Decaffeinated, Real Coffee 100
reeb writes "ABC News Australia reports that Brazilian scientists have discovered a naturally occurring but rare coffee plant, native to Ethiopia, that is 'almost free of caffeine.' Decaf without the genetic engineering?"
Decaf without the genetic engineering? (Score:5, Informative)
From www.kraftfoods.com/maxwellhouse/mh_decaff.html [kraftfoods.com]
The Maxwell House® Family of naturally decaffeinated coffees offers the full-flavored taste of regular coffee, without the caffeine. Maxwell House® decaffeinates its coffees using pure water and natural effervescence. The effervescence gently draws the caffeine out of the beans, preserving their delicate coffee flavor.
I don't touch decaf, but who would genetically engineer decaf beans?
Decaf coffee is not genetically modified!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Decaffeination is done through a process called 'supercritical fluid extraction' with carbon dioxide as a solvent. Turns out, with enough pressure and temperature, a substance can go 'supercritical', where it has the simultaneous properties of a gas, liquid, and solid. By fine tuning the temperature and pressure, it can act as a very selective solvent, only leeching out the caffeine and leaving in all the other delicious coffee flavors. The caffeine is then recovered and sold in pills or other products.
Not that you should drink decaf. Caffeine is the primary reason to drink coffee.
Re:Decaf coffee is not genetically modified!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yippee! (Score:4, Informative)
You're looking in the wrong crowd. :)
My wife is one such person. She used to groom dogs, and she worked at a pet shop and at a local chapter of the Humane Society. So she's familiar with the results of poor breeding.
It's not so much that breeding for a particular trait is bad, as much as doing so at the detriment of other important traits.
The AKC [akc.org] is pure evil. The fact that they have "specs" for registerable breeds and that they allow "line breeding" and inbreeding is proof (in my mind, at least). See this link [akc.org] for evidence. This can result in bad traits. Two well-known examples are that Dalmations are often deaf (though, to be fair, it's more common in any purebred dog than a mutt), and that German Shepherds often develop bad hips.
It may be an American (capitalistic make-money-fast) kind of thing. Appearently, the original shepherd lines from Germany were execllent dogs. It wasn't until they were bred for AKC specs that they went downhill. Again, German Angora rabbits are excellent dual-purpose meat and wool animals (we've researched this, as we raise own own rabbits for meat as well as wool), but the Americanized version -- the "show quality" one -- is lacking in both traits, but it looks prettier.
Silly breeders. :)
Re:No. Not Insightful. (Score:3, Informative)
You claim that the foreseeing is not done past next week/year/whatever. What is the basis of this claim? I have seen computer model studies investigating the impact of introduced genes and species spreading over dozens of generations. You claim simply that it is not done. I have seen it done, and I have read the reports that came out of those studies. Have you done the same?
Have you read the studies done over the past decade on the effects of GM crops? In case you haven't, here's the rundown: The primary impact is on biodiversity inside the farmland itself (and not always a reduction, it depends on the crop type). The studies independently concluded that the same effect would result from an advance in conventional herbicide technology. Basically, the species that have begun to thrive secondary to agriculture no longer get the benefit of that agriculture, while other species do get a benefit. But even that is only is some cases. Corn and wheat crops have no significant effect on supplementary populations. The overall impact is about the same as introducing agriculture into an area.
Carefully controlled and contained research? Like the stuff we've been doing in labs and experimental farms for the past 20 years? Read the research, not the propaganda. Go to PubMed, not the Drudge report.
You still have not proposed one mechanism. Not one scenario. Not even one gene. Show that you speak about GM technology from anything other than ignorance. People tend to fear what they do not understand. It's not that hard to understand, either. Go read about it. And read the real science. Start with Mendel and work up from there. Read the case studies that have been done, but no one seems to notice.
History is littered with failed biological experiments that were going to work "just fine".
I note a distinct lack of examples. Don't just shoot me an experiment that gave an unexpected result, give me one that had a detrimental result of the scale you speak of here.
Good set of links from a research journal [nature.com] on the subject of GM. It has links to some of the studies I mentioned.