Japanese Creating "Super Tuna" 280
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the delicious-engineering dept.
from the delicious-engineering dept.
motherpusbucket writes "The Telegraph reports that Japanese scientists hope to be breeding a so-called 'Super Tuna' within the next decade or so. They have about 60% of the genome mapped and expect to finish it in the next couple months. The new breed will grow faster, taste good, have resistance to disease and will totally kick your ass if you cross them."
Tuna Schmoona (Score:2, Informative)
Even if it lowers the cost, it won't especially matter much, will it? You can't entirely remove tuna from the ecosystem as a consumer, and they get a lot of mercury in their diet, pass it along. Eastern little tuna are lower in mercury according to Wikipedia, but they're specifically mapping and going to be modifying bluefin tuna.
This doesn't terribly seem like the most sensible idea to invest large amounts of time and money in if it's just going to produce more fish that you can't safely consume greater amounts of. You've got mass lead poisonings coming out of China; in 10 or 20 years, will you get mass mercury poisonings thanks to Japan and this project?
Re:very dangerous practice (Score:4, Informative)
I completely agree.
Now, having said that, the size of fish (cod definitely, and I would assume tuna as well) has declined due to industrial fishing practices wiping out the larger subspecies entirely and then moving down the chain.
I can't see any objection to reviving a subspecies that would have existed had sane fishing practices existed - say, by using the same technique as for gene therapy and splicing in genes from extinct varieties - provided it is done with caution.
It wouldn't matter too much if such a revived subspecies escaped, as the environment has evolved on the basis that it is present. Creatures further up the food chain might start reviving, for example.
It might also start to deal with "dead zones" (oxygen-free regions in the seas and oceans), which are largely a product of overfishing resulting in excessive algae, the lives, deaths and decaying of which simply eliminates all the oxygen present. Reintroducing a stable, self-sustaining food chain to the oceans would be dangerous but still much safer than the current disaster.
The problem is, this is NOT what is being done. Instead of recreating a subspecies that should have existed but was obliterated due to the stupidity of the seafood industry, they are creating a whole new subspecies according to market tastes. And when the market shifts (as it routinely does), the old stocks will be worthless and dumped into the wild in an uncontrolled way that has nothing to do with restoring the ecology and everything to do with maximizing profit.
They are also not going to make any effort to develop anything further up or down the foodchain, which means you'll have something that throws off whatever balance does exist in the current environment.
Anyone here remember the old ecology computer games, like "foxes and rabbits", where you specify the initial number of each and the available area of grass for the rabbits to feed on? Of those who do, how many of you succeeded in producing stable environments? It turns out that it's damn hard when the number of elements is very small, it's only viable when you've an extremely high level of biodiversity.
Here we have the three elements of the original game, with the food for the tuna replacing the grass, the tuna being the rabbits and the human consumers being the foxes. If, after all this time, you still can't find good starting numbers, what makes you think the fish markets (who don't give a rat's arse about the environment) are going to do any better?
Re:Monsanto of the Sea? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:super yeast (Score:2, Informative)
What do you want in a beer that you aren't getting? If you bump up the alcohol percentage, it isn't legally a beer anymore, and it seems like you should be able to find something you like given the variety available.
As far as productivity, hops are a bigger problem than yeast.
Re:Cue that eco-maniacs (Score:4, Informative)
Except for, that GMO are altered in ways unnatural to breeding, such as using viruses to inject not only cross species but cross kingdom genes into their genes. This is a radical departure from selective breeding and natural selection.
see:
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=94728813969&h=p0i5C&u=Xnrbb [facebook.com]