Encoding Messages In Bacteria 52
sciencehabit writes "Researchers have invented a new form of secret messaging using bacteria that make glowing proteins only under certain conditions. In addition to being useful to spies, the new technique could also allow companies to encode secret identifiers into crops, seeds, or other living commodities."
Genes transmit in the wild (Score:4, Informative)
I don't really see the current research as being applicable to the lucrative crop seed production market very soon. But I'm sure Monsanto and others are watching this research with interest.
One huge problem I see with this gene matermarking idea in commercial crop production is that genes are moving across nature anyways. This fall after spraying some of my Liberty-Link canola with round-up so I could combine it straight (kind of like running just "make install" instead of "make; make install" ;). After 10 days there were still a few very green spots in the field. I have a strong hunch that those spots had round-up resistant genes then them, probably growing up from volunteer seeds in the soil. Now I've never ever grown round-up ready canola there before. Some was grown a half mile away or so. People have been discovering round-up tolerant canola growing in all kinds of weird places. Due to whatever cause we know for sure that roundup-ready genes are moving without human intervention. Also more and more weeds are round-up tolerant but that might just be because of over-use of round-up.
In any case, watermarking seed isn't viable in the long term. What Monsanto is probably more interested in, is making single-generation crops. If the farmer can't hold back seed, then they've got a guaranteed market. In north america, single-generation wheat has been pretty much shot down by the farming community. But abroad, it's a lot harder to say no to that kind of thing.
Old hat, new paranoia. (Score:4, Informative)
These techniques are old hat. We've been modifying bacteria to serve as biomarkers for a long time now. They're used in quick and easy assays for chemical contaminants, for instance. Basic idea is just that you have your "certain condition" from the article be one with, say, arsenic. The bacteria create a fluorescent or coloured compound as a result and you have a positive hit for contamination.
So before we get too deep in to evil corporations tracking their products, keep in mind that the tech has been around for a long time and if it was a valuable thing to do, they probably already would. But it seems like there's relatively little point in, say, Monsanto tracking crops by inserting a gene when we have much simpler options like PCR available.