GM DNA Spreading... 29
Raphter writes: "Frightening study on GM crop genes spreading to wild plants. Original [subscription required] is here." The best part is the farmers who have been sued because plants on their land showed traces of this same DNA, and the agriculture giants alleged the farmers must have planted them.
Responsabilty of the grower (Score:2, Insightful)
I assume though that the current plantiffs suing represent a lot more money than the farmers who do not use geneticly modified plants, and so it goes...
Featured on NPR a few days ago (Score:2, Flamebait)
As to the farmers getting sued and the agriculture giants alleged the farmers must have planted them, I'd make this statement michael. If the farmers didn't plant the seeds to cross polinate other plants in an area (and country) where GM seeds are illegal, who did? Black UN choppers?
Re:Featured on NPR a few days ago (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Featured on NPR a few days ago (Score:1)
Who's right? From these two sites, I'm not really sure.
Re:Featured on NPR a few days ago (Score:2, Insightful)
I am not totally sure about the context here, but it sounds like the agri. giants are mad that little farmers are planting the GM crops they spent lots of money to make. They think the farmers are stealing the seeds (or planting some that they bought as produce perhaps).
But what actually may be happening is that these little farmers are victims of natural cross polenation (bees, wind, etc). So the DNA is spreading naturally, this happens all the time in the wild, it's a little thing called Darwinian Theory of Evolution....
Re:Featured on NPR a few days ago (Score:2)
And I don't think the agri. giants are mad at the farmers in this little area in mexico, that's were the majority of the strains of maze are (thousands of strains). The Mexican government IS upset however and wants to find who planted the GM corn in this area that would lead to cross polination, as planting this corn is illegal there.
What my "flamebait" rant was more about I guess is michael's (and slashdot's) general tone on the whole "big guy evil, little guy stomped on, more news here" format. I know objective reporting is not going to happen here, but I do wish they'd try to present things in a way other than "look what these jerks are doing... what a bunch of kneebiters"
Also on the BBC via poliglut (Score:3, Interesting)
Teosinte (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Teosinte (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Teosinte (Score:2)
Interesting, the GM reaction, a little PR please (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that science can do more sophisticated forms of this everyone flips out. I do see that the possibility of danger is higher, but everything that the scientists do can (and possibly has) occur in nature.
I do agree that testing needs to be done, but more importantly ppl need to be informed that these scientists are trying to improve products, not make gross odities. They are taking a random act (evolution) and trying to direct it towards a productive end.
Re:Interesting, the GM reaction, a little PR pleas (Score:3, Interesting)
On top of all of this, in nature, it doesnt matter if only 100 plants out of 1,00,000 survive some environmental situation. Those 100 will go on to reproduce and become the new population. In relation to human lives, it is important. If only 100 plants survive, a huge supply of food being wiped out, will certainly cause a problem.
Re:Interesting, the GM reaction, a little PR pleas (Score:1)
Fish genes can get into tomatoes naturally? How exactly does that happen? (I have this mental picture of a fish humping a tomato...)
GM has nothing at all to do with the cross-breeding and selection we've been doing for so long. (And that artifical selection has dangers we're just starting to understand, as monoculture leaves our food crops vulnerable.) Historical agriculture - from the first permanent settlements up until a few years ago - has not introduced new genes into a species, only rearranged existing elements of a genome. GM introduces completely new elements into a species' genome.
BTW, it has to be understood that this is being done by the crudest of methods. If we wrote computer programs this way, to introduce a new capability into a program we'd take our best guess at what section of machine code gave an existing program that capability, snip it out, and insert it in random places in our program until it seemed to work.
Re:Interesting, the GM reaction, a little PR pleas (Score:3, Informative)
Viruses. For the details, you'll have to look it up. And yes, that particular combination is unlikely, but any two species that can be infected by the same virus could potentially directly share DNA that way.
Re:Interesting, the GM reaction, a little PR pleas (Score:2)
In addition to viruses, people need to realize that (in this context) there is no such thing as a "fish gene".
I know, strange thing to say, but here's what I mean. A 'gene', especially as discussed here, is a template for making a protein - a sort of a 'protein algorithm'. That's all. It is irrelevant where the specific 'implementation' of this algorithm came from. Consider the herbicide resistant crops - there is NO FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE (in terms of 'biochemicals' being produced) between the unmodified plant, and the resistant plant - the 'new' gene, which comes from bacteria (GASP!), performs exactly the same function as the original plant version - it's just not affected by glyphosphate herbicides like the plant version is. (Imagine if fuel additives in the US clogged and destroyed fuel-injection systems in, say, Honda cars. If US Honda owners started bolting fuel-injection systems from Saturns onto their Honda engines to deal with the problem instead of waiting for Honda to start producing US-fuel-additive-resistant cars, would THAT be 'horribly unnatural', or a fundamental change in the vehicle they're driving around?) The REAL question is 'is there anything horribly unnatural about this protein being in this organism'. Unless you believe that there is no possible way that a plant population can develop individuals resistant to a type of herbicide, or resistant to frost, or whatever, 'naturally', I'd say the answer is 'no'.
It should also be pointed out that any genetic additions (e.g. production of an extra 'antifreeze' protein) have a cost to the organism in question as well. It takes energy to produce proteins. Outside of the specific environment where the extra protein gives the plant an advantage, the extra gene is a burden which will hinder the gene's ability to compete with the 'natural' wild population.
In the case of glyphosphate resistance, I don't honestly know if the gene is as efficient as the original one it's replacing, but even if we assume it is - the gene is STILL only an advantage in areas where herbicide is being sprayed. There is no 'advantage' in the wild for plants that have the 'glyphosphate resistant' version of the gene, unless the farmers are taking their expensive herbicides and spraying it outside of their fields just for fun. The gene may end up in part of the wild population, but is unlikely to ever end up as a large proportion of it, let alone take it over completely.
Finally, as to the notion, mentioned elsewhere, that this is like 'taking pieces of program code and dumping them randomly into our own programs to see if they work' - gene expression happens in parallel. It doesn't MATTER where, fundamentally, on the genome the new gene ends up, so long as it ends up in a place that the organism's cellular machinery is looking for expressable genes. The only thing random about where the new gene will show up is whether or not it ends up A) in the genome at all or B) in a place where it will be expressed enough or not. That's it. Places where the gene is under or over expressed are a detriment to the plant, and those versions get selected out during development just like good old-fashioned 'natural selection', and the rest are cultivated.
I blame the worldwide dearth of good science education, and horribly bad science in Television and movie science fiction. ("Biogenetic plague"? Is that like a "geopetrified fossil"?)....
Re:Interesting, the GM reaction, a little PR pleas (Score:1)
Adding to the pool threatens diversity? (Score:4, Insightful)
We're all computer people here. Genes are genes, there's no magical "man-made" marker that makes them evil. (Some protesters think there is. I consider them idiots. Other protesters have better reasoned opions. I listen to them.) The gene won't spread to the whole population unless it enhances survivability, and even then, it probably won't get to ALL the plants.
Massive dieoffs of particular genes happen all the time, and is part of "evolution".
I don't understand the panic, unless you have the unfounded "man made genes are somehow automatically evil" idea. Genes have been transferring amongst life forms since the invention of viruses at least.
Then again, I'm a rational environmentalist, not a reactionary one. I've never understood the reactionaries.
Re:Adding to the pool threatens diversity? (Score:3, Informative)
BTW, your argument is not one of them. You are arguing against genetic uniformity. Genetic uniformity is caused by the perceived need to maximize short term production at all costs, leading to the use of a small selection of current "best" gene lines at the expense of all others. GM can in fact only increase the diversity of the gene pool by adding genes to the pool that were not there previously.
(Note that I have not made the claim that therefore GM is good; if you thought that, I suggest you read more carefully in the future. Some people have naunced views. This comment not directed at the original poster necessarily.)
Re:You miss the point (Score:2)
GM gene crop dies -> variety count - 1
Net change: 0
The deaths are normal.
Plus that's a massive oversimplification. In reality, the genes will be creating one variety per plant that uses them, as all plants are unique. Not all of them die.
Farmers fight back... (Score:2)
these farmers sould get together and get a class action suit going to sue the GM patent/IP holders for trespass on thier land...