Apple Gene for Red Color Found

FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers have located the gene that controls the red color of apples — a discovery that may lead to bright new apple varieties. 'The red color in apple skin is the result of anthocyanins, the natural plant compounds responsible for blue and red colours in many flowers and fruits,' says the leader of the CSIRO. By identifying master genes that were activated by light, they were able to pinpoint the gene that controls the formation of anthocyanins in apples. 'As well as giving apples their rosy red hue, anthocyanins are also antioxidants with healthy attributes, giving us plenty of reasons to study how the biochemical pathway leading to apple color is regulated,' researchers said."

Does that mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Were going to be seeing Red iPods soon

Re:

[alamandrax]

finally, they can make those red nosed reindeer we keep hearing about. i'll bet it'll look great in front of a K-mart. let's get martha to pitch in.

Re:Does that mean

[__aaclcg7560]

You mean these [apple.com]? I think your gene pool may have an active "slow on the uptake" gene. :P

Re:

[spacedsteve]

check out these RED iPods for World AID day today http://www.joinred.com/products.asp?p=5 [joinred.com]

colors

[Anonymous Coward]

orange apples incoming

now apples and oranges shall be COMPARABLE!!!

Re:Apples & Oranges

[zippthorne]

Already are [improb.com] my friend. Already are.

Re:

[Salvance]

Now all they need to do is make all fruits LOOK the same, but taste different. That would be fun, although a bit of a pain in the grocery store I suspect. You'd have all those prankster kids grabbing the kumquat flavored generifruit and putting them in the banana flavored generifruit bins.

Re:

[polar red]

I want a black apple, that's WAAY cooler.

Re:

[smittyoneeach]

Give it a few weeks. Granted, it'll be a post-modern apple, where black is just a dark shade of grey.

Re:

[James McGuigan]

I want the classic snow white apple.

Re:

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

want a black apple, that's WAAY cooler.

So what are you, some kind of racist?

Re:

[jrockway]

> So what are you, some kind of racist?

Apples have race?

Re:

[ConceptJunkie]

Actually, they just want to be able grow real apples that look like their logo, at least after you take a bite.

Think of the marketing potential

[Anonymous Coward]

Now in stores, they'll be able to have Apples in Blueberry, Grape, Lime, Strawberry and Tangerine colours. Oh wait...

...Just in Time for Xmas

[mwnyc]

"...the red color of apples [apple.com] -- a discovery that may lead to bright new apple varieties [apple.com]" Yup...looks that way.

Re:

[jpardey]

So your parents read slashdot too?

awesome varieties

[blueadept1]

Next poll:

What would you like your apple to look like?
- Green and red stripes
- Green and red checkers
- Black
-Cowboyneil's ass

errrr...

Re:

[ZachPruckowski]

Missing Option: Rainbow Colored [wikipedia.org]

Oh Crap...

[ewl1217]

Now we're going to see blue apples... and I thought green ketchup was bad...

Black Apple!

[nighty5]

OK fuckers, I'm prepared to pay extra cash for a Black Apple.

CSIRO - do you ugliest.

Re:

[Greyfox]

Ever have a blood orange? That's just... not natural...

I take it that they didn't use any

[zappepcs]

Granny Smith apples in this study?

But seriously, does this mean that we'll soon see makeup products that will make women's lips permanently red? Or perhaps some other useful product that all of North America is just dying to have?

Re:

[DrMaurer]

It's called a tattoo.

Fortunately, fashions change and it's probably not a good idea to tattoo your make-up on.

Apples, well, they'll still go bad, and so changing their color will probably not hurt anything.

It's only on the outside, I mean, they already come from greens and yellows to red. Blue will just stand out against the leaves of the trees and be more suseptable to pests and other fun things that eat fruits to live. At least that makes sense in my head; I am not an apple farmer.

Re:

[RockModeNick]

I thought fruit was bright colored and tasty specifically so it WOULD be eaten by pests, and the seeds deposited along with "fertilizer"...

The best apples I have ever tasted

[jpardey]

My family is heavily into organic food, and now that I am out of the house, I still try to eat stuff grown reasonably well, for taste and health reasons. But anyway, back at my old house, there were a number of apple trees in the yard when we moved in. One tree always has apples that look like they are covered in dust. The other trees don't. Blemishes and bumps are common, along with the occasional worm. Nothing in the supermarket, "organic" or otherwise, compares. Firm, not full of water, not ridiculously crispy, and have more of the taste of an apple than any other apple I have tried.

The way an apple looks matters little to me. Sure, the inability to wipe the dirty appearance off the apples put me off at first, but I now know that a bright red apple will taste more like water than anything else. And now thanks to the discovery of this gene, mega-orchards can grow good looking crops with far less effort, fertilizer, or taste, I would expect.

Things like this make me consider dropping out of the sciences. Every advancement seems to merely be another opportunity to cut back something else, and get away with less bottom-line. Still, maybe with the extra anti-oxidant thing, it could be worth it.

It's the genetics not the color or the chemicals

[scattol]

Apples taste is chiefly controled by their genetics. Essentially, watery and tart apples tend to be early summer apples and crips and sweet ones are late fall varieties. There is, essentially an direct correlation/tradeoff with maturing time and taste. Everything else that the farmer does only affect this a tiny bit. Otherwise they could turn their Melbas into Cortland just by spraying them which simply doesn't happen.

The weather that year also plays an important role, mainly rainfall and the amount of sun and heat. That's easily demonstrated as the main factor by the simple fact that all the farmers in a region get the same kind of results for a given year (small red apples, big lightly colored ones, fragile things that fall on the ground).

In fact chemicals are very expensive to an apple grower so you can bet that they try to use them as little as they can.

That's not to say that they don't spray, they do spray a lot but it's in their best interest to spray as little as possible and many are trying to limit their use of chemicals.

If there is anything wrong, it's the association in consumer's mind of the red color and ripeness. You can have perfectly sweet and ripe fruits but that aren't all that red. This has lead to variety (like the delicious) that is very red but has no taste. To each his own.

Re:It's the genetics not the color or the chemical

[jpardey]

Chemicals may be expensive in some cases, but I believe in general chemical fertilizer is cheaper than transporting compost, when crops are grown in large batches. I think "you are what you eat" applies to apples as well as anything, and a bag of chemicals... is not going to taste as good as a bag of composted leaves, windfall, and faecal matter. OK, never mind that analogy.

Re:

[Minwee]

No, the analogy is still a good one. Apples covered in chemical pesticides _do_ taste worse than shit.

Re:

[Reziac]

I remember when the best-tasting apple you could get was a Delicious from Yakima, Washington. Precisely the right balance of sweet, tart, firmness, juice, etc. The best ones were a very dark red, almost a purplish-black shade, rather than bright red, and they tended to be irregularly shaped.

I read an article a while back, about how breeding for marketable appearance and storage tolerance has, by ill chance, bred out the true apple taste and texture, and that the genes for the tasty old-style apple have been

Re:

[TheLink]

Uh but isn't cider alcoholic? So why bother pasteurizing? If you do things right you shouldn't have dangerous bacteria left, correct?

Re:

[Reziac]

I'm not a brewer, but this is my understanding from those who are:

Bacteria are the enemies of brewing. Bacterial contamination can ruin beer, cider, or wine (not sure what they do to hard liquor), and if you get a clostridium or other nasty anaerobe in your equipment, the results can be toxic. Remember, the ingredients don't *start off* alcoholic, so nasties DO have a chance to grow during the early stages, before the yeast get their act in gear.

So if you're a brewer (home or commercial), it behooves you to

Re:

[Reziac]

I've had some pretty good green apples too, of unknown variety and provenance.

Funny thing, the best apples also kept better in the short term, whereas the newer commercial types get mealy [ick!] real fast. But they're largely selected for how well they hold up in long-term storage. I have a few in my fridge that have been there for over a year and a half, and they still look like fresh apples.

My fave non-sweet apple is the "beer apple" (it's not exactly sour, but it's not the same tartness as an eating appl

Re:

[Reziac]

Sour cherries still exist aplenty, because most varieties of sweet cherry require a sour cherry as a pollinator, why I don't know.

Attack of the killer rosebush!! next time you trim it, maybe you could send me a few chunks? it sounds like just what we need here in the desert. Maybe it'll eat a few of the Starving Attack Rabbits. :)

Re:

[TubeSteak]

I think the GP is kinda correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heirloom_plant [wikipedia.org]

Before the industrialization of agriculture, a much wider variety of plant foods was grown for human consumption. In modern agriculture in the Industrialized World, most food crops are now grown in large, monocultural plots owned by corporations. In order to maximize consistency, few varieties of each type of crop are grown. These varieties are often selected for their productivity, their ability to withstand the long trips to superm

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to live in Brazil and apples there (and other fruits in general) do not look as nearly as good as US ones. Fruits have blemishes, irregular format and shape, etc.

Then I went to the US and bought some of those impossibly red, glossy and simetrically-shaped apples.

They tasted like biting on a piece of styrofoam.

And this goes with most of other produce in US supermarkets.

Is the average US consumer so shallow that his behaviour actually prevents the one economical superpower of the world from getting act

Re:

[jpardey]

I went to Mexico, and had a similar experience with bananas. The contrast is pretty incredible to the stringy, styrofoamy things we have here. I have a feeling that only greater profit margins will come of it, and perhaps more kids who hate fruits and vegetables. With any luck, America will collapse under the weight of its own fat, and leave the rest of the world alone in a few years.

Let he who has had his/her daily share of fruits and vegetables cast the first -1 troll.

Re:

[Fred_A]

I went to Mexico, and had a similar experience with bananas. The contrast is pretty incredible to the stringy, styrofoamy things we have here.

Not to mention that there are several hundred varieties of bananas (same with most fruit or vegetable really).

Cold storage and ethylene suppressants (or lack thereof when you want to let the mature off the tree) doesn't seem to be the best way to deal with plant byproducts anyway. And eating bananas when you aren't in a banana producing region just doesn't work (no

Re:

[d3ac0n]

How retarded is that ?

Not at all really.

You have to consider that there are very good reasons why food (or anything else, for that matter) is shipped internationally. Cost. It's simply cheaper to expend the time and energy going halfway around the world to get your produce than it is to get it locally. Likely it has alot to do with the fact that the cost of producing the same food in a nearly 3rd world country is significantly less than it is to produce it locally. Also, as many of these countries are n

Re:

[Fred_A]

You have to consider that there are very good reasons why food (or anything else, for that matter) is shipped internationally. Cost. It's simply cheaper to expend the time and energy going halfway around the world to get your produce than it is to get it locally.

That's an interesting theory. It doesn't explain why they are sold for more than the locally grown ones though.

The major reason is that people are prepared to spend more to get "out of cycle" products even if it means shipping them from the other

Re:

[pafrusurewa]

You do realize that Europe produces way too much food and spends money destroying said food surplus? And that in the EU (and the US for that matter) there are huge subsidies? And that farmers are paid for _not_ producing food?

I recently read a report in which a farmer in Ghana complained that he can't compete with cheap and imported Dutch onions because of EU subsidies.

Re:

[Rick17JJ]

Manipulating the genetics to get redder apples means that color will be even less of an indication of ripeness than it is now. The Delicious variety of apples in the grocery store are always bright red but usually not very good tasting. I once heard that the Delicious apples were bred more for color than taste. If I remember correctly, I also also once read about apples and possibly even salmon being gassed to alter color. Is that correct? I don't know if that is commonly done or not.

At least here in A

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[jpardey]

Yes, I shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater... but it just seems like so much science is now corporate sanctioned. Universities have major sponsors who tend to affect their work, according to an essay "The Prostitution of Academia" by David Suzuki I read once (in an English literature course book I think). Harvard has patents on mice. And even if I was to get into theoretical physics, I'd be sitting behind a computer coding, in all likelyhood. At least for journalism, there are independent papers

Re:

[jpardey]

Ah yes, but a local commercial orchard? Assuming you live in a semi-urban area, it will probably be on a small scale, and assuming you can buy directly from them, they probably aren't shipping world wide, and growing for shipability. Or did you get one from someone on the inside? How big of an orchard is it?

Bright new apple varieties?

[bill_mcgonigle]

bright new apple varieties.

Maybe not. There was just a nobel prize awarded in this area of research. IIRC, the gene expression is regulated by a twisted helix RNA type which prevents overexpression of given genes, and there's some feedback mechanism which causes the chromosomal DNA to stop expressing the mRNA after a while.

The original studies which started this were botanists trying to make more pink petunias - when they inserted more "pink" genes, the petunias came out white. The prize research was about regulation in c.elegans.

Botanists and molecular biologists will now shred my analysis. :)

Re:

[Reziac]

I read somewhere that the wide array of new colours in petunias (which when I was a kid, only came in white, red, pink, and red/white striped) derive from the addition of genes from corn.

A few years ago I planted a couple random flats of these new-colour'd petunias, and let them crossbreed and reseed however they pleased. The next generation's blooms were strange, to say the least. Some had irregular white blotches; others were delicately shaded, like watercolours that had gotten wet. Many had a crepe or wr

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

Cool - you should breed some of those frost resistant petunias. No chance of surviving up here, but my folks would buy several flats.

Re:

[Reziac]

Unfortunately I lost all of them this past spring, to an unusual plague of voracious ground squirrels and starving attack rabbits :(

But I had saved some seeds from last year, tho gods know what genes those will express!!

Re:

[jcmurray]

I'm not an "ordained" molecular biologist, but I'll add to your comments. Bright new apple varieties can be introduced into apples via genetic manipulation at the chromosomal (genomic) DNA level. In organisms, from plants to animals, you can inject (or "transfect") a specific gene into a cell relatively easily. This type of injection can be permanent or temporary. A permanent injection could yield a new apple variety. This is direct genetic manipulation.

There is another way. The tried-and-true met

Countdown Until Somebody Patents This:

[ewl1217]

5...

4...

3...

2...

1...

And I believe it's called...

[Anonymous Freak]

"Bono".

Roses are red...

[hall_simon]

Roses are red, Apples are too, I know you colour gene, Now you are blue!

Well...

[wyldeone]

Well, I guess that explains this [apple.com].

Apple Knowledge

[ari_j]

I participated in an apple tasting festival a year or so ago, and I only really learned one thing. The uglier the variety of apple, the better it tastes. A perfectly-colored, gargantuan Red Delicious from the store has nearly no flavor whatsoever. By contrast, if you find one that looks like a potato, you are in for a treat.

Re:

[Reziac]

That's true of grapefruit too. The best tasting are the thin-skinned, flattened-shaped, blotchy-coloured ones.

Re:

[MonkeyCookie]

That explains why so many people like the taste of the Ugly Fruit [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[MillionthMonkey]

Red Delicious apples are disgusting. It's everyone's fault- the public buys them based on color, not sweetness, so the breeders and nurseries propagate the most mutant reddish varieties. They introduce a huge selective pressure for color and isolate the apple from any selective pressure for taste. You can't taste the apples at the store before you decide to buy them, and the breeders know it, so they act in their own short-term interests and breed beautiful red apples with no regard for taste. Over the long

Re:

[TheLink]

I heard the Red Delicious apples _used_ to taste good, when the breed first came out.

We get imported Red Delicious apples here in my country, and I thought calling them "Red Delicious" was a misnomer. It's just like eating sweetened water impregnated styrofoam with maybe a hint of apple flavouring.

But the worst culprits so far are the normal sized tomatoes. Tasteless tomatoes= yuck. Especially when you know how much flavour a good tomato can have (well maybe because I've never had a chance to have a really

Re:

[ari_j]

It's all a matter of marketing. You breed the biggest, best-looking apple you can, call it "Red Delicious" (which admittedly has a ring to it and is very memorable where product names are concerned), and it will jump off the shelves into shoppers' carts. It's almost sad in a way - I had lived over a quarter of my lifespan before I knew what an apple was supposed to taste like. And now I have a hard time finding that experience again. Better to loved and have lost ...

Re:

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

participated in an apple tasting festival a year or so ago, and I only really learned one thing. The uglier the variety of apple, the better it tastes. A perfectly-colored, gargantuan Red Delicious from the store has nearly no flavor whatsoever. By contrast, if you find one that looks like a potato, you are in for a treat.

In fact, studies have shown that the redder the apple, the worse it tastes. This along with a decision by growers to select cultivars for appearance and not taste is why Red Delicious i

Grouch, grouch, grouch

[beadfulthings]

I'm going to rain on their parade. I don't care what the apple looks like. I'd just like to be able to go into the supermarket and buy an apple that's crispy and doesn't present me with a mouth full of watery mush when I bite into it. All their engineering efforts at getting "perfect" apples to market have done is to take away the essential crispness of the fruit. I don't even want to think about what they do to preserve the average grocery-store apple.

Thankfully we still have farmer's markets and local pi

Red Apple(TM) ipods

[Devil's BSD]

It seems like Apple computer has already used this information to enhance their products... enter the red Apple iPod Nano!

http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/red/ [apple.com]

This proves it!

[soft_guy]

Slashdot has a definate pro-apple bias!

Temptation

[Doc Ruby]

Now I can finally get a Ferrari in true "candy apple red".

Not CSIRO Leader

[Xiroth]

Ah, I seriously doubt that it was the leader of the CSIRO who announced this - if he announced every discovery he wouldn't have any time to do anything else, given that the CSIRO is a massive government-funded dedicated research agency with over 6500 staff. In fact, from the article:
"The red colour in apple skin is the result of anthocyanins, the natural plant compounds responsible for blue and red colours in many flowers and fruits," says the leader of the CSIRO Plant Industry research team, Dr Mandy Walke

Misspelled

[odie_q]

Shoudln't that read Apple iGene?

Great

[bky1701]

Now we just need to find the color gene in Apple Computers to make them less... white.

Red apples - but what do they taste like?

[jandersen]

It's all very well fiddling around with those things, but when they talk about 'better apples' they simply mean apples that will sell better, keep better during transport, require less to grow etc. This is why you can hardly find a good apple in a supermarket - they tend to be hard (so they don't bruise too easily), not too aromatic (since that attracts insects) and shiny so people notice them. Unfortunately they are not very good to eat - leathery flesh and little taste is what you mostly get. All the good

Re:

[KokorHekkus]

I fully agree with you with the only difference that I suspect the lack of taste and aromatics might be partially due to forced growing (and early harvest as well) to get a better crop yield. A fast grown and/or oversized fruit of any kind will usually not have the same amount of taste as a slowly matured one.

And don't even get me started on tomatos these days. I was on vacation in Yugoslavia before hell broke out there and they did have some wonderful tomatos... but then the serbian word for tomato is "

Red Apples Suck

[Aqua OS X]

Seriously, they do. Half of the time I think I have a good one, it turns out to be a squishy pile of wet sand in my mouth.

It's all about the Fugi Apple. Ya, they're kind of red... but not red red. Red Delicious is teh suck. Worst Apple Ever.

What no FUD tag?

[skinfitz]

What happened? It's a story with 'Apple' in the title and there is no FUD [slashdot.org] tag?

The zealots must be slipping.

Gene for red AND BLUE?

[rdmiller3]

'The red color in apple skin is the result of anthocyanins, the natural plant compounds responsible for blue and red colours in many flowers and fruits,' says the leader of the CSIRO.

How long before we see blue apples?

but in the US it's national eat a red apple day!

[MadJo]

How can you then promote a story which claims that scientists are able to remove the red color from apples? :)

I read the headline and...

[oDDmON oUT]

Was prepared to see a story about Macintosh.

[ducks flying shoe]

What about the gene for . . .

[Slithe]

. . . Reality Distortion Fields?

What's in a name?

[skia]

They should really name this newly discovered sequence "Bono" — being responsible, as he is, for making Apple's red.

a discovery that may lead to bright new apple va

[JustNiz]

>> -- a discovery that may lead to bright new apple varieties

God I hope not. I'd much rather eat food that hasn't had its genes constructed in a lab.

Re:The Terrible Tinkerer.

[metlin]

Why not?

It is the inherent human curiosity to do something just because.

The insatiable curiosity, the urge to do something, to tamper, to tinker for no reason except that we can.

If we asked why for everything that has happened in the past several thousand years, we'd not be where we are today.

Re:

[Fred_A]

Why not?
It is the inherent human curiosity to do something just because.

...just because we know some sucker will buy it

The insatiable curiosity, the urge to do something, to tamper, to tinker for no reason except that we can.

...for no reason except that we can later market it.

Re:

[Puff of Logic]

Have you been following me?

Re:The Terrible Tinkerer Trippin over his feet.

[metlin]

How about -- not at the mercy of nature as we once were, comfortable living, increased life expectancy, understanding our universe and our world better than we ever did and so on?

I think Slashdotters are becoming a whiny bunch.

Sure, there are problems in this world. Nobody is denying that.

But guess what? Civilization would not have happened if someone hadn't been curious in the first place -- to see what that piece of meat tasted like. To use that stone as a tool and to build and create.

Instead, you'd be running on a very green, pristine Earth for your life from a predator.

I think I'd rather have this, thank you very much.

Re:The Terrible Tinkerer Trippin over his feet.

[metlin]

Technology brings rapid change to society and system, there is no shying away from that.

Let's see, all that burning coal has brought humans to regions in this world that could not sustain human civlization.

If all that burning coal is harmful, use nuclear fuel. If nuclear waste disposal becomes a problem, find a better source. The idea is to keep at it and not stop something because it also has potential for misuse.

Today, you may wipe out the dodos, but tomorrow you may have advanced enough technology to recreate dodos from their remains.

Also, I don't think humans were as weak in nature as you portray them.

You probably do not spend enough time outdoors else you'd not be making that statement.

Re:The Terrible Tinkerer Trippin over his feet.

[metlin]

Haven't you looked at mammoths? Even our cave-men ancestors looked puny in comparison.

The point I was trying to make is that science and technology are not some kind of evil that are screwing things over. They are keeping us away from the ruthless side of nature that we'd otherwise be exposed to. Goodluck trying to find a cave in the middle of a winter in the midwest with just a sheepskin. Let's see how long you last (and how comfortable you are). And goodluck finding one in the jungles of India or the grasslands of Africa, before you ruthlessly get torn apart or stomped upon.

The very coal that causes pollution is what keeps you warm, comfortable and safe.

And Dodos? Bah, so humans wiped them out. As if nature hasn't selected other species for extinction before. There is a reason evolution happened and we came out on top of the foodchain. I am not advocating the extinction of species, merely that if it has already happened because of our ignorance, then the solution is not to stop science (or our curiosity) but rather to channel it in a way that this does not happen again.

Are there social and ecological side effects to using technology? Yes. Most certainly. Nobody is denying that.

But sometimes, it takes risks for science and society to take that leap forward. Someone wanted to make sure that there were no dragons out there. Someone took a ship and explored. Sure, there was spread of disease but there was also progress.

I think that is what counts. In the long run, it is how much better we've made the life of humanity's lot.

Re:

[Hijacked Public]

Haven't you ever seen any pictures of cave men?

No, and neither have you.

Re:

[Gospodin]

Haven't you ever seen any pictures of cave men? How can you say they are weak? Those were some badass doods!

And they can even get auto insurance!

Re:The Terrible Tinkerer Trippin over his feet.

[Shihar]

Good for you. No one is saying that there should be no technology, just that there should be some thought. What is burning all this coal doing? What is going to happen if we keep hunting Dodos? Should I drive to work, or walk to the bus and lose some weight? Also, I don't think humans were as weak in nature as you portray them.

It is easy to smugly say that we shouldn't ever burn coal... all the while you burn your merry amount of coal in electrical costs and enjoy the fruits of an industrial revolution that was powered by coal. If we had never used coal we sure as shit would have never developed any 'green' technologies to begin with. I am not saying we need to go out and burn down the rain forest to make a parking lot, but that we should realize that the path towards technological progress is messy. There was never a "clean" solution around the industrial revolution other then not having it. I don't know about you, but I am damn glad that my ancestors toiled through the industrial revolution when they did instead of pausing to really think it over.

Without the messy things we have done in the past and continue to do today we wouldn't even be having this conversation on computers. Hell, in all likelihood we wouldn't even be alive. Striving towards a greener society is a noble goal to strive for, but not at the expense of cowering in terror until we answer every unanswered question. I am damn glad that my ancestors toiled through the industrial revolution, and I imagine that my grandchildren will be thankful that I toiled through my generation in a world that they will undoubtedly look back as ugly and messy. This is human progress.

Re:

[Shihar]

Yay to global warming, ice cap melting, deforestation, and enviromental pollution. Love that headlong rush.

This coming from a person who survive child birth and is busy slamming his fingers away on a computer hooked into a power grid and connected by a world wide communications system. Dude, this "head long rush" is the only reason why you are alive. Chances are that without that merry old industrial revolution you wouldn't have even existed because your ancestors would be dead. Even if you still managed

Re:The Terrible Tinkerer.

[__aaclcg7560]

That's a simple one. New patents on new varities means money for the patent holder(s). Karen Travis wrote a series of novels where all the plant and animal life on Earth was patented by corporations that planting unaltered seeds was illegal, and they wanted the unaltered plant and animal stock sent out to a colony 75 light years away that's being fought over by bunch of aliens who just don't give a damn about patents. I don't think that future is too far off.

Re:

[__aaclcg7560]

I think the author is alluding to the lack of freedom when every piece of plant and animal life is being held hostage by corporate patents that's driving the conflict from the human side. The protagonist is written with a strong pro-European perspective and is infected with an alien biological weapon that the corporations want very badly. I'm surprised that some Amazon reviewers have claimed that the novels are anti-human. After all, when you have aliens involved with a different moral culture, human morali

Re:

[jpardey]

Disclaimer: I am a Canadian, not well versed in American history, and probably don't know what I am talking about, revolution wise. I am against the control of information, so to speak. I have heard a lot about how bad it can get, and believe it. What I mean is that from your description, it sounds like the author is putting in similarities to the revolution, to show the whole idea of corprate ownership of life to be against what America is supposed to stand for.

That's one less cent than I currently have i

Re:

[Don_dumb]

How about we answer, "why?" before messing around with things.

Dont you see, we must rid ourselves of those damned commie apples, openly messing with our vital bodily fluids.

Once we have done that, then we must get rid of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripps_Pink [wikipedia.org] Pinko ones too.

Re:

[Mister Whirly]

"Why" is a question for the marketing department to answer. These are just scientists who discover things.

Yeah!

[Kadin2048]

Yeah, next thing you know they'll be making grasses with grains so heavy, they won't blow around in the wind anymore and people will need to manually harvest and re-seed the fields every year. Lazy meddling Mesopotamians.

The age and ways of the human

[traindirector]

Lazy meddling Mesopotamians.

I wish I had mod points for you.

Changing the nature of our environment to suit our needs has been something humans have been doing almost since we have been recognizable as humans (or perhaps this effect on nature is what makes humans identifiable as humans). Agriculture was one of the first of these changes - it allowed us to develop new ways of living that would have been impossible without it.

But it's funny to think about how counter-intuitive these changes are to the good of the plants/animals/bei

Re:

[Triv]

Yeah, next thing you know they'll be making grasses with grains so heavy, they won't blow around in the wind anymore and people will need to manually harvest and re-seed the fields every year. Lazy meddling Mesopotamians.

Your comment reminded me of the work of this guy [wikipedia.org].

Triv

Eerily like an H2G2 character

[wasted]

"Colour is a very important part of fruit marketing," she says. "If fruit doesn't look good, consumers are far less likely to buy it, no matter how good it might taste..."

Is she a Golgafrincham [wikiquote.org]? Has she researched into what people want from fruit, you know, how they relate to it, the image; do they want fruit that can be fitted nasally?

Re:

[Broken scope]

If population growth slowed a bit I think it would be better for the world.... however I could be completely wrong about that.

Re:

[kfg]

Can they figure out a way of manufacturing food in mass quantities with minimal raw materials. That is, you have a factory to which u supply water, esentail minerals (mined ore?) that contain iron etc, and electricty and out the other end comes out a starch like carbohydrate and nutrients.

It's called a potato field.

KFG

Re:

[jpardey]

Those things... work?

Yeah sure...

[haraldm]

... and it would make third world farmers even more dependent on major western food corporations or their patents. The next Monsanto is due! This move would allow western corporations to keep a foothold in the third world food production by patents, instead of allowing these countries to produce their own food in peace. It would effectively kill local farming. Stopping all these proxy wars is part of the solution, in order to stop colonialism, not creating more dependecies.

Hey man that sounds like soylent g