, gone completely. The fruit flies were born without eyes for the first few generation, and then around the 7th generation, they're born with eyes again. Nobody knows why, I'm just glad it works that way. You should look into the Monsanto Corporation, as they are the kings of genetically engineered crops. They are also pure evil, responsible for PCBs, a plague of cancer, and hoarding water. In fact, they made it illegal in some country for people to gather rain water and forced the people to buy water from them. Luckily the people revolted, but they own water all over the world. It's illegal to gather your own water in some states thanks to Monsanto. Here's a documentary on the Monsanto corporation, should fill you in on GM crops. http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...83407501596844

[SnakeCharmer]

But it turns out DNA can spontaneously heal it's self. There are mechanisms for DNA repair, but they repair DNA that has been chemically damaged/changed (by UV light for example). 'Foreign' DNA cannot be repaired because it doesn't differ from 'host' DNA. It's the same old A,T,G and C. Plants that have been genetically modified spontaneously repair themselves every X generations. They just undo the changes that were done to them and go back to their original DNA configuration, even though that flies in the face of evolution. Same thing with fruit flies. Geneticists removed the gene sequences that form eyes, gone completely. The fruit flies were born without eyes for the first few generation, and then around the 7th generation, they're born with eyes again. Nobody knows why, I'm just glad it works that way. This sounds like complete BS. Do you have any references to studies that show this is what really happens?

[The Cusp]

This sounds like complete BS. Do you have any references to studies that show this is what really happens? Not worth my time to look for. The short lifespan of fruit flies make them ideal for genetic research, and there are too many articles to sort through. You will find articles on it if you search hard enough, there's just too much information for me to waste my weekend sorting through it all. Although something else interesting I just came across now is the PAX6 gene responsible for the development of eyes. They took human and mouse PAX6 genes, replaced the fruit fly ones, and the fruit flies developed normal fruit fly eyes, even though they had human or mouse genes that are completely different. There's just too much info out there for me to pinpoint any specific articles on spontaneous regeneration of fruit fly eye genes. I'm sure someone with a little time on their hands could find it.

[SnakeCharmer]

You will find articles on it if you search hard enough, there's just too much information for me to waste my weekend sorting through it all. The burden of proof (or wasting weekends sorting the data, as you call it) is upon people making outrageous claims like this. Although something else interesting I just came across now is the PAX6 gene responsible for the development of eyes. They took human and mouse PAX6 genes, replaced the fruit fly ones, and the fruit flies developed normal fruit fly eyes, even though they had human or mouse genes that are completely different. If human and mouse PAX6 genes were completely different from fruit fly PAX6, they wouldn't be called PAX6 genes. They have the same name because they are homologes, i.e. they have the same function and very similar or almost identical sequence. "Homologs of the eyeless gene found in Drosophila have also been found in a variety of vertebrates (including Homo sapiens), insects, cephalopod, ascidians and nemerteans. The homolog of the eyeless gene of Drosophila is called the aniridia gene in humans and Pax-6 in mice. The genes all have much in common, including extensive sequence identity, the same three intron splice sites, and similar expression during development." PAX6 gene is a genetic switch that turns on other genes involved in eye develpoment. It's very conserved over different species and serves the same or very similar functions in all of animal kingdom. There's just too much info out there for me to pinpoint any specific articles on spontaneous regeneration of fruit fly eye genes. I'm sure someone with a little time on their hands could find it. It's not "spontaneos regeneration" because no information was lost. They just replaced fruit fly switch with mouse switch.