Rice Genome Project.... Done! 20
AtomicBomb writes "First, it was human; now, it is rice. The gene code for the first important crop will soon be (sort of) available.
BBC provides us a few more articles. Hopefully, the genetic informatuion can speed up the breeding of tougher and higher-yielding varieties that will benefit the world's burgeoning population..."
cool (Score:2, Funny)
Re:cool (Score:1)
Self-feeding rice (Score:1)
now for patented rice (Score:1)
Re:now for patented rice (Score:1)
for all those who think of this as a step forward for the jugernaut of genetic manipulation....
the "real" problem although the backers might disagree is that we don't understand how plants *work*! Both of the research groups themselves tout the benifits this will have for food growth, but think of the benefits this will have to farming not through genetic engineering, but through understanding rices natural growth cycle. The tremendous efficiency increases we've previously seen in growth rates of grain crops has as much come from treating the plants more naturally, but people focus on the association with morally shady or profit driven engineering using this information.
Hardly "done" (Score:2, Insightful)
On the positive side, he was quick to point out an "engineering rule" (as he called it) that says that 90% of the benefit comes from the first 10% of the work. While this is an intriguing restatement of the old 80/20 or "gold in the mine" postulates, it doesn't ordinarily apply directly to new discoveries.
I suspect, though, that due to the nature of genetic research, there will be some quick benefits. As another researcher pointed out, with the information they have ( and the knowledge they'll be gaining ), the time to develop a new strain will be reduced because rather than having to wait for the entire growth cycle to take place, the DNA of seeds can be analyzed to see if the desired property is present.
Another interesting aspect was that emphasis was placed on conventional breeding techniques, not genetic engineering. In other words, if you know what property is controlled by what gene, you can more efficiently cross-breed for it. I presume that this emphasis is given to allay fears (whether real or imagined) of "Frankenplants" mutating away out there in some lab.
One fascinating fact they revealed is that rice (and other plants) have more genes than humans. Apparently, this is because the rice genes are simpler so it takes more of them to provide the "instruction set" for being a rice plant.
I dunno...sounds like the Triffids are among us...
Tough? Deliciously chewy in my book (Score:2, Funny)
Founded by Uncle Ben (Score:1)
Re:More Rice = Higher Population (Score:1)
Rather simply, actually: Japan has two things that developing/hurting countries don't: food and women's rights.
The advancement of women's education, rights, and the availability of birth control reduces the birth rate. (Basically, once women realize that they don't have to have kids, or at least have as many, they often don't.)
Developing countries lack the food to support more children, but also the social advancement needed to control childbirth. And I think it's obvious that the social improvements necessarily come after the food. "I tell you what, I'll give you this rice if you learn how to read."
Human, Rice.... ? (Score:3, Funny)
And the logical conclusion would be... Rice boys?
Are they actually merged with their honda civic?
rice grains... with a grain of salt (Score:1)
Okay, while it's neat to see that the whole genome thing didn't die after the human genome was sequenced, there's still a lot of work to be done.
Once a genome is sequenced, researchers still need to figure out exactly what each gene does. The second part is much harder as genes don't necessarily produce qualities by themselves (i.e., some cancer "genes" are actually two or three genes that work together).
Besides, although we could conceivably control various properties of grains through gene manipulation, we still won't know until it's actually grown if the stuff tastes good (or if it tastes really good to particular insects and other beasties).
Hunger spin doesn't pan out (Score:4, Insightful)
There are all sorts of things wrong with this.
1. The human race produces more food than is required to feed the entire population of the world. This has been true for at least a decade, I believe.
2. The reasons that surplus food does not make it to the hungry of the world are almost always political (and often exacerbated by the physical difficulties of distribution). It is not that there is not enough food, it is that it is difficult to give it away without it being stolen by the local powers. In many cases, the donors of the food (I'm looking at you, U.S. gov't) know in advance that the people who are receiving it will sell it to buy weapons; donated food is often used to covertly fund arms deals.
3. Often, the original causes of hunger are political deals which trade the agricultural land of native citizens (without compensation or consent) to U.S. agricultural corporations, who remove the native population from 'their' new farmland and often destroy it in the process of farming it irresponsibly.
4. Eating a sufficient quantity of food does not mean that you are getting the necessary nutrition to survive. You cannot establish good health in an impoverished area just by providing enough rice.
5. History hath shown that when companies genetically engineer foods, they do it, not for the purposes of increasing the nutritional value, or flavor, or anything else of real interest to the ultimate consumer. They engineer things like square tomatoes to save on shipping costs. They engineer herbicide immunities, not so that farmers can grow more food by growing fewer weeds, but so that they can sell their patented herbicide. The ultimate effect of this is to damage our agricultural resources for the profit of a few large corporations.
6. Even if we could 'safely' increase yield with genetically engineered rice, the likelihood is that this would just lead to faster consumption of our agricultural land (since we farm it irresponsibly) and exacerbate our water crisis (meanwhile, Monsanto is trying to buy up all of the world's water supply they can).
7. Given the cavalier attitude of corporations releasing under-tested genetic modifications into the wild, I would not give them good odds of getting the benefits of genetic modifications to outweigh the harms. I would never release a piece of software with the cavalier attitude that these companies release biological command sets. They have proven that they have under-tested by making "scientific" claims about the engineered foods that have turned out too be patently untrue (won't pose human allergy risks, won't contaminate non-GM crops, etc.). It seems that software developers are able to be carefull enough to deliver mission critical applications that actually work as advertised; these genetic systems are the ultimate in mission critical (the mission being the survival of an ecosystem which supports us) and it seems that they are using much less caution in dealing with them than you would if you were writing a piece of software to control someone's life-support equipment.
Anyway, the point is, when you read an article that says that some large corporation's forray into the land of profit is somehow going to bring widespread benefit to humanity, you can bet it is a load of crap. Any action which brings widespread benefit to humanity tends to be counter to their abillity to control their profits.
As an example, if a giant fast food franchise chain were going to automate all of their drive-up windows, you might see an article with a headline like, "Automated drive-ups free workers from meaningless, horrible drudgery." What do you think happens to the workers? Does the company, in its bid to benefit humankind, keep paying them so that they can go and create something usefull for the rest of the world? No, the workers get laid off and go on unemployment or welfare, the company makes more money, and the landlord has a hard time getting the rent. This example looks like a benefit to everyone at first, but when you look closer, it is the corporation making money at everybody else's expense.
Re:Hunger spin doesn't pan out (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly due to this reason, scientists need to work on this area. Poor farmer needs to produce something from *their* small and bad (may be infertile or dry) piece of farm land. They want to and need to stand on their own feet. That's how better rice strains come to a help. That was a largely unseen green revolution in developing world during the 60-70's. Using hybrid technique, the yield was increased by around 20 %. But, we need something even better. (BTW, the indica rice being sequenced is actually one of the best rice strain developed by a famous rice expert Rongping Yuan in China back in the 70's. The strain has been widely cultivated in Southern China and part of SE Asian since then)
6. Even if we could 'safely' increase yield with genetically engineered rice, the likelihood is that this would just lead to faster consumption
What if we can do that without GM the rice?
From one of the deeper BBC [bbc.co.uk] link: beta-carotene pathway is already in rice
The crucial point is to avoid the project being hijacked by some evil multinational companies. Put that under some kind of UN development program will benefit everyone.
Same distribution and stabillity problem (Score:2)
On the second point (#6), the same thing applies to non-GM food. The issue is overproduction. When humans turned to agriculture from a nomadic life, they enabled population explosion (and started the degradation of resources) by allowing themselves to get nutrition out of the soil faster than they put it back in. Now the rain barrel is almost empty, and getting filled more and more slowly, as we draw from it faster and faster.
On the third point, it started out already in the wrong hands, as evidenced by the fact that they will only release their data under unspecified licencing arrangements. The evil multinational companies created it, so they don't need to hijack it.